Hello and welcome back to The Darling Academy.
My name is Alena Kate Pettitt and
I talk about etiquette, feminine lifestyle,
homemaking and being a traditional housewife.
I wouldn't expect my husband to come home from a long day's work
and have to cook for me,
because my role is being at home,
my job is essentially housework.
So I choose what we eat,
where I buy it,
how much I spend on things.
So that's a monthly allowance if you want to give it that kind of phrase.
There's always a bit of a buffer in there for me to spend something on myself
so that I'm not always asking him for money.
With the tradwife movement a lot of people want to label
you as something, you know,
something that you might not have even thought of.
Someone even said about
"this type of housewife was promoted by the Third Reich."
And it's like, "Was it, really? I didn't even know that!"
REPORTER: From your website
it looks very much about British etiquette.
So how much is to do with
the British elements of things?
So, it's almost harnessing
the best of what made Britain kind of great
during that time where you could leave your front door open
and know that you were safe
and you knew your neighbours in the street.
And we can have that again.
I mean times are changing so fast
and we don't even know the identity of our country right now.
When I was at school I don't think I was particularly a popular girl.
The culture at the time was anything but what I enjoyed
and it definitely made me feel like an outsider.
It was all kind of let's fight the boys and
go out and be independent and break glass ceilings.
But I just felt like I was born to be a mother and a wife.
What I really related to were the old shows of the 1950s and 60s,
I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.
I grew up in a single-parent household
and my mum had to go out to work.
The home became just this huge burden for her,
and I suppose at that point in time
I probably identified that I didn't want that same life.
The rebellion really came when I met my husband.
And he being very traditional as well,
I think he just identified that.
He said, "I know that you want a man to look after you and to make you feel secure."
And he offered himself as that person.
And as soon as that happened, I just was like,
"Finally someone sees it", you know?
Finally I can be myself. I don't have to hide who I am anymore.
It's almost like the fairytale came true.
In my early twenties I was the typical career girl.
I went to London, I was working long hours,
because the advice that was coming at me
from the media at the time - shows like Sex and the City.
Apparently it's wonderful and liberating.
And you know, I should be in touch with my sexual side.
We've got the Real Housewives that you see
and they're, you know, ridiculously wealthy
don't even have to do their own cleaning,
and their lives are pretty much a mess.
Or the ones popularised in soap operas
where they're nagging and miserable
and everybody's cheating on each other.
I joined social media and I realised quite quickly
there was almost like an underground movement
of other women who felt the same.
I mean you get all different varying degrees of feminists.
You get the ones that seem to think that
our decision to stay home is somehow impacting upon them,
and that we're throwing it back in their face
that they fought for equality in the workplace.
My view of feminism is that it's about choices.
And to say on the one hand, "You can go into the working world
and compete with men." Yet you're not allowed to stay at home.
That's actually taking a choice away.
I have been posting for the last month on YouTube.
And I did post a video four days ago, which was,
I shared my five reasons as to why I love being a traditional housewife.
And the response - I haven't been able to keep up with it,
it's been overwhelmingly positive.
I think the whole thing about a tradwife
is you invest in your husband, and you invest in your family.
And you inspire them to be the best people that they can,
so it's a very selfless thing to do.
So I would say the opposite of that is
someone who is inherently selfish and just takes.