Pronatalism, Trad Wives and (Maybe) Life on Mars with Dagwood and Blondie

By Fred Bruning

April 27, 2025

In the 60s, a group called Zero Population Growth – ZPG – urged couples to have no more than two children.

“Stop at Two,” was the plea.

My wife, Wink, and I did exactly that – stopped at two.

Twice.

Yes, four kids in five years – skyrockets and trumpet blast for Wink, please – and then, finally, sort of got the gist of things.

ZPG’s idea was a worthy one – Earth’s resources are finite, the environment is in peril, slow down, awready.

We were on board with the philosophy but missed something in the follow-through.

Now, all of a sudden, another moment arrives.

Here comes pronatalism. Are we redeemed?

This is an appeal for people to have more children because – according to advocates –depopulation threatens civilization and family structure.

Like just about everything, there is a political angle.

President Donald Trump (five offspring) has gone full pronatal, foresees a “baby boom” and is considering a proposal to pay mothers $5,000 after each birth.

JD Vance (three children, but the vice president and his wife, Usha, are still young enough for more) and the inevitable Elon Musk (14 kids, according to People magazine, including the cute little 4-year-old, “X,” often astride his dad’s shoulders), are big-time pronatalists who worry that there simply will not be enough humanoids around to sustain the race and bring to fruition what Musk proclaims will be an “ah-mazing” future, perhaps on Mars if our planet proves ready for trade-in.

OK, let’s leave partisan issues aside and take note that while pronatalism is having a moment, so is a perhaps companion trend which extols the “tradwife” – a “traditional” woman who devotes herself mainly to a simple life and household chores while, just like, oh, Dagwood and Blondie, the man goes out to slay the world, and, more important, earns enough to pay the mortgage.

The New York Times tells us that a particular tradwife in Utah who, simmering a pot of beef stroganoff, noticed just in time that she had omitted mustard and Worcestershire sauce and quickly added the ingredients, both whipped up from scratch.

“It is not exactly hard to make your own mustard or Worcestershire, but who would bother?” the Times wondered.

Answer is Hannah Neeleman, who trained at Julliard to be a dancer but now, husband of Daniel, mother of eight, is a tradwife to the max – so proficient that she has become a domesticity superstar who posts frequently on social media from her “Ballerina Farm.” (Videos show Neeleman concocting her own SpaghettiOs and Cocoa Puffs. Bet the kids are thrilled.)

“I always knew that ballet wasn’t my life’s goal,” she told the Times. “This is the life I always wanted.”

Some wonder if the tradwife movement – yup, another, add it to the list – is just the latest nostalgia trip back to the good old “Leave it to Beaver” days where women greeted their homecoming heroes in high heels, perfect hair, the promise of warm apple pie for dessert and an evening of PG-rated marital bliss.

In a Time magazine essay, historian Jacqueline Beatty said the retro tradwife ethic imperils “hard-fought (if incomplete) gains of women’s rights activists throughout American history.” The cultural consequences, Beatty said, could be “dangerous.”

Nothing is simple, even simplicity.

Where do the rest of us find ourselves in all this?

When you had children, most likely you did not consider yourself a pronatal warrior safeguarding cultural norms and preserving the status quo.

Likewise, in marriage, if she did the laundry and cooking and he shoveled snow and rehabbed the garage door after one of the teenage drivers – again – neglected to open it before backing out, chances are no one was thinking, ah, isn’t tradwifery grand?

Winky and I got married at 21 and 22.

Courageously, Wink stayed home when the kids were little. As soon as the four could be trusted not to burn down the house or sponsor an illicit beer blast if left alone for a few hours, she started service as a social worker.

On a flow chart of family duties, I think we’re about even.

Except for one thing.

Wink did the hard part of having kids. Four in five years, stopping twice at two.

We’ve never expected praise from ZPG. But where is the White House?

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive