This weekend, I had the pleasure to spend some quality time with our darling nieces. They are brilliant, kind, thoughtful humans – so gabbing with them is a delight. We got to talking about the trad-wife trend making the rounds on social media.

Let me be very clear – I love the concept of a traditional marriage. In a perfect world, if this is what you want, this is what you should have.

But what’s circulating on socials right now is an extreme version of the trad-wife lifestyle that encourages total economic dependence, sans back up plan.

But seriously, what in the Miss Dashwood?! There are many things I take issue with in this resurgence of Jane Austen-style living, but the scariest one is not having a back up plan in a time period where women can. The characters in Jane Austen’s novels didn’t have back up plans because they weren’t allowed to.

Intrusive Thought: “I don’t even have a pla.” P.S.T. – this one’s for you.

Influencers are calling it “the soft life” – which I think actually diminishes the value that stay-at-home moms bring to their families. But I digress.

So, you’d think that being raised in a strict, first generation Lebanese household, as the eldest child and being a daughter, my parents would have raised me to desire or chase after the trad-wife life.

My parents had a traditional marriage. Dad was the primary breadwinner. Mom had some dental assistant training, but stayed home and took on the role of maternal homemaker.

By most standards, trad-wife life should have been my well laid path.

But both parents, and in particular my dad, pushed me academically and instilled in me a desire for financial independence. In fact, I remember my dad saying to me once that times were different for my generation and that women needed higher education and meaningful ways to earn a living. “Just in case.”

All this to say – if I had hedged my bets and chosen a trad-wife life for myself, it might have ruined us.

Thinking back, I would have loved more time with our kids as littles. If things had been different, I might have considered a break from employment and enjoyed being a stay-at-home mom for a short while. Eventually, though, I would have had ways to reenter the workforce.

But the caregiving life found me early – and my employment is tied to the things that help sustain us. Money, health benefits and other benefit products, as well as retirement savings, etc.

It pains me to think of where we would be if the opportunity for employment – and upward mobility – didn’t exist.

I keep my list of hopes pretty tight. It’s better to stick to the basics. I hope my children are protected from harm, I hope my husband is healed, and I hope to always be gainfully employed.

So much of the first two hopes depends on that last one.