The Missing Voice in the ‘Tradwife’ vs. ‘Have It All’ Debate: The Child’s

Two very different portraits of modern conservative women appeared recently in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. In one, a former “tradwife” influencer, Lauren Southern, recounts a harrowing personal tale of retreating from the online battlefield to the kitchen—only to find herself isolated, demeaned, and financially vulnerable. In the other, high-powered conservative mothers—White House staffers, governors, senators—offer a model of working motherhood so relentlessly busy it leaves little room for lingering over bedtime stories.

The message from both? Women’s choices about motherhood remain deeply politicized—and, as Maria Bauer pointed out yesterday, neither side is centering on the only voice that cannot speak for itself: the child’s.

In my practice, I’ve spent decades listening to what children tell us—through their behavior, emotional health, and resilience, about what they need most. I’ve witnessed firsthand in the adults that I see in my practice what happens when those needs aren’t met. The research is clear: in the first three years of life, children require consistent, predictable, and emotionally attuned care, ideally from a parent—most often the mother. This is not an ideology. It is developmental science.

That’s why I find our public discourse on motherhood so troubling. The political Left often frames motherhood in terms of personal fulfillment, career equity, and feminist self-determination to the extent that a woman’s desire to stay home during her baby’s first years can be met with suspicion, as if she’s betraying the sisterhood. On the Right, we hear paeans to family values, but little acknowledgement of the economic and structural realities that force most mothers into the workforce well before they or their babies are ready. Often, conservative rhetoric celebrates stay-at-home motherhood while opposing the very social, economic, and cultural supports that would allow more women to make that choice without hardship.

What gets lost in the noise is that this isn’t a binary choice. Choosing to focus on your child’s early development does not mean you’ve “given up” your career forever. It means you’ve made a strategic investment that will pay off in your child’s mental health, your relationship with them, and your long-term satisfaction as a mother and professional. As I’ve written before, women can have it all—just not all at once. It also requires men to step up and recognize the profound importance of this developmental period, not just for their children but for their roles as supportive partners.

This truth is hard to hold in a culture addicted to immediacy. Both the “tradwife” fantasy and the “have-it-all-now” hustle flatten the complex rhythms of a mother’s life into a single frame. But real life is seasonal. There is a season for slowing down—for being physically and emotionally present in the nursery. There will be another for re-entering the world with renewed focus and a deep well of purpose because your child’s inner world is secure.

Both the 'tradwife' fantasy and the 'have-it-all-now' hustle flatten the complex rhythms of a mother’s life into a single frame. But real life is seasonal.

When I wrote my first book, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, the responses were swift and guttural. For some, reading the book highlighted feelings of guilt and shame that were bubbling below the surface of their psyche, which isn’t the point.  Even the Wall Street Journal profiled the fracas between the political and social interpretation of my book. What Being There highlights is that prioritizing your child’s emotional and cognitive development by focusing on their early years is a sacrifice as much as it is a strategic investment. It’s an investment that yields immense returns in their mental health, your bond with them, and your long-term fulfillment, both personally and professionally. It’s not about working moms vs. SAHMs or conservative vs. liberal moms. It’s about centering your focus on your child when they are at their most emotionally vulnerable as much as possible and giving practical tools to do so, even when you have to work. It’s about being able to recognize that, as C.S. Lewis posits, children are not a distraction from important work but are the most important work—should you choose to have them.

If we genuinely care about the next generation, we will stop politicizing motherhood and start organizing society around what children need. That means more flexible work arrangements, paid parental leave, and a cultural shift toward valuing the work of caregiving not just in lip service, but in policy and practice. It means conservatives dropping the judgment of mothers who work, and liberals dropping the judgment of mothers who choose to stay home.

A present, attuned caregiver in the first years of life is not a luxury. It’s a developmental necessity. What is suitable for children in those early years is the same for mothers, for fathers, for families, and for the society we’re building. The debate should start there and work outward.

Erica Komisar, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters and Chicken Little The Sky Isn’t Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety.

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