SHE refuses to own a microwave, would never feed her children a McDonald’s and lovingly prepares every single meal from scratch.
And the toil of working a 9-5 job couldn’t be further from Gretchen Adler’s sights because she spends her days growing veg and baking bread.
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She says it’s time ‘women took back their kitchens’ after being forced out of their homes and into the workplace whilst mums who let their kids eat fast food aren’t ‘properly educated’.
With 452,000 loyal followers on Instagram, Gretchen, 38, is one of the most popular trad wives in the world but she’s bombarded constantly by trolls who accuse her of mum-shaming when she shares clips on how to make fresh and healthy homemade food.
Referring to the term Trad Wife, the phrase used to describe women who take on a traditional role in the home, Gretchen, who has three children Arabella, eight, Olympia, five, and Aston, three, says: “Obviously it’s about being a good wife but I think some people think that you have to wear a dress from the 1950s.
“Some think you have to clean the toilets and the kitchen, and you have to just be the maid who serves your husband.
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“But I don’t see it like that at all.
“For me, it’s really about being in the home. It’s being a stay at home mum, it’s raising my children. It’s feeding them for optimal health.
“Women need to take back their kitchens, raise their children and not outsource that to somebody else.”
Whilst Gretchen’s husband Eric, 40, earns his cash as a restaurateur, Gretchen’s day revolves around the home.
When her family sleeps, she’s busy prepping for the following day whether it’s homemade lunch boxes for the children or meal prep which she shares with her followers on Instagram.
“I’m the last one to go to bed,” she explains. “At night, I mix up sourdough so it ferments overnight.
“I have to mix up the muffins that I’m going to cook in the morning, so I’m always doing something in the kitchen at night before I go to sleep.
“Then I’m the first one up as well to prepare breakfast, pack the lunch boxes for school, so they have good food at school.”
She was born and raised on a farm in Columbus, Ohio, and despite developing an unhealthy relationship with food in school, Gretchen found her way back to nourishing her body through a balanced diet.
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After moving to San Diego in 2018, Gretchen’s passion for home-cooked meals grew. She started posting recipe videos on TikTok in 2019 and saw her following soar from 2,000 to 75,000.
Once the kids are at school, Gretchen manages to fit in work and exercise but insists her children always come first.
“I fit in my tennis and I work on my own business at home which involves making recipes, videoing, and doing general business stuff,” she reveals.
What is a trad wife?
A trad wife (short for traditional wife) is a woman who chooses to take on an ultra traditional role in marriage, meaning she makes dinner and looks pretty whilst her husband goes to work.
The trend takes inspiration from the idea of a 1950s housewife.
Many ‘trad wives’ choose to dress in the style of clothing popular in this period (think floral dresses and frumpy cardigans).
Additionally, the values considered important to trad wives are similar to strict Christian values.
Trad wives believed they were not forced into this way of life, and that it was their purpose to be homemakers.
The trend, which has garnered attention on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, glamorises a time gone by with little acknowledgement of the economic challenges facing families and mothers today.
“I’ve figured out a way to do what I love, which is educating people on health and food, and taking back their kitchens, which is something that we’ve done for many generations, but we’ve forgotten how to do it in the last 100 years.
“Then I pick up the kids and go back into full mum mode. The rest of the day is with the kids and I’m constantly working.
“If I’m making something, I’m videoing it. But the kids are very much integrated into what I’m doing.
“They’re with me in the kitchen, and it’s not like I’m separate from them. Everything is very connected.”
Gretchen’s own mum quit her career as an architect when children came along and when Arabella was born, Gretchen had her own decisions to make.
Whilst other mums return to work after a baby and have to juggle the demands of raising a family alongside, not Gretchen, who wasn’t going to hand over the parenting reins to anyone else.
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“I would be upset about the fact that I wasn’t constantly with my children,” she explains.
“I want to be the one to raise my babies. I don’t want to hand that very important task over to somebody else.
“For me, I just know it wouldn’t be possible. My children, my family, is my number one priority.
“It’s always going to be my children – I want them to be the next world leaders.”
Gretchen and her family eat only the freshest ingredients. She raises chickens and has her own vegetable patch in the garden.
“It’s a lot of pasteurised meats, pasteurised eggs – that’s really like the foundation of the meals,” she says.
“I freshly mill my wheat and grains into flour and I make sourdough breads, as well as fermented muffins and pancakes.”
But Gretchen insists she is a fan of ‘easy’ foods and a takeaway like Mcdonald’s is certainly off the cards.
I definitely would never feed my family those foods. I don’t recommend it to others either
Gretchen Adler
She confesses: “No, I wouldn’t [give my kids McDonald’s].
“No fast food – the ingredients they use these days are horrible for our health.
“Everything about the fast food industry is terrible for our health, and I definitely would never feed my family those foods.”
The content creator also speaks honestly about parents who allow it.
“I think maybe they’re not properly educated on what they’re doing, what they’re eating, how horrible it really is for their health,” she adds.
She has a similar loathing for microwaves: “It destroys nutrients. It really makes living food dead and it’s just another convenience tool that we don’t need.”
Gretchen says the response to her videos has been extremely mixed including the one where she makes her own Goldfish (baked crackers), which went viral and caused backlash.
She says: “I don’t feed my kids the store bought Goldfish because they have ingredients that I wouldn’t want to feed my kids so I make them.
“And people saw that as mum-shaming. It really had nothing to do with them – they think it’s mum shaming but they don’t have the time or the privilege to make these foods.
But Gretchen says she won’t let the haters get her down: “I’ve learned to just fully ignore the negativity, because I know what I’m doing is right, and I know that it is helping a lot of people,” she adds.
“I just keep spreading my message and not really worrying about the negativity.
“[People say] I am putting mothers down, making them feel like they’re no good.
“They’ll make fun of my appearance, how I look, and that I look like I’ve had a lobotomy. There’s a lot of different types of comments.”
But whilst many will accuse Gretchen of having too much free time, she says her meal prep job is hard work.
She says: “Making food takes energy, then I have to video everything that I’m making before figuring out how to post it online.
“Then I have my children’s schedules and being a wife – and I also have to take care of myself. I literally have not one minute of free time in my day. I don’t have any time.”
And whilst it’s primarily women who post negative comments on her videos, Gretchen says it’s men who support her the most.
“Men comment on my videos or send me messages saying they want their wives to cook like I do for their families,” she says. “They say they’re inspired.”
I’ve learned to just fully ignore the negativity, because I know what I’m doing is right
Gretchen Adler
Not only does Gretchen share recipe clips on social media, but she’s also built an empire around her master class, The Nourishing Kitchen, and subscriber-only recipes on her website.
When it comes to assumptions about trad wives, Gretchen insists women like her aren’t submissive.
“I think it’s a very exciting role to be a trad wife. You are being the motherly figure in the home which is the most important role for your children.”
And with more women like her now sharing their lives on social media, Gretchen says: “I think it’s amazing that women are really waking up to the problem that we’ve experienced in the past generation or two.
“They pushed us into the workplace. They told us that we shouldn’t make food anymore, and that we should buy the convenience methods and women got out of the kitchens – they got out of their homes.
“Women have woken up to that.
“We need these strong women, these strong family units.”
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