Nara Smith is Mormon and Mormonism is harmful nonsense. Consequently, it’s wild any black individual would become Mormon, because if you know anything about their beliefs like girl, what?
However, the religious right cherry-picking the convenient parts of a religion is par for the course.
And this is about her tradwife views, which aren’t specific to Mormonism.
But is Nara evem a tradwife and is being a tradwife a bad thing from a Biblical perspective? What even is a tradwife?
Loosely the definition of a “traditional wife” appears to be a married woman who believes in traditional gender roles. The woman stays home, takes care of the kids, and does most (all) of the cooking/cleaning, and household labor including making sure everyone has toothpaste, toilet paper, etc.
The husband works a job usually outside of the home in such a way where he does less actual work and gets breaks during the day, but he gets paid money and thus deserves to rest once he gets home. This is unlike his wife, who should not only have dinner waiting for him but be joyfully available.
Ideally, the husband pays all the bills but even this appears to be optional given the number of trad wife influencers whom are exploiting their children online for monetary gain *see SarahTherese, Morgan Olliges, SolieOlie, Ballerinafarm, Nowthatimamother/family, Misformama, etc.*
This dynamic is not Biblical.
Nowhere does the Bible forbid women from working, and demand they stay home with their children. Proverbs 31 talks about a woman who works. The Bible says, “And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.“(KJV which traditionalist apparently love). So even in Old Testament times men were cleaning up after themselves.
Now, the Bible does say men who do not care for their families are worse than unbelievers, which tracks because during that time women could not work. So, if a man was lazy (similar to how David Rodrigues of the rodriguesfamilyservingjesus goes around grifting, printing tracks nobody reads, and “preaching” despite having 0 qualifications to be a preacher instead of getting a job while his children resemble dying Victorian orphans), that man was basically dooming his entire family to starvation and homelessness.
That said, I’ve found little actual evidence Nara is a trad wife.
She’s a model and social media influencer with young kids, and she doesn’t even have a crazy amount of children. Nowhere does she encourage women to get married young and have kids; nor is she regularly calling women who go to college sinners.
In fact, her channel is basically Tini in a dress. However, nobody is out here calling Tini a trad wife because she cooks from scratch. So, it seems only if a women cooks from scratch in a flowery sundress whilst not cursing does one become a trad wife.
Furthermore, Nara’s channel is like a circus show. Nobody is making mocha peppermint pie and Sunday roast whilst wearing a peacock gown. Not even Nara unless it’s for social media, because what she presents online is unrealistic. That’s part of the show though; it’s not meant to be realistic, but entertaining.
This seems to be the real issue with Nara: that she doesn’t seem authentic. Her voice is fake, her baking in cute dresses is forced upon her by her husband.
This obsession with authenticity isn’t limited to influencers, but has crept into all areas of entertainment. Musicians who don’t write their own music are looked down upon by those who exploit their personal experiences for gain. After all, my girl Taylor has built an entire empire making her private life a public spectacle to entertain the masses.
Authenticity is a good thing, but choosing to be private online isn’t deceptive either. Proverbs 17:27-28 says, “[w]hoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”
Proverbs was onto something here. It’s okay to choose how to present yourself online. If netizens are too dimwitted to clock that what Nara presents is meant to be entertaining and maybe a little helpful, but necessarily real – well, that’s on them.
That said, this whole thing brought me back to the trenches that is femininity. Despite the dedication conservative Christians spend on this topic online, Christian men and women really should not behave any different from each other.
Proverbs 31 outlines a wife of noble character. She is someone who is resourceful, intelligent, hard working, and wise, and she also was not a real person. Proverbs 31 is also written King Lemuel (probably Solomon) in which the writer was encouraging Lemuel to look for a woman of character. It was not written as a rubric for Biblical womanhood.
Furthermore, Proverbs 1-31 outlines how men should behave. Rarely, do I see Christian men talk about being a Proverbs 1-30 husband, but everyone wants a Proverbs 31 wife?
Anyway, is Nara Smith promoting a harmful message?
Yes and no. Her channel is mostly innocuous but every so often she’ll sprinkle in something inane like:
Obvious propaganda. Nara lucked out by marrying Lucky whilst being wealthy enough to afford a certain, affluent lifestyle at a very young age. And she literally works. She models, and creates and posts content regularly. Even if she has someone cleaning up after her and editing her videos, she’s still cooking, filming, creating content, modeling, and taking care of her kids.
This is why it’s important to read your Bible, because comparison is the thief of joy. And when you read your Bible and see nowhere does it require women Biblical to marry and pump out infinite babies for the Lord in order to be like Christ, you will be less susceptible to trad wife propaganda even if you see it.
Of course, if you want to live a traditional lifestyle go for it. Just know you are not holier or more sanctified than working women, women who choose not to have kids, women who go to college, and so on.
What sanctifies us is a relationship with Jesus Christ. A belief in Him, that He died for our sins and raised from the dead. This is what makes us Christians and what makes us holy.
So, ditch trad wife jargon and pick up the Word of God. It’ll do you far more good than any recipe from scratch or Tik Tok video will do.
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