There Is No "Soft Life" Through Marriage
Dedicated to the "bridal class of 2025."
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver.
If I can debunk corrosive right wing propaganda—particularly as it relates to single women—I’m going to do it. Today we’re confronting the “soft life” fallacy. I’m ready to highlight the “young tradwife to please watch my TikTok video so I can afford to divorce my husband” pipeline, because I’m not sure everyone knows about it. It’s real, it’s happening right now, and it’s terrifying. I mean…it’s 2025, what isn’t.
To be a bit abrasive about it, I’m tired of seeing support pour in for these women without a breath spared for how they ended up in their position in the first place. They got there by believing the patriarchal lie that keeping the home, “not working,” and raising babies was somehow easier and more enjoyable than working outside the home and earning an income—and we still don’t think it’s appropriate to remind them that they wanted this. In addition, we are still falsely elevating and aggrandizing brides and mothers while shaming female singlehood as the worst case scenario. There is nothing “soft” about strapping your life down to cooking, cleaning, and child rearing 24/7/365 while only getting “paid” in room and board, without an ounce of help from your husband because he doesn’t think it’s his job. In my opinion, prevention is better than a cure, so let’s talk about how hard it is to lead and to leave the “soft life.”