1973, our friends wedding (I made my dress)

Tradwife

If the man takes the true role of leadership—spiritually, as financial provider, and as protector—all else will fall into place. I first encountered the term “tradwife” a few months ago on TikTok. Am I a tradwife? Is this an insult for a woman who decides to stay home and raise a family?

Both my daughter and daughter-in-law work, yet alongside their careers, they remain mothers and wives first. Women are capable of much, but life’s balance is what matters. And if that means the man is the head of the household, we are to come alongside him as partners in raising a family.

Scripture provides the answer. The Word of God says to “be subordinate to one another.” This verse is one of the most misunderstood verses—why? Ephesians 5:22 makes people crazy. For years, I myself did not fully understand its meaning. It’s truly the way a husband and wife should mirror their lives: the husband leading with sacrificial love, the wife responding with trust and partnership. When a man takes his true role seriously, everything else is left to God.

Ephesians 5:21-30 New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Wives and Husbands. ²¹Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.²²Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. ²⁴As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her ²⁶to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, ²⁷that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ²⁸So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, ³⁰because we are members of his body.

It took some time for me to adjust to the fact that I was not the leader in the family. You see I had a jaded past about feminism and like the song by Helen Reddy, “I am woman” wanting to be heard meant not to take a second place to my spouse. This movement started while I was still in high school.

The Train To No Where

Protests against the war in Vietnam, the Black Panthers, and the Chicano movement were gaining strength in numbers and our high school was part of this. I got involved in UMAS (United Mexican American Students). We protested about every injustice, held sit-ins at the school board demanding Chicano Studies. I can honestly say that no textbooks were written about this subject at this time, but somehow we got it into the curriculum. In my senior year I was voted president of MECHA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) a more sophisticated name change for UMAS. We continued to separate ourselves to protect us from those that did not believe as we did. I look back on these years and can see how we were a part of the big picture of what is happening on our college campuses today. All it takes is a strong charismatic leader with either good or malevolent intentions to misguide young minds. Back then, I believed changes needed to take place to make teachers and administrators understand that not only one race could succeed.

With one year of college under my belt, I knew it all. Well, so I thought. We can thank Mr. Lamb, my high school history teacher for first igniting the fire of fury in me. What a wonderful ride this was. Anger fueled with compassion took precedence over my mind. There was no room for God or His Son Jesus, I was too busy changing the world and spirituality was not even on the back burner.

The Reckoning

The same pride that once made me reject God’s authority made me resist my husband’s leadership. I had learned from Helen Reddy that submission meant weakness. But the 15 year of searching – through the Protestant churches, through BIOLA, through the charismatic renewal–taught me something the radical movement never could: The true freedom comes not from rejecting authority, but from trusting God enough to place myself under it. First through the church then through my marriage.

Get On The Bus

MECHA was the equivalent to the Black Panthers but created for Hispanics. In college, MECHA rallies were more intense and the organization was to round up as many kids, by the busloads, to spread the blanket of half-truths. Half-truths work in the minds of the youth. Preach how you were mistreated and how you can make the world a better place. With the exception of one racist teacher, our high school had wonderful instructors, but with half-truths they all fell into the bad category. I knew going into this movement that it was radical; my oldest brother Robert warned me against MECHA, but I was not ready for his wise counsel.

I will never forget when a large yellow school bus rolled up in my neighborhood to pick me up for a rally at Cal State Long Beach. I watched the leaders of MECHA wearing brown berets that looked like the one that Che Guevara wore. This scared me because I had recently studied about him. He was the charismatic, Marxist revolutionary with a medical degree. Che Guevara had a strong following from many Latin American countries, and ours.

The men who were leading the movement at our college were well into their twenties. Their agenda was to indoctrinate us with radical ideologies. But after the Cal State Long Beach rally a discomfort and distrust was building inside me. MECHA sponsored me for Homecoming Queen and with that victory came more commitment to the organization. What happened next would not only change the trajectory of my involvement, I was quietly disowned because I started dating a white young man.

Adding God To The Equation

Mike and I married in January of 1972. After five years of marriage the search for a better understanding of the proverbial “meaning of life” opened a newly paved road to encounter God. It was not by accident but by providential portal waiting for me to discover. The search started with a Mass in Chatsworth, CA, something came alive in me after receiving communion. I remembered looking over at Mike, “Doesn’t this feel great?” We were filled with the peace of God. But it did not last because the journey led me away from my Catholic foundation. The meandering road to make my way back to the one true Church took 15 years.

The Hiatus

During those 15 years, I drifted through various Protestant churches, my children alongside me. Mike respected my search but didn’t participate—he found three-hour services ridiculous. Around 1995 I attended BIOLA University, where I earned my bachelor’s degree and deepened my love of Scripture. But something was calling me home. In 1996 I discovered a charismatic renewal group within the Catholic Church. That bridge felt right. The transition back to St. Norbert, my current parish, was finally peaceful.

So, back to the question: Am I a tradwife? The label matters less than reality. The role of mother, wife, and servant of God came into being when I surrendered every part of myself to Christ. Not to a cultural ideal, but to Him. Mother Mary—who said ‘Let it be done to me according to Thy word’—became my model (Luke 1:38). And through that surrender, Mike and I became truly one, as Scripture intended.