Our grandmothers knew the secret to happiness. They just didn’t have to also run an Etsy shop.
There’s a reason our grandmothers did it this way. They understood that traditional wife homestead living brings a peace that no corporate job ever could. I know this because I left my marketing coordinator position in 2020 to embrace my feminine calling, and I’ve never been happier. Well, I’ve never been more *fulfilled*. Happiness is complicated. Fulfillment is what matters.
My husband Tanner and I made the decision together that I would come home to nurture our family while he pursued his purpose. Four years later, I’m home with our two children, ages three and eighteen months. Tanner is still pursuing his purpose. He’s been pursuing it since 2021, when his sales job “wasn’t aligned with his vision.” I support his journey completely.
In the meantime, someone has to buy groceries.
The Gentle Art Of Doing Everything
Traditional wife homestead life isn’t about being lazy or dependent. I wake at 5 AM to feed my sourdough starter—her name is Prudence, and she’s four years old, which makes her my longest continuous commitment besides Tanner. After that, I photograph my bread for Instagram, edit the photos, write captions about feminine surrender, respond to DMs, fulfill orders from my online shop, create content for my paid subscribers, homeschool our three-year-old, keep the eighteen-month-old alive, and prepare dinner from scratch.
Tanner helps by maintaining his positive energy. Also, he’s working on a business plan. He’s been working on it for a while. The timing has to be right.
Some months, my content income reaches $4,200. This covers our rent, utilities, groceries, and the supplies for my homestead content. Tanner contributes by believing in my vision and occasionally watching the children while I photograph pie. Similarly, many traditional wives find that submission looks different than they expected. It’s not about *not* working. It’s about working in a feminine way—which apparently means working constantly while calling it something else.
Surrendering To Reality
I want to be clear: I chose this life. Nobody forced me to become the sole income earner for our family while also doing all the childcare and housework and maintaining a social media presence about how peaceful it is. If I seem tired in my videos, that’s just the holy exhaustion of purposeful living. It’s different from regular exhaustion, which is what I had in my corporate job, where I only worked forty hours a week and someone else made the coffee.
My grandmother raised seven children without complaining. Of course, my grandfather had a job and health insurance, but that’s not the point. The point is that feminine strength looks like doing more with less while posting about how abundant life feels.
As my colleague Ashleigh Ameritage often writes, we’ve lost something precious in modern life. However, we can reclaim it. It just requires one spouse to completely sacrifice their career, identity, and rest while the other one figures things out.
Tanner says he’s close to a breakthrough. Meanwhile, I have a sourdough tutorial going live tomorrow and 847 orders to ship by Friday.
This is the life our grandmothers wanted for us. I’m almost sure of it.
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