Every August for the last few years, I have thrown myself into a feminist frenzy. August is Women’s Month in South Africa, one of the only months of the year, bar December (when we briefly talk about GBV) that ‘Women’s Issues’ get assigned space in news outlets, corporate events calendars, and company budgets. While I’ve actively tried to resist being drawn into a month that has lost all semblance of its historical purpose and has become yet another box to tick, I always ended up like a moth to flame: in the midst of events and speeches, exhausted and slightly worse for wear afterwards. 

So this August, I’ve done the opposite, aided by a one-month career break. I resigned from my corporate job and asked my new employer to wait for me for a month. I had simple goals: learn how to cook 5 meals my children actually enjoyed, bake their birthday cakes instead of outsourcing them (which I have done every year since they were born), and take our two puppies for walks while listening to trashy crime novels.

As August draws to a close, I am proud to say that I achieved all of my goals. I did nothing I would usually call ‘constructive’ and instead escaped into entirely non-cerebral activities. And I loved every minute of it. I gained so much more than 5 recipes. I started sleeping again, through the night, without 3am wake-ups filled with panic about work. I stopped running the kids’ morning routine like a military operation and in turn, they fought less. My husband and I watched TV together every night, which we haven’t done in years because ‘working me’ is in bed by 8pm. We stopped bitching at each other over stupid shit, and the things that would usually infuriate me about him just…didn’t. I became a better friend, remembering special occasions and birthdays, responding to WhatsApps immediately, not days later. And I found joy in cooking and eating and stopped giving a damn about the meal’s macros.

Could this be my life? This space where traditional gender roles are a relief, rather than a burden? Where there is no resentment towards my husband for not doing more at home, or the kids for derailing our tightly controlled timeline? Where I am a better friend, better daughter, better wife and mother and just all round better human being? 

I know I’m not alone in this. The rise of #Tradwives in the US and the ‘soft-life’ movement in Nigeria and SA is a direct response from a new generation of women that have watched those that have come before them try to do it all and have it all, only to end up unhappy and exhausted. There are many counter arguments to this, of course, most of which I have armed myself with for years.: I WANT to do it all. I CAN do it all. I need something to keep me challenged, I want to exist in ‘the world’. I have to be financially independent. Stress is good, routine is essential, a dual income household is the only way to maintain our lifestyle, which is important. How else will we keep up with our friends? And so it goes…running in a hamster wheel through our one precious life. 

Am I a convert to the soft life now? No. But for the first time in my life, I get it. I also know that long-term, at least for me, being ‘only’ a wife and a mother is not enough. I still believe that all human beings - no matter their gender - need something outside of their immediate family. Something for themselves, for their ego, for their place in the world. 

As I embark on the next chapter in my career, I know that despite all the lessons I’ve learnt in August, I will run headfirst into what comes next. My husband and I will bitch at each other over stupid shit, my kids’ morning routine will run like clockwork, I will regularly wake up at 3am in a cold sweat, and I will respond to WhatsApps 24 hours late. But from now on, I will always bake their birthday cakes and I will know there is joy in cooking - and eating. Most importantly though, I will stop hating on tradwives and admire them for fighting back against a society that has told them for too long that they should want to do it all.