Home
News
Nara Smith has been called the internet’s ultimate "tradwife", but she says we’ve got her completely wrong

Nara Smith has been called the internet’s ultimate "tradwife", but she says we’ve got her completely wrong

The mum-of-four says the picture we see online is very different from the reality of her marriage, work and family life

Call Her Daddy

Ruairidh Pritchard

Published: August 10, 2026 at 4:11 PM

Save

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok, chances are you know the Nara Smith formula. Impossibly glamorous outfit, immaculate kitchen, soothing voiceover, and something most of us would grab from the supermarket being painstakingly made from scratch.

The model, content creator and mum-of-four has made everything from chewing gum to cereal and cough drops at home, often introducing her creations with what husband Lucky Blue Smith is craving.

It’s an aesthetic that has seen Nara repeatedly labelled a “tradwife”, shorthand for a woman who embraces traditional gender roles and prioritises homemaking, husband and children.

Speaking to Alex Cooper on the Call Her Daddy podcast, she insists the marriage, motherhood and career behind those immaculate videos look very different from what millions of viewers think they see.

‘They used me as the poster child for the tradwife movement’

Nara said she initially had to look up “tradwife” after the term became attached to her.

Want to see this content?

This page contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Instagram may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose 'Accept and continue' to allow Instagram and its required purposes.

Accept and continue

After reading a definition describing a woman who typically prioritises homemaking and caring for children, takes primary responsibility for the household and supports her husband as breadwinner, Nara was unequivocal.

So with that definition and those points, I’m none of that.

Nara Smith

“I don’t prioritise being a homemaker. I’m a working mom. I am out in LA. I travel a lot,” she told Cooper.

Cooking, she says, is a passion, partly influenced by changes she made after developing health problems, rather than a statement about what a wife should do.

Is the internet falling out of love with the tradwife?

Nara's comments arrive at an interesting moment for the tradwife phenomenon. After years of fascination with sourdough starters, immaculate kitchens and highly traditional visions of domestic life, there are signs that the internet is beginning to question the fantasy it helped create.

That conversation has also spilled into fiction. Caro Claire Burke's novel Yesteryear takes the tradwife influencer to its darkest conclusion, following a hugely successful social media personality who has built her brand around an idealised version of traditional domestic life.

The book taps into many of the questions that have followed the real-life trend: how much of what we're watching is authentic, how much is performance, and what happens when an influencer's carefully curated version of motherhood becomes a lucrative brand?

It's also prompted questions about whether the tradwife trend has peaked. And when Nara Smith, one of the women most associated with it, says the label never fitted her in the first place, it’s easy to see why.

“I tried so hard to correct the narrative,” she told Cooper, explaining that she eventually realised some people simply didn't want their perception of her challenged.

Want to see this content?

Accept and continue

Why you don't see her children's faces anymore

There is one part of Nara's life where the boundary has become much firmer: her children.

She told Cooper that she used to share more, until an unsettling experience changed her approach.

An old Instagram Story featuring her daughter sitting on a sofa resurfaced on TikTok and received millions of views. Nara said she was disturbed by comments focusing on her daughter's physical appearance, including her eyes and lips, and found some came from profiles belonging to older men.

I’m actually doing my kids a disservice by exposing them and making them vulnerable on the internet.

Nara Smith

The experience prompted a new rule.

“When it comes to social media and social media content, no kids’ faces. I don’t want them being recognised.”

Want to see this content?

Accept and continue

That doesn't mean pretending her children don't exist. They might be seen running around in the background, for example, but she deliberately avoids identifying their faces.

For professional opportunities, the decision can be more nuanced. Nara says she and Lucky consider them individually, weighing up what their children might value in the future while setting boundaries with brands.

Behind the perfect videos, Nara was struggling postpartum

That gap between what Nara shows online and what is happening behind the scenes became particularly stark after the birth of her fourth child, Fawnie. Nara told Cooper she experienced severe postpartum anxiety for around two weeks, at times feeling so disconnected from reality that she asked Lucky, “did I die?”

She admits she didn't tell her midwife because she wanted to be seen as a “very collected, strong woman”, something she now wishes she'd handled differently. Just three weeks after giving birth, she was back at work shooting images for her book, while continuing to post the polished content her followers expected.

I really wish I would have told my midwife or gotten a therapist or someone to just help navigate.

Nara Smith

For Nara, the experience has changed how she talks about those first weeks after birth. She now encourages other mums struggling postpartum to seek support, particularly around anxiety and intrusive thoughts, which she believes aren't discussed openly enough.

The Nara Smith we don't see on TikTok

Nara says becoming more famous has actually made her more selective about what she reveals, after watching strangers construct stories from tiny details in her posts.

And that might be the key to understanding the apparent contradiction at the centre of Brand Nara.

We see the dress, the kitchen and the food being made for her husband. We don't see Lucky cleaning, the couple switching childcare while the other works, or the four children just outside the frame.

Why can’t we be a working mom that enjoys cooking, that enjoys being at home and taking care of our kids, but also is on the next plane out to LA to take business meetings with big executives? Why can’t that coexist?

Nara Smith

Whether or not the internet's fascination with “tradwives” is fading, Nara seems determined to complicate the label attached to her.

Because perhaps the most revealing thing about the internet's ultimate tradwife is that she never considered herself one in the first place.

Read more:

Authors

Ruairidh PritchardDigital Growth Lead

Ruairidh is the Digital Lead on MadeForMums. He works with a team of fantastically talented content creators and subject-matter experts on MadeForMums.