With Netflix’s reimagining of Little Home on the Prairie now streaming, there could also be a spike within the general discourse about “trad wives,” a social media development and lifestyle that mimics components of the life-style portrayed within the present.
A tradwife typically refers to a lady who takes on what has lengthy been seen as a “conventional” function of girls in a wedding, family and household. Oftentimes within the dialogue of the current label, magnified by social media (examples embody the Instagram account @ballerinafarm run by Hannah Neeleman), Little Home on the Prairie is used as a reference level for the less complicated, homemaker life led by girls in these instances.
Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear, revealed in April 2026, in addition to different books like Jo Piazza’s Everybody Is Mendacity To You, which got here out July 2025, have added a contemporary bookish angle to the dialogue across the class.
When requested about that framework or context and the way it connects to her reimagining of Laura Ingalls’ Wilder’s supply materials, showrunner of the Netflix adaptation Rebecca Sonnenshine stated she thinks about it lots.
“I don’t actually know a lot about trad spouse influencers and tradition as a result of it’s simply not my beat, however I do suppose it’s attention-grabbing that individuals like to assert issues. My mother was a working skilled. She was a trainer, and but she was an artist, a sculptor and a painter, however she cherished expressing herself by way of home arts, and so did my father,” Sonnenshine instructed Deadline. “He cherished to construct issues, he cherished to backyard, he cherished to make issues together with his palms. My mom cherished to stitch. She sewed my garments. I might draw issues, after which she would embroider these issues that I drew onto my garments. A part of her inventive expression of life was baking and stitching and cooking and gardening. These issues don’t belong to anybody.”
Sonnenshine burdened that one other root of those actions for her household was the intention of giving to others. It may be a pastime or one thing during which working professionals, executives and showrunners like herself interact.
“I, myself, am not a trad spouse, and I’m a very good embroiderer. I could make actually good peach jam. For Christmas, all my household, we give one another do-it-yourself presents. They’re working skilled women and men. I like to stitch, I wish to knit, I wish to bake. These issues don’t get to be claimed by any individual,” she continued. “All these issues are a creative expression of affection since you make them for different folks. The attention-grabbing factor about this influencer tradition is you’re simply making it to indicate different folks that you simply’re retaining it for your self.
“I do these issues to provide away and to make for different folks, like so many individuals do. So many individuals like to share the issues that they make, as a result of it’s an expression of affection, it’s an expression of themselves,” she added. “That’s actually what folks must be taking away from this, not that it’s one thing that’s unique to an individual who stays residence and doesn’t work and cares for kids and makes an exquisite residence. It’s not one thing that belongs to at least one sort of particular person.”
L-R: Warren Christie as John Edwards, Luke Bracey as Charles Ingalls in Netflix’s ‘Little Home on the Prairie’
Eric Zachanowich/Netflix
In the case of Pa’s function within the sequence as builder of the home and furnishings and general what Luke Bracey described to Deadline as “a very good man”, Sonnenshine cited each her mother and father for instance she drew from for the character of Charles Ingalls and the way he offered for his household with the assistance of his spouse. She has beforehand expressed the expansiveness of gender roles within the present and the way she wished to shift perceptions of them.
“It was powerful. My dad was actually into constructing issues. He constructed a geodesic dome with my mother. It was simply the 2 of them, and so I noticed them working facet by facet, which all the time jogged my memory [of Little House],” she stated.“After I was studying these books was once they have been doing that. It appeared completely regular to me that my mother would pitch in with huge tasks and building stuff, and they’d simply do issues collectively. A number of males in my life categorical themselves by way of attention-grabbing tasks with meals and gardening.”
The danger of Pa’s daring endeavor to move out west together with his spouse and daughters was a actuality Sonnenshine wished to seize within the present.
L-R: Luke Bracey as Charles Ingalls, Skywalker Hughes as Mary Ingalls, Alice Halsey as Laura Ingalls, Crosby Fitzgerald as Caroline Ingalls in Netflix’s ‘Little Home on the Prairie’
Eric Zachanowich/Netflix
“The spirit of the books may be very optimistic, like, ‘Oh, Ma dropped a go online her foot, nevertheless it was high-quality,’ and ‘We virtually drowned the river, nevertheless it was high-quality, it was no huge deal.’ They gloss over issues, and so there’s this actual query whenever you adapt one thing like this, ‘How darkish do you wish to make it?’” she stated. “Clearly, we all know what the truth was. It was very, very exhausting, and but the books actually have fun this concept of seeing the magic in issues and seeing the hope in issues, and so it’s an actual balancing act whereas attempting to light up how exhausting it was generally. It was harmful, it was an amazing leap into the unknown, and but [the challenge was] not be cynical about it, and never go too darkish with it.
The showrunner added: “It’s somewhat scary, and we’re nodding to that scariness and that grittiness, but if we went, all American primeval, that might not be capturing the spirit of the books, that isn’t what the books are. The books are concerning the wonders of every part, even adversity. It’s concerning the wonders you discover inside adversity and exhausting instances and resilience and hope, and in order that’s what I’m attempting to stability and seize with this sequence.”