I’m a proud Aussie ‘trad wife’. It’s not as glamorous as it looks… and I think it’s a cop out when women say they can’t ‘afford’ this lifestyle: ‘If you really cared, you’d go with less’

A Gold Coast mum and self-described ‘modern trad wife’ claims many Australian families could still afford to have a parent stay home – if they were willing to make more sacrifices. 

Aimie Stoevelaar, 29, left a career in real estate after becoming a mother and now stays home as the primary caregiver to her two children, aged 3 and 11 weeks, while her husband, 31, works as a fire safety estimator. 

She acknowledges Australia’s cost-of-living pressures make single-income households challenging, but believes some parents are too quick to assume both must work. 

‘My personal experience? I think it’s a cop-out, people saying that they can’t afford it and two parents need to work,’ she told the Daily Mail.

‘If you really cared about raising the child and making sacrifices, you’d go with less. Buy a home within your means. You can do the groceries within your means.

‘You don’t need a new pair of shoes every single season. You don’t need the newest things. It’s a luxury for women and mums to be able to get their hair and nails done.’

Her view comes as Australian families grapple with high housing costs, grocery bills and childcare fees, with many relying on two incomes to get by. 

Aimie is aware her lifestyle depends on her husband’s salary covering essentials. 

‘I just dabble with finances. I definitely don’t keep the roof over our head or pay for our groceries or anything like that. My husband does it all,’ she said.

‘We make a lot of sacrifices as a family to live on that wage because our kids are the most important right now.

‘We have the rest of our lives to make all this money back, but we don’t have the rest of our lives to raise our children again. We don’t get a second do-over at that.

‘If you really wanted to, you could make shifts and adjustments to make that work.’

It’s part of a broader philosophy about parenthood that has led Aimie to embrace a lifestyle often described online as being a ‘trad wife’.

What is a ‘trad wife’? 

The term, short for ‘traditional wife’, describes women who embrace classic domestic and gender roles, typically with a husband working outside the home while the wife raises children and manages the household. 

Online, the movement often appears more photogenic – immaculate homes, elaborate meals, feminine dresses and curated glimpses of domestic life. 

Aimie doesn’t fully identify with that image. 

‘I would call myself a modern trad wife,’ she said.

She says her lifestyle differs because she can still earn money online through user-generated content and other jobs when time allows. 

‘I’m lucky in the sense that I’m the primary caregiver for my children and I’m home full-time, but I think the modern mum has been allowed the luxury of making money online and delving into that space,’ she said.

‘Parents are taking less accountability’

Aimie believes parents should spend more time directly raising their children and is critical of increasing reliance on childcare and extended family. 

‘The world we are raising children in now is vastly different to the generation before us,’ she said.

‘The modern world – nannies, daycares and grandparents actually raising our children – the birth parents are taking less and less accountability for their children and the role that needs to happen in raising a child.’

She argues that the rise of social media, artificial intelligence and technology makes parental involvement more important than ever. 

She’s troubled by families who want children without wanting their lives to change. 

‘There are a lot of families that are having children because it’s the thing to do, and yes, they want children, but they want to be less involved,’ she said.

‘They want to be disengaged. They want to have careers, they want to do all of this and just say they have kids.’

She particularly worries about children spending long days in childcare and only brief time with parents in the evenings. 

‘A lot of families only see their kids for two hours a day post-daycare, and that’s hell on earth because their little systems are so overstimulated,’ she said.

‘They’ve just spent a day with so many different people, and the parents get just the two-hour bath and bedtime routine.’

Her comments are likely to divide parents, especially when returning to paid work is necessary or preferred, but she recognises there can be judgement on both sides.

‘I think there’s elements of trad wives that hate the working mother, and there’s elements of working mothers [who] hate the trad wife, because there’s things that we both do differently and respect differently about each other,’ she said.

She once feared depending on a man

Aimie’s embrace of traditional family roles is complicated by her upbringing. 

Before motherhood, she described herself as ‘heavily ambitious’ and worked in real estate. Her own mother was a stay-at-home parent, but after her parents’ relationship ended, Aimie saw the downsides of financial dependence. 

‘The idea of being stuck in four walls without my own source of income was a really, really hard thing because I saw my mother do that,’ she said.

‘When I found out I first fell pregnant, the idea of relying solely on my husband was a really, really scary conversation, a really scary reality, because I saw how negatively it impacted my childhood growing up.’

Motherhood changed her priorities. 

‘It just became my life, and I think that’s incredibly important, to really invest in your children,’ she said.

She no longer plans to return to real estate due to its evening and weekend hours. 

‘I love to work, and I think the ability to create money and income online is an incredible space. I’ve fallen into UGC creation and just dabbling where I can in between what the kids need,’ she said.

Aimie said one parent will always be available for her children until they finish school. 

‘His money is my money’

A frequent criticism of the trad wife movement is the financial vulnerability that can follow leaving paid work, particularly if the relationship ends. 

Aimie understands this concern. 

‘I can see where other women would worry about what might happen if their husband leaves them,’ she said.

‘I see a lot of women stuck because of releasing that financial role that they play in a marriage and in a family.’

But she says she doesn’t feel vulnerable herself. The couple have been together for a decade, married for four years, and combined finances before having children. 

‘Our bank accounts have been joint since well before children, and our home, our family, our finances are one,’ she said.

‘His money is my money, my money is his money. Any deals or jobs that I get, it’s for the family as a unit.’

She trusts her husband to take the financial lead when she’s busy, but major decisions are shared. 

Aimie doesn’t receive contributions to her superannuation, but feels secure in her marriage and believes her husband would continue to support her and their children if they separated. 

‘I personally don’t have those fears in our marriage. I know that he’ll always make sure that me and the kids are always looked after,’ she said.

‘Blue and pink roles’

Aimie also believes men and women generally take on different roles in family life. 

In her home, ‘pink jobs’ include taking the children to activities and the doctors, managing their diet and schooling, doing laundry and most daily care. Her husband handles more of the financial responsibilities.

But she says those roles are less rigid than in the past. 

‘We definitely take turns in both of those,’ she said, adding that she rejects the idea that marriage is always divided 50-50. 

‘People think it’s 50-50 every day – it’s not. Sometimes it’s 90-10 on either side,’ she said.

She also says modern fathers are more emotionally present than in past generations, and her husband regularly cares for the children when she needs a break or is working. 

The reality behind the trad wife aesthetic

Despite embracing the lifestyle, Aimie is wary of its glamorous online image. 

A typical day is far less romantic than the images of spotless kitchens and homemade bread suggest. 

‘The second you wake up, it’s kids, kids, kids. What do they need?’ she said.

‘Whatever the kids need from the minute they wake up to the minute they go to bed. I tend to come last, but that’s okay. 

‘It’s a luxury to have people to care for, and people to raise, and people that love you, and to create a safe place.’

She felt considerable isolation after becoming a mother, until she found other parents through her children’s social circles. 

‘You need to find your own feet in this new world. It is incredibly difficult, especially with the way it is portrayed on social media and glamorised as a stay-at-home mum.’

Aimie doesn’t see her decision as a rejection of women’s independence, nor is she concerned about whether trad wife culture is compatible with feminism. 

‘I think people wind themselves up into anti-feminism and democracy, and what it is and what it isn’t, and what a woman can and can’t be,’ she said.

She believes women have different strengths and make different choices. For her, staying home makes sense. 

Despite the fascination with trad wives online, Aimie believes women like her remain a minority in Australia. 

She once posted a video asking where other trad wives on the Gold Coast were, hoping to find friends. 

Nobody replied. 

‘I thought there would be a louder voice in stay-at-home mums. And there’s not. We are the minority now. A generation ago, [trad wives] were the majority,’ she said.

That loneliness has sometimes made her question her decision. 

‘Why am I making my life so hard? People don’t want to do the difficult thing anymore. Other people want to take the easy way out. Staying home with kids is not easy,’ she recalled thinking.

Despite the financial sacrifices, isolation and loss of the career she once imagined, Aimie remains convinced the trade-off is worthwhile.