Latest news with #homemaking
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Professional homemaker who offers £200 workshops in cooking and cleaning has followers as young as 10 years old - but insists she's NOT a tradwife
A professional homemaker has revealed how she found global success among fans as young as 10 by teaching domestic skills - and why onlookers should never mistake her for a tradwife. Charlie Gray's West Sussex countryside home she shares with her husband Simon and their three children is by no means in perfect order, but that's not her goal. 'It's about slowing down and taking the time to do small things that end up making you feel better if you've had a stressful day,' Charlie, 44, of Ask Charlie, told Femail. Small things, she explained, include ditching microwave meals for homemade dishes, planning housework, and taking time to put household items in their rightful place rather than casting them aside after use. Older generations may consider her tips basic. But, according to Charlie, the mother of Archie, 16, Coco, 15, and Gus, 14, society is witnessing a downward trajectory in home economics skills. Evidence suggests similarly. Not only is there a takeaway boom, thanks to services like Deliveroo distracting Britons from home-cooked options, but a study by Mintel found 76 per cent of the nation's parents, with children aged 6 to 17, say that their offspring have zero cleaning responsibilities. According to Charlie, the trend is resulting in individuals who are unable to adequately care for their homes due to a lack of life experience and education. That's where she steps in. 'I teach practical skills, cooking, running a home, making life easier. From batch cooking, to meal planning and organising your time.' With her values and dedication to a relaxed home, people might be quick to label her a tradwife, but Charlie believes them to be wrong. 'I don't want to be associated with them at all. I run my own business. I have my own income. I pay taxes. So I'm not a tradwife.' Charlie owes her homemaking skillset to her mother, who equipped her with the necessary skills to have a comfortable home life from an early age. 'I had an amazing mother who taught my brother and I how to do most things, and I grew up thinking that that was normal,' she said. When she became a mother, her husband travelled for work, and so she sought outside help to ease her load of raising three children born consecutively over three years. The influencer, who has more than 34,000 followers on Instagram, is married to husband Simon, 18 years her senior, whom she met while working as a secretary - she described him in an interview with The Telegraph last month as 'the most wonderful man I've ever met'. His career, running a successful seafood business, has meant she is able to stay at home and care for the couple's children, Archie, Coco and Gus. Charlie said, 'We didn't have any family that could come and help if there was a problem, or if I'd had a sleepless night. There wasn't anyone to call and say, 'Can you come and be an extra pair of hands?' So, we had an au pair.' Though she didn't know it at the time, that hire would help spark her lightbulb moment for her business because she quickly realised that others didn't share her level of understanding regarding domestic skills. 'It was then that I realised that practical skills haven't been passed down through the generations like they used to be,' she said. @askcharliehow My sourdough masterclass, I have made it as easy as I possibly can to teach you how to make your own starter and bake sourdough bread at home, with very tutorials and the note that go with I take you step by step how to make wonderful loaves at home! The links on my bio #sourdoughbread #sourdoughstarter #sourdoughbaking #makeyourownsourdoughstarter #onlinecourse ♬ original sound - Charlie Gray Charlie believes cooking skills dwindled in the late '70s when ready meals became a novelty in the UK. 'It was easy just to pop something in the oven that was frozen, and it was an exciting novelty. 'Now, there's a shift in society where people don't want ultra-processed food, people want to look after themselves. They want to know what they're eating, they don't want to eat rubbish, and so I think it's a circle back.' By 2018, when her children were a little older, Charlie decided to act on her findings and launched Ask Charlie. Explaining on her website, she writes, 'I am very aware that a lot of these practical skills that were passed down from parents have been lost over time. Without home economics lessons being taught anymore, I hope with Ask Charlie I can help. With her booming social media accounts, where she shares her tips and tricks, comprehensive online courses, and a podcast, Charlie has helped thousands of people across the globe. Many learn from her for free through social content, and she also offers online courses, starting from £5, as well as a course called Efficient Home, which runs over four weeks and costs £200. Beneath the surface of teaching how to fold, iron, and bake, Charlie is teaching others how to find comfort in their surroundings. She said, 'It's about finding what's important to you and what makes you feel comfortable in your home and your environment. 'The world is a crazy place. You listen to the news, and it's awful, and you need to have some comfort and security. Cooking and nurturing are that for a lot of people. 'I want to create. I don't want there to be controversy and angst, I just want people to feel safe and secure in their environment. So, it's a bit of escapism as well.' The reception, Charlie said, has been 'amazing'. 'I get messages from people daily, saying, 'Thank you for sharing that. It's made life easier for me.' So, it's been really positive.' Her client base is dotted around the globe, and she has younger generations soaking up her knowledge, such as how to make sourdough, and becoming fans. 'The youngest I'm aware of is 10,' Charlie said before recalling the time the child came up to her and said, 'I'm your biggest fan. I've watched all your videos. I love them, and I find you really inspiring.' Charlie continued, 'Then I have a lady in Australia who is in her late seventies. It's really varied, and there's quite a few men as well.' Closer to home, Charlie's children, Archie, Coco, and Gus, are also learning the ways of a smooth-running home from their mother. 'I get them involved,' Charlie said, adding, 'I think it's important as a parent that we can teach our children as much as possible, so they're ready when they fly the nest, and they can cook a meal, wash their clothes, and change a bed. 'It's very daunting when you leave home and go off to university, or a first job, or whatever it might be, if you don't know how to do things. So, I think it's about preparing them for the future.' It's not just her children's future she's busy prepping for, but also her own. What that entails exactly, she can't yet reveal. But she assured Femail that a string of 'very exciting' projects are in the works.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘There are no breaks and no bonus': Proud trad wife barks back at critics who ‘think being at home isn't real work'
A modern-day 'Leave It To Beaver' family. In an era when many women are trying to step away from traditional gender roles, Maria West is doing the complete opposite — by proudly owning the title of being a 'trad wife.' The Seattle woman loves nothing more than being a stay-at-home mom and wife while her real estate husband goes out to work all day. Most of the days, the 30-year-old can be found at home fulfilling her homemaking duties, taking care of her family and tending to their home — and she does it all while wearing a full face of makeup, sometimes a sundress and a smile on her face. 'I don't want to look like one of the boys,' the mother-of-two told What's The Jam. 'Even in the chaos of motherhood, I want to feel soft, beautiful and grounded.' The 30-year-old said it's not vain of her to want to look and feel good while she's tending to the needs of her family. 'I want to reflect love and care for my home, my husband and my children – and that starts with how I carry myself,' she told the outlet. 'Sometimes it's a full face of makeup and a dress, other days it's a brushed ponytail and a matching lounge set – but I always try.' West acknowledges that her attitude is quite unique — especially these days. 'Culture tells women to fear getting left behind, to hustle, to choose independence over intimacy. My rebellion is building something with my husband and showing my children that motherhood is powerful, not passive,' she said. And this mom isn't the only one embracing the sourdough making, dinner on the table by 6 p.m. lifestyle. A California mom and influencer, Gretchen Adler lives a similar life — yet takes her Suzy Homemaker ways a step further. Adler has gone viral on social media for her time in the kitchen making unprocessed versions of classic junk food for her family, like homemade Cheez-Its and Oreos. 'I think a lot of women are looking for this lifestyle,' Adler, 38, told The Post. 'They want to take back their homes. They want to get out of the fast-paced lifestyle of the job environment, the boss babe mentality, and they just want to be home.' 'I don't think it needs to have a negative connotation at all,' she added. And despite these women receiving criticism from others — they seem rather unfazed by it. 'Some people assume that choosing home means you're repressed or small-minded, which is wild considering I'm just over here making soup and minding my own business,' West told What's The Jam. 'And if anyone still thinks being at home isn't real work, I invite them to keep a toddler alive, fed and off the kitchen counters for 12 hours straight – [where there are] no breaks and no bonus,' she said.
Daily Mail
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
British Trad Wife Charlie Gray says women thank her for giving them 'permission to be at home'
A British Trad Wife says that people have thanked her for 'giving them permission' to be a stay-at-home parent. Charlie Gray, 42, who lives in a large house in the West Sussex countryside, regularly posts her tips on homemaking on her @ askcharliehow Instagram and YouTube pages and says she is proud to be a traditional housewife. A growing number of women particularly in the US and increasingly the UK, are calling themselves Trad Wives - rejecting the feminist plight in the hopes of championing traditional feminine roles of looking after the home and keeping out of work. Speaking to Woman's Hour presenter Nuala McGovern on Tuesday, Charlie, who runs cookery courses on making dishes such as sourdough and foraged wild nettle pasta, says she hasn't encountered any negativity about not having a formal job. When McGovern suggested to the mother of three teenagers that the content she makes might be 'setting women back', Gray responded: 'I've just had people saying "thank you for giving me permission to be able to stay at home and not feel the pressure to go back to work"'. The influencer, who has more than 34,000 followers on Instagram, is married to husband Simon, 18 years her senior, whom she met while working as a secretary - she described him in an interview with The Telegraph last month as 'the most wonderful man I've ever met'. His career, running a successful seafood business has meant she is able to stay at home and care for the couple's children, Archie, Coco and Gus. Gray told Woman's Hour that she spotted the need for her housewifery tips after realising that homemaking skills hadn't been passed down - after she ended up teaching the family au pair basic cooking skills. She said: 'We had au pairs for our children. We had three children under the age of two, and it was crazy so we enlisted an au pair to come and help, and she couldn't even boil an egg. 'So then I found myself with an extra child to teach how to do these things. 'And that's when I realised that practical skills haven't been passed down through the generations like they used to be.' The Trad Wife added: 'Running a home and being a housewife is a very, very busy important role if a wife or husband chooses to do that, and I'm sharing these tips to make life easier.' Reactions to the YouTuber's appearance on the BBC Radio 4 show were mixed, with many suggesting that her social media work is a job, saying: 'All power to her and she looks really interesting and with a clear style but she isn't a "trad wife", she's a successful businesswomen with an interesting premise.' Others agreed that vital practical skills have been lost, with one writing: 'Learning to cook for yourself and run a house is a skill every adult should have housewife or not, I don't think this is controversial. Why are people upset she's teaching people how to bake bread?' Another recounted how she'd cared for her children but faced criticism for the decision, saying: 'I stayed at home with my three children and honestly loved every minute; the backlash from other parents however was not pleasant, but it mostly stemmed from they thought I was rich enough not to work, which wasn't true.' Last week, the most famous Trad Wife of them all, Nara Smith, was criticised by some for glamourising teen pregnancy after posting a controversial TikTok. The 23-year-old, who shares three children with husband Lucky Blue, posted a video celebrating being a young mother. The clip, which showed her hugging her young child in a paddock, was captioned: 'POV: You decided to have kids at 18 and this is your fifth Mother's Day.' Nara rose to fame through TikTok, where she flaunts her 'tradwife' (traditional housewife) lifestyle, baking extravagant meals for her family while seeming to effortlessly care for her young children. While her social media shows a lavish lifestyle, where she wears designer clothing in a beautiful home, many have pointed out very few teen moms can afford the same lifestyle. 'Nara please don't glamorize this. Happy for you but your life at 18 is not most teens realities…,' one response read. 'Reminder to all the 18-year-olds, you do not have Nara Smith money,' read another. 'Girlies at 18 you don't have Nara Smith money so this ain't your sign,' someone else shared. 'No. DO NOT GET INFLUENCED PLEASE. Finish your college. Get a job. Become financially stable,' agreed another.
