The entire premise of the online tradwife movement is to popularise women who believe in and practise traditional gender roles in their marriage: the a man is the breadwinner and the woman stays at home to look after the children. 

The two women leading this tradwife movement are Ballerina Farm's Hannah Neeleman and TikTok star Nara Smith. 

Both women post infuriatingly perfect content on their feeds: making their husband's favourite meal from scratch, wrangling their large families, or tending to the family's milk cows. Their posts rack up millions of views. 

With this has come a lot of questions about the reality of the tradwife lifestyle behind the glossy filters of a phone camera, as well as questions about what happens when a 'housewife' becomes more successful than her husband.

Is the 'homemaker' title simply a façade when really you're the breadwinner? Let's investigate.

Negativity towards the tradwife lifestyle reached fever pitch in July.

Along with Hannah and Nara's viral fame has come criticism of what their content does: for feminism as a whole and for their own potential as human beings. 

A recent feature in the New York Times painted Neeleman as a successful Juilliard ballerina who had met a conservative man and changed everything about herself to fit his ideals.

She says this couldn't be further from the truth. 

"We were taken back, however, when we saw the printed article which shocked us and shocked the world by being an attack on our family and my marriage. Portraying me as oppressed with my husband being the culprit," Neeleman said. "Together we've built a business from scratch, we brought eight children into this world, and prioritized our marriage all along the way."

Despite Neeleman's rejection of the article's angle, other tradwives came out of the woodwork after it was published to confirm that they had fallen into the subservient woman trap. 

For example, former tradwife Enitza Templeton told People, "I remember watching TV, folding the towels thinking, 'I wish anybody could help me out of this. If I had the money, if I had the means, if I had some way, I would not be married. I hate this. I don't want my daughters to be in a marriage like this."

It's clear that while Neeleman and Smith might be content in how they're leading their lives, there are other women who aren't as fortunate, and feel trapped in it.

The tradwife queens stand in solidarity.

Despite the backlash around tradwife content reaching fever pitch back in July, by September, the two queens of the tradwife movement decided to meet up. Oh, to be a fly on that homestead wall. 

Nara Smith posted her trip to Utah on TikTok, saying they "had to" stop by Ballerina Farm for lunch. 

"Haven't seen a crossover this crazy since wizards x Hannah Montana x suite life," one commenter posted. 

"Not the trad wife solidarity crossover," another added. 

And that's just it. It was a solidarity crossover. It was a statement to the world that these two content megaliths stand together against the barrage of opinions both for and against them. 

When the dust settled after the New York Times debacle,  it was clear that the negativity toward tradwives like Neeleman and Smith was getting icky. It was becoming a pile on. 

And even if we wouldn't choose their lives ourselves, or even believe they should be promoting this way of living, it's clear that they intend to continue living this way. And we must be at peace with that choice. 

But that leads to yet another layer in this whole story. That the picture we see on our tiny phone screens isn't everything it's cracked up to be. 

While Smith and Neeleman may be the picture of two subservient, 'tradwife' women, it actually couldn't be further from the truth. You see, while these women's content is propaganda for the tradwife lifestyle, they don't actually fit the brief. They might be homemakers, but they are also the breadwinners. 

A tradwife 'wears the pants' now.

As Neeleman and Smith's stars have risen, so has their ability to monetise the millions of women who watch on in intoxicating agony that their life will never be as perfect. Hey, why not, right?

Online estimators have guessed that Nara Smith is making upwards of $200,000 euros (over $300,000 AUD approx.) per month. Meanwhile, Hannah Neeleman has her TikTok earnings as well as the profits from her meat sale business, which we can only imagine have been boosted with her viral fame.

@diana.laluna this doesn’t even include brand deals or sponsorships! #narasmith #greenscreen #influencers ♬ Nice and Easy - Louis Adrien

It appears that in their effort to be traditional housewives, both Neeleman and Smith have also somehow become the breadwinners of their families. 

And they're not alone. 

The Disney+ series The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives is making waves online, following the Mormon #MomTok community as they exited a scandal and tried to build back the success they'd built on the social media platform. 

While some of these Mormon influencers do have jobs, at large their faith subscribes to the belief that the man is the head of the home and the woman the homemaker. 

For example, Jessi Ngatikaura, who runs her own hairdressing business, said she needed to find a husband who "puts up with it."

"I think there are some relationships within the [MomTok] group that struggle with that a little more because Mormonism is typically very gender-role-focused, where the man provides and the woman stays home with the kids," she said, talking about the moment the women started making more money from TikTok than their husbands. "So, it definitely shook up some of our relationships in the group when that happened."

Another MomTok star, Jennifer Affleck said, "I definitely think it was tricky for me and my husband at first because he was the provider for the first couple of years.

"He made great money and he also comes from a very wealthy, traditional family. So I think it was very normal for him to be the provider and for me to be at home and be a stay-at-home wife and mother.

"When the roles were switched, I think it was really hard for him because he just wasn't used to it. And even though he was in [medical] school, he was like, 'Wait, am I bringing value to this relationship?'"

And there lies the tricky crux in this whole thing. 

Mormons who are not on TikTok and not earning like the Mormon Wives would not live like them.

Likewise, Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman are not normal tradwives. 

Instead, they're influencers who have shared what that life is like so much online that they have become minor celebrities. 

And with that, they're afforded a very different life than the one they purport to promote online. 

Take it with a grain of salt. 

With context, we're able to see the full story. See Neeleman and Smith as entrepreneurs, using a very traditional format to pioneer their success. See the MomTok Mormons as young women who have found a way to provide for their families, despite living in a religion that doesn't usually encourage it. 

These are the few, not the many. And honestly, it's a relief when it comes to the green monster of comparison. 

The next time you see Neeleman and Smith collaborate, remember. Yes, maybe they're friends, but they're also getting paid a fortune for this viral video where they meander around a farm and wrangle their children.

The next time you're sitting on the sofa watching MAFS instead of folding the laundry, remember that they're getting paid like an anaesthetist to do it. 

And remember, the next time you think maybe you want to quit your job and be a housewife, that it isn't all as glossy as it looks online. Just ask Jennie Gage. 

"My Mormon faith told me I was supposed to be a stay-at-home mum — from 19 I started having babies, I dropped out of college and I never had a career. I would work for our family business for the next 24 years of my marriage but I never got paid. Nothing was under my name," she said. 

"It never bothered me once that my financial security was dependent on that man being in love with me. I never realised that him liking me or not determined whether or not my children could eat, whether or not I could buy myself a jug of milk and a loaf of bread."

Featured image: TikTok