I'm A Tradwife Influencer—Here Are My Thoughts On 'Yesteryear'

Written in the language of TikTok and Instagram Reels, Yesteryear rebukes the surge of tradwife content.

Which is why I, a “tradwife” influencer, had to read it.

Granted, I don’t post the kind of videos Burke’s book has in mind. My writing and videos try to persuade Gen Z audiences of the value of marriage and family. But the surface similarities are hard to miss: I'm a young Christian wife who defends putting family above career ambitions on social media. According to Vogue, Burke offers a “nuanced, 360-degree view of the hopes, fantasies, and often dark motivations lurking behind” a figure like me. How could I resist?

As it turns out, Yesteryear is a scathing exposé, but not of tradwives. In fact, the thriller reveals more about our culture’s mockery of traditional women.

Yesteryear opens by introducing its narrator, Natalie, a 32-year-old influencer who amasses millions of followers by posting about her pioneer-like lifestyle. Unbeknownst to her audience, staff keep the household running, her marriage is strained, and her children hate being filmed. One day, she wakes up in a place that looks like her home, except it’s the early 19th century. The plot follows her as she tries to make sense of what happened—a reality show, a test from God, or time travel—and find her way back.

The story alternates between past and present to show how Natalie achieved internet stardom. She meets her husband, Caleb, at a church group. After they marry, she finds herself pregnant at 20 (and with a husband more of a buffoon than she expected). Natalie and her in-laws scramble to find Caleb a job, and she lands on the perfect answer: social media. After a “manosphere” streamer mentions her account, she is catapulted to fame, and she hopes, true happiness.

Yesteryear is a scathing exposé, but not of tradwives.

As the story develops, Natalie proves anything but content. When a scandal erupts at her ranch, she is swiftly canceled and her world unravels. Then comes the twist: she isn’t in the past at all, but in a future of her own making. After the scandal drives her into madness, she turns Yesteryear Ranch into a full pioneer fantasy, living as though it were the early 19th century. By the end, Natalie is deluded; her children are taken after the police find her, leaving her with what she sees as the worst fate—being alone with her husband. The novel closes with the two of them casually telling each other they hate each other.

This fictional tradwife influencer is left humiliated, trapped in a hell of her own making. Yet according to The Cut, Natalie’s story isn’t a “takedown” of tradwives so much as a humanization of them. I’m not sure a lonely, selfish, clinically insane character is the most dignified depiction, but I digress.

One of the marks of a good writer is the ability to write accurate characters. That includes understanding what motivates them, even characters you may not personally like. A novel exploring the internal thoughts of a traditional Christian woman, even if she is an influencer, is no exception. Yesteryear fails this test.

I barely related to Natalie, who comes across as a peculiar Christian fundamentalist: theologically illiterate and seemingly unchurched. In addition to considering herself flawless, Natalie has a thin prayer life, much of it tacked onto repetitive profanity she later apologizes to God for. Yet later she casually considers an affair with her father-in-law without a flicker of conviction. Seriously? Yesteryear aims to immerse readers in the psychology of traditional Christian women, and it left me wondering whether Burke has ever spoken to one.

This dissonance feels driven by a foregone conclusion, not honest research. When asked if there are real-life Natalies, Burke concedes she doesn’t know; after all, she can’t pry into tradwife influencers’ heads. In other words, Burke hasn’t met a Natalie figure—she made her up. In an interview, Burke said she drew inspiration from social media patterns. “The thing I really wanted to focus on was that image, because it’s propaganda,” she said. So she created a disconnect between Natalie’s curated bliss and the cacophony of her inner life: selfish, hypocritical, and confined by the lifestyle she peddles online. Vogue may insist Yesteryear isn’t a “moralistic fable about the dangers of tradwifery,” but it reads like one.

The message is clear: women who embrace, encourage, and exalt motherhood are involved in deception.

Admittedly, Yesteryear isn’t about traditional women per se: it’s about an influencer who sells domesticity online. The distinction between “tradwife” and “tradwife influencer” matters for Burke. But her assumption that tradwife influencers are always performing implies the domestic bliss of their feeds can never reflect reality. Tradwives do present an aesthetic vision of home life. Does that make them charlatans? Only if you assume what they sell—marriage and motherhood—is a faulty product. Yesteryear does.

This is most clearly expressed when Natalie becomes a mother. Burke writes that Natalie realizes she had been lied to about the joy of childrearing, and that the task of women, to some extent, is to keep spreading that lie to their own children. The message is clear: women who embrace, encourage, and exalt motherhood are involved in deception. And part of that deception is achieved through alluring tradwife content, which constructs an “unrealistic” image of a traditional home.

It is partly true that tradwife content is unrealistic. Motherhood isn’t reducible to sourdough bread and milkmaid dresses. But this critique applies to all social media. Yet it rarely does. I don’t hear people ask “boss babe” influencers to post themselves slogging through Excel, eating sad slop bowls because they don’t have time to cook, then leaving at 11:00 p.m. with bags under their eyes. Titles, salaries, and cubicles haven’t exactly proven to be all the rage for young women.

Yesteryear tries to acknowledge this double standard by poking fun at the disappointing returns of girlboss feminism; Burke concedes as much. “Otherwise,” she says, “this other option would not be so appealing.” But instead of asking what career-driven feminism fails to offer, Burke uses fiction to dismantle the tradwife’s appeal. Yesteryear is satire, but Burke insists it isn’t flippant. “It was very important to me to show the very real constraints that she has,” she says. Burke criticizes influencers with an agenda, but she has one too: to portray traditional wives as dissatisfied and constrained. Who is the real propagandist here?

Burke criticizes influencers with an agenda, but she has one too: to portray traditional wives as dissatisfied and constrained.

I left Yesteryear feeling misunderstood. It didn’t offer an enlightening perspective on the life I lead and promote online. Instead, it revealed our culture’s contempt for traditional women, adding fodder for its obsessive degradation of housewives. One reviewer wrote that the book made her feel better about judging tradwives because it “proved” tradwives judge her right back. The anti-tradwife crowd is so desperate for evidence that wives and mothers are secretly unhappy and spiteful that it will take a work of fiction as proof.

Unlike Natalie, I’m not fictional. Neither are the women in my church, many of whom are homemakers. Most married young and have a gaggle of children. They’re not self-seeking, and they don’t consider themselves flawless. They’ll pray for you in a heartbeat if you ask. If you visit their homes, they’ll make sure you leave fed with the good, hearty food only a mother can make. Unlike Natalie, they exude love. Those who want to “get inside the head” of traditional wives should start by getting to know one.