This is NOT a Tradwife’s Confession About the Joys of Back-to-School

Raising my beautiful cherubs is my sole purpose in life. I am a womb with two legs. Madame Bovary? More like Madame Ovaries. (I haven’t read the book, and I definitely didn’t check it out of the local library before my tradwife besties had it banned.) Please take away my rights to my own body—oh wait, you already did. Cool. I am an unstoppable life-giving vessel doing my God-given part. My husband, Jedediah Jehoshaphat, is out there chopping wood, stocking our underground fallout bunker, and watching football with his friends.

(For the record, I never wrote this, because traditionally, women are property who can’t read or write, obviously.)

It’s been three months nonstop with my little darlings, Rifle (8), Brick (7), Eagle (6), Riesling Marie (5), and Paizleee Marie (also 5—they are not twins), and I’ve never been happier. Every September, I am devastated to be without them and feel not the slightest hint of relief, calm, or relaxation in their absence.

The only fitness for me is chasing my little ones around the yard, chasing them around the house, and chasing them at the grocery store, the organic cooperative mung bean market, and Target (where Eagle likes to scale the racks and throw things at the other shoppers). That is all the fitness I need. I will not hit my husband’s makeshift garage CrossFit slash P90x slash Tae Bo gym. It is emphatically not decked out with all the latest gear purchased from late-night infomercials he watches before falling asleep on the couch.

So, yes, this is not me feeling even the slightest bit of relief that I will now have the house to myself. Renovating our 1850 farmhouse for Instagram content is actually much easier with four screaming children. Paint samples are not more useful when Brick isn’t eating them. (Lead-free—I may be a tradwife, but I don’t use tradpaint.) Wait. Sorry, make that five screaming children. (Sometimes I forget about little Paizleee. I mean, when you have two non-twin babies in one year…) Canning veggies just isn’t the same when I’m not worried about Rifle losing a finger in a jar of green beans.

(Again, I didn’t write this. So it’s not a confession.)

Please know that I absolutely adore being a tradwife. Hashtag Bless this mess. Hashtag No, really, don’t step on those overturned carpenter’s nails. Patriarchy is awesome. I would like to renounce modern conveniences and reject gender parity and induce even more stress and anxiety in my wonderfully traditional life.

All right, I must go dust the mold off of Jedediah’s homemade squirrel jerky and then sign up for the PTA.