{"id":7068180,"date":"2026-09-27T07:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T07:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/i-tried-to-become-a-gay-tradwife-and-failed-abysmally-arwa-mahdawi\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T07:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T07:58:15","slug":"i-tried-to-become-a-gay-tradwife-and-failed-abysmally-arwa-mahdawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7068180","title":{"rendered":"I tried to become a gay tradwife \u2013 and failed abysmally | Arwa Mahdawi"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/strong>I have just eaten what may be the world\u2019s most expensive tomato. It comes from a little region of Philadelphia better known for sports culture than horticulture and was cultivated by yours truly. I spent only a few dollars on the plant, but then I had to buy a tomato cage and a few companion plants to keep it company. Then I had to spend an ungodly amount of time watering it and hacking away at weeds. In short: I put a huge amount of emotional investment into that tomato. Was it worth it? Absolutely not. I should have just gone to Aldi.<\/p>\n

Of course, the tomato growing wasn\u2019t really about saving money, it was about saving my sanity. Earlier this year, my wife and I got a plot<\/a> at our local community garden; buoyed up by this development, I decided to ward off existential angst by throwing myself into tradwife-adjacent hobbies such as gardening and baking. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s possible to be a gay tradwife but, after Googling the subject, I did find a magazine piece<\/a> entitled The Curious Case of the Bisexual Tradwife. Alas, I can\u2019t tell you much more about the phenomenon because there was a paywall. There are a lot of walls to pay in this life and this one did not make the cut.<\/p>\n

While bisexual tradwives may be on the rise, my sourdough isn\u2019t. I acquired some sourdough starter at a community garden fermentation and pickling workshop and, channelling my inner tradwife, I fed it religiously for a couple of weeks before I forgot about it and it died a pungent death. Nary a loaf was baked; the closest I got was buying some bread flour in the supermarket.<\/p>\n

My interest in growing my own seems to have perished, too. Gardening is not the relaxing hobby it\u2019s made out to be; it\u2019s extremely hard work. I would go to the allotment feeling perky and return exhausted, covered in dirt and mosquito bites with bits of twig stuck in my hair. After I neglected my duties for a couple of weeks due to a heatwave, the weeds took over and I received an official violation warning from the garden\u2019s Plot Monitoring Committee. If you get two warnings you get kicked out, and now I, a diligent rule-follower, live in fear of the dreaded second one.<\/p>\n

Anyway, good on the tradwives for making domestic drudgery and hard labour into an aspirational aesthetic, but I think I\u2019ll pass. Forget touching grass, it\u2019s back to doomscrolling on the couch.<\/p>\n

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n