British ‘trad wife’ slams 1950s marriage trend, moves to Australia

A woman who gained online fame for sharing the details of her “traditional” marriage has turned her back on the movement after criticism.

A British woman who became famous as one of the internet’s first “trad wives” has revealed she’s no longer taking part in the 1950s-inspired movement – and has moved to Australia to get away after copping “vile” backlash.

Alena Kate Pettitt, 38, began documenting her experience as a stay-at-home girlfriend back in the late-two-thousands with a blog called Mrs Stepford.

After welcoming her first child with her husband Carl and finding God, the former marketing executive started living a “traditional” life, which led her to publish a guidebook called Ladies Like Us in 2016.

The self-published book detailed modest clothing for women in traditional partnerships, as well as cooking tips and advice on how to “reclaim your femininity”.

Around the same time, the tradwife movement – a notion that suggests women should not work, and rather spend their days cooking, cleaning, and dressing appropriately while being submissive to their husbands – was gaining momentum.

Pettitt’s book quickly became a “bible” to those who believed in the trad wife values, catapulting her to fame.

But the “OG trad wife” has revealed she’s turned her back on the movement, claiming “it became a monster”, and has moved Down Under in a bid to start afresh.

Alena Kate Pettitt has turned her back on the ‘trad wife’ movement she helped created and moved to Australia. Picture: Facebook/TheDarlingAcademy

“It’s become an aesthetic, and then it’s become politicised. And then it’s become its own monster,” she told The New Yorker of the booming “trend”.

In fact, she’s so “embarrassed” by the state of the trad wife movement, she has completely “stepped away”, despite boasting nearly 40,000 followers on Instagram.

The mother believes the movement which she helped soar in popularity has become a superficial trend that has lost control of it’s core values.

She also feels the new generations of trad wives are getting “younger and younger, and more polished than realistic”.

Her public profile also made her the target of “vile messages, hatred and unwanted attention from men”, she said.

She feels the 1950s-inspired movement ‘became a monster’. Picture: BBC

“I tried. I thought that speaking to the media and using a platform with so many users would be a wonderful way to promote the brilliant work of the housewife,” she wrote on a recent blog post for The Darling Academy website, a “femininity finishing school” she set up at the height of her fame.

“But as with all kinds of positive activism, good message, or wholesome idea, it will in time become hijacked by the opposite of what you stand for and believe in.”

While she’s now living in Sydney and has turned her back on trad wife culture, she’s not shunned “tradition” entirely.

The 38-year-old Brit has moved to Sydney but says she ‘can’t escape’ her tradwife past. Picture: SWNS

Her most recent blog post reveals she’s been busy cooking “vintage recipes” while manhandling endless laundry and organising her walk-in pantry.

She also has a new name for the way she prefers to live, suggesting she be considered an “old-fashioned homemaker” or a “modern traditional wife”.

But despite moving to the other side of the world, Pettitt fears she “can’t escape” the trad wife culture she’s become known for, stating she’s worried it will stick with her “for the rest of my life... unless I change my name”.

Originally published as British ‘trad wife’ slams 1950s marriage trend, moves to Australia