AM I A TRAD WIFE?

In a voice barely above a whisper: While waiting for the oven to preheat for my bread, I decided to do some closet-cleaning and found an old pair of pants I knew I’d never wear again. But I really loved the pattern and the fabric too much to throw them out, so I decided to turn them into a top. From scratch. Sound familiar?

I know. Somewhere between feeding my sourdough starter and learning to operate a sewing machine, I found myself wandering into the opening montage of a Nara Smith video. All I was missing was a custom couture dress, an immaculate kitchen, and a very flirty, mostly off-screen husband relaying our horde of children’s oddly specific cravings.

Except I can’t afford Schiaparelli, and much to my Balkan grandparents’ dismay, I have no husband with overwhelming attempts of PDA to swat away as I handcraft a wardrobe for our picturesque nuclear family. Instead, it was just a hungry me and my new sewing machine, trying to put a freshly-learned skill to use.

I mean, really—who was going to wear those f*ck-ass pants anyway? And the bread?

Well, I like bread.

Sade played softly in the background as I labored away in my personal sweatshop. Like a true “Jack of All Trades and Master of None,” I was doing absolutely nothing by the book. I wasnt following a pattern. I hadn’t even bothered seamripping the pants open, and everything was “guestimated” instead of measured.

But as the delicious aroma of bread spread through my apartment, the pants slowly began to resemble a halter top. At least, they were starting to. Until my phone rang. An old friend of mine who had moved out of state a few months earlier was calling. Every so often, one of us would randomly FaceTime the other, and play a quick game of catch-up. He was in the middle of cooking dinner before meeting with some friends, which he knew would surprise me—the cooking part, not the friends part. He’s very much someone who cooks for sustenance rather than flavor or technique. Think basic chicken breast and white rice. So good for him—this is exciting! Now it was my turn to take pride in my latest skillset development.

“I mean, that’s really cool but... It’s Friday night and you’re baking bread and sewing? Did you become a grandma overnight?”

I laughed it off in the moment, but as the phone call came to an end and I set my freshly baked loaf of bread on a rack to cool, I found myself hurrying to shower for an impromptu change of plans. He had a point, I thought. It was a Friday night, one of the last weekends of summer, and I was planning to spend it hunched over a pair of deconstructed tribal-print pants from high school. My bread was cooling on the counter, scraps of fabric and loose threads littered my bedroom floor. Somewhere along the way, my hobbies had begun to resemble a very particular internet aesthetic, one steeped in a very particular (and ultimately reductive) vision of womanhood.

“Oh my God. Am I a trad wife?”

Well, that’s ridiculous. Pretty sure you'd need a spouse to be a trad wife, Kristina.

“Oh my God. Do I want to be a trad wife?”

You’ve said on the record more than once that you’re not even sure you want to get married, Kristina.

The internal debate continued through my shower and into the time I spent getting ready at my vanity. Some of my girlfriends had invited me out earlier that day, and I had initially turned it down in favor of a wholesome night in. But the rumors are true: it turns out I sometimes can fall victim to peer-pressure. So I went out for a night on the town with my friends. And we had a ball, like we always do. I laughed, I drank, I danced. I did all the things I was apparently supposed to be doing on a Friday night during the prime of my life. And yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I found myself still thinking about that half-finished top waiting for me at home. And a slice of warm bread.

By the end of the night, it dawned on me that these two versions of myself were not mutually exclusive. I could get dressed up to meet my friends, order another drink, and still look forward to going home for a night-cap with my sewing machine. The woman who loved a night out and the woman who loved making things with her hands weren’t two opposing identities. So why did I treat them as if they were?

The internet has a funny way of turning a woman’s perfectly ordinary interests into entire personalities. Bake some bread and suddenly you’re romanticizing domesticity. Sew your own clothes, and you’re embracing traditional homemaking. Do both, and apparently you’re only a husband away from becoming the next ambassador for Turning Point USA. The Handmaid’s Tale warned us about this.

But the bread was just bread. The pants were just pants—or well, now they’re a shirt. And maybe I’ll wear that shirt out drinking with my friends (which I did, the following weekend). Maybe, one day, I’ll bake a weekly loaf for my husband and kids. Or maybe in a year from now, I’ll decide that sewing is too much work and go back to buying all my clothes.

But if I do end up making butter from scratch in an immaculate kitchen, wearing a“guestimated” dress I sewed myself (or fingers crossed, Schiaparelli), I hope it’s because I want to.

And if there is a husband lurking just off-camera, he better know how to cook more than just chicken and rice.