'I gave up my career to serve my husband full time - people say I'm oppressed'
A “trad wife” who quit her career as an optician in order to “serve” her husband has batted away “hateful” criticism
Mikayla Herrmann describes herself as a trad wife, or traditional wife, and says she has never felt more fulfilled than she does now. The 26-year-old says she spends hours every day cooking and cleaning at home while 31-year-old husband Samuel Herrman works at a blacksmith machinery firm.
"I definitely feel like it is my duty to serve my husband and for him to be the breadwinner of my house,” she says, an unorthodox view in 2023. Mikayla quit her job as an optician in order to move out to the countryside after her marriage half a decade ago, following a six-generation long trend of women staying at home in her family.
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Mikayla gets up early in the morning to tend to the animals and sort out the farm (Kennedy News and Media)
Mikayla hopes one day to not just be looking after goats - but children too (Kennedy News and Media)"My mum and [my husband's] mum have done the same thing, our grandparents have done the same thing. We're probably the fifth or sixth generation of home-making wives. We had always known that once we got married that [my husband] was going to be the provider for me and I would be the stay-at-home wife and take care of everything around the home,” Mikayla explains.
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Mikayla has loved making her husband meals from home-grown vegetables, meat from their farm and bread made with flour milled at home ever since they hit it off at a church function in 2017 and married a year later. But she is on the receiving end of much criticism for her choices, claiming she regularly receives Instagram comments from strangers who describe her as “oppressed” or “lazy”.
But there has never been any doubt for Mikayla in what she wanted to do. "I was always looking forward to meeting my husband and becoming a housewife,” she says. “That's what I've always seen women in my life do and what I've always wanted to do.”
The couple own a farm where Mikayla grows produce - and even mills their own flour to make bread (Kennedy News and Media)
Tradwife Mikayla cooks three meals a day for her husband (Kennedy News and Media)
"I have gotten some hateful comments on my social media about being a homemaker. It's mostly just comments about being lazy and that I sit at home and let my husband take care of everything and I'm not doing anything that's fulfilling here,” she added.
On a typical day, Mikayla will take up early to take care of the farm animals - particularly in the spring and summer when she needs to milk the goats, hay the animals and work on the garden. She has to cook three different meals from scratch per day for her husband, who is home for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
“I've got all of these different meals that I cook from scratch,” Mikayla explains. “It usually takes an hour or more of preparation before he comes home to be ready for when he comes home for it.”
"But he is such a kind person that he will never be frustrated at me if I'm having a bad day and I'm not able to get food on the table whenever he walks through the door. I try to do as much of that as I can because I feel like it is my job as his wife to make sure that he comes home to a nice house that has been cleaned."
Mikayla documents her life as a housewife on social media and promotes ‘homemaking’ to other wives - and is on the receiving end of much criticism. But she feels she is doing a role for other women: "I love it because I get to promote homemaking to other wives who maybe don't have that multiple generation family that are also homemakers. They don't really have somebody that they can relate to, and I like being that person for them because it's something I've always grown up knowing that's what I want to do."
Mikayla says this is the “most fulfilled” she has ever felt, claiming that she is “definitely not” oppressed as she chose to have this job. The only next step is building a full family, which they are planning for the future.
They have been “praying” about having children for several years and “hope that God blesses us with children soon”, she says. "I absolutely cannot wait to become a mum. I think it will be so wonderful to instil these values in my children and help out with some of the farm things. We will most likely homeschool and do a lot of the traditional homemaking, homeschooling, homesteading type of things - and hopefully have a home birth as well."
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