Tate McRae just wants to make a lot of money — and be her own housewife. At least, that’s what she sings on the catchy hook of her shiny new pop hit. But in a world of TikTok trends and trad wives, the meaning behind her empowered song is getting lost.
“Housewife” has quickly become a hit since it was first released on Oct. 18, and even marks McRae’s highest-charting song as a lead artist on the Hot 100 after she nabbed the Number Two slot. The song has also been trending on TikTok, thanks, in part, to many creators on the platform who are using the song to soundtrack their videos idealizing more traditional gender roles when it comes to marriage and family. Some users even changed the lyrics to “Be my man’s housewife,” so that they reflect their own married-life realities.
One video shows a woman dancing in the mirror to the song that used the song’s original lyrics as text on top but adds a pointed parenthetical. It reads, “I just wanna be a stay at home mom, raise godly kids & serve my husband.”
Another video from a woman named Sadie, a self-described “lifestyle and content creator” notched nearly 300,000 thousand views using the song atop a clip of her hugging her husband with text that reshaped McRae’s lyrics to read, “I just want to spend all of his money be his cute housewife.”
In a comment on the video, the creator addressed “haters” and defended her song choice as a “joke,” writing, “To all the haters coming for me over this song choice, please understand im making a little joke and a fun twist on a great song! i have so much respect for women in the workforce and women who provide for themselves. i understand hard work because ive done it and will continue to do it, just in the way that i choose and in a way that may look different then you. my dream has always been to live the classic housewife life, have a husband who provides for our family and stay home to raise my future babies. if that’s not your dream that’s totally okay! every woman deserves to choose her own path! but heaven forbid i have a little fun with a song!!”
Another video shows a creator who posts about her “housewife life” doing chores to McRae’s song as text atop reads, “I just want to stay at home, be my man’s housewife” with a caption that says, “Housewife life is the life for me.” One commenter on the video pointed out that the video “completely lost the plot of the song,” to which the creator responded, “That was the whole point sis.”
Since its release, plenty of other women have also leaned into the song’s intended message in TikTok clips. Olivia Dunne posted her own video using “Housewife” atop a picture of her achievements as a gymnast and a model. “I love this song & standing on business,” Dunne wrote in the caption of her post. Another user posted a clip of herself dancing to the track as text overtop the clip read, “Tate made this for the tradie ladies,” referencing her job in the trades. Another user decided to still focus on her marriage but in a cheeky way when she posted a video of herself in her wedding dress with a message that read, “How this song feels getting married and not posting a single thing with my husband from our wedding.”
As the “trad wife” version of the trend has grown on TikTok, some creators have voiced their opinions against it, noting the irony of co-opting the feminist message of “Housewife” in this way. One woman posted a video where she’s side-eyeing off-camera with text atop the clip that reads, “so who’s gonna tell the tradwives this song there lip syncing [sic] to by Tate McRae means the exact opposite of what they think. Girlies it’s okay to sit out on this one.”
One compilation video read “In a world of this” over various clips of women reimagining “Housewife” juxtaposed it with other videos of women embracing the original song’s lyrics and text that said “BE THIS!!”
“She’s talking about not being dependent on a man,” one creator said in a video that garnered over a million views. “She’s not centering her life around a man. To top it off, the album cover is literally a picture of her pushing around a baby stroller full of cash. What about that is screaming trad wife?”
Taylor Swift at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Here’s to 20 Years of ‘Taylor Swift’
It’s strange to think the songs we used to sing from one of the most famous self-titled debut album’s turn 20 years old today. You know the ones I’m talking about. The song in the car, my favorite song, the whispered songs, “Mary’s Song,” “Our Song.” Twenty years ago, Taylor Swift invited the world into the one she built with these melodies.
Taylor Swift wasn’t just the singer-songwriter’s first album that turned her into a rising Nashville star. It was also the first chapter that sealed Swift’s future success as a superstar musician. Within a year of its release on Oct. 24, 2006, the LP debuted at Number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, earned platinum status, and made hits out of singles “Tim McGraw” and “Our Song.” It’s the reason we’re here today, reflecting on two decades into a career so massive, even the curly-haired mess of a dreamer couldn’t fathom it at 15 years old. That teenager grew into a pop goliath, but it’s easier to fathom when you remember that it’s always been about the songs.
With Taylor Swift, a precocious teen met listeners in their own teenage heartache, their deep-seeded loneliness, and that overarching, painful desire to fit in with a collection of country-pop gems. Who hadn’t cried over an unrequited love the way Swift did on “Teardrops on My Guitar” or felt the chilling rejection apparent on “Cold As You,” or the thrill of finding a best friend who lets you show your true colors like on “I’m Only Me When I’m With You” or even known a friend who suffered from eating disorders as discussed on “Tied Together With a Smile”? Here was a voice singing these stories she’d written, each sigh and imperfect note, making the keen observation of the worlds that much more sincere. That’s what connected with audiences and began the success story that we know so well today.
Throughout her self-titled debut, Swift tapped into the country music songwriting tradition of reminding listeners she’s the one with the pen. On the banjo-driven jaunt, “Our Song,” she laments the fact that there is no song to sum up her rosy romance — until she “grabs a pen and an old napkin” and cements the slamming screen doors and surreptitious late-night calls into her own song. With the help of producer Nathan Chapman and co-writer Liz Rose, Swift learned to master this trick.
Her debut single, “Tim McGraw” is the real shining example of this. On its face, the track chronicles a fleeting summer romance, but the wistful tune turns into a knockout that cemented Swift into country music history when she offers a prescient promise, “I hope you think of me.” With that simple line, the musician showed the transportative power of music.
Taylor Swift is also the first time we heard of the tropes that still run through the singer-songwriter’s catalog. The little black dress in “Tim McGraw,” the front seat in “Our Song,” the rain scattered across multiple songs, the photographs in “Picture to Burn,” the numbers 89 and 87 on “Mary’s Song (Oh My, My My).” With every nano-specific detail, Swift built out her own cinematic universe.
You can hear Swift map out the world-building that would turn into her next 12 albums on the self-titled centerpiece, “A Place in this World.” Over an acoustic guitar, she quips, “I don’t know what I want, so don’t ask me” before declaring, “I’m just a girl, trying to find a place in this world.” That’s the kind of sassy, yet uncertain attitude she brought to her very first album. But really, she always knew what she was doing in some capacity, especially if the hidden or “A Place in This World” is any indication. The uppercase letters in a lyric booklet of lowercase ones spell out: “I Found it.”
In a fitting twist of fate, 2026 not only marks a major anniversary for Swift’s self-titled debut album, it’s also the first year she’s eligible to be recognized in two very prestigious institutions: the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. By Monday, the girl who cried all those tears on her guitar will be both the youngest woman to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall, and youngest-member of the Nashville edition.
During her Songwriters Hall of Fame acceptance speech, Swift reflected on the power of her craft. “As writers, we can only hope to meet people where they are in their lives,” she said. Since 2006, when she was just a high school freshman with a habit of writing songs on her bedroom floor or in math class, she has done exactly that.