Hard-drinking, illicit substances, promiscuity and all-black ensembles. That neatly summarises most of my twenties and early thirties.I was the last person on earth you'd expect to become a 'trad wife', as they've been dubbed on social media. Women who stay home with the children, bake sourdough and tend to chickens while dressed in floaty floral dresses.Yet here I am ticking all those boxes, certainly in the happiest chapter of my life and proving that the feminist agenda I was fed growing up – 'Career is everything! Kids are dreadful! Never rely on a man!' – was not in fact the blueprint for a fulfilled life.Indeed, across the West there's been a cultural swing back towards more old-fashioned values, especially in the US and among conservative circles. The popularity of trad wife influencers like Hannah Neeleman from the Instagram account Ballerina Farm, who boasts more than ten million followers and has a whopping eight children, is a reflection of that. As was Ian Birrell's recent investigation in the Daily Mail into the British men or 'Passport Bros' rejecting 'overbearing' Western women and travelling to Asia in search of traditional wives.It's a natural correction, as far as I'm concerned, for the failed experiment that my generation underwent; which pushed women too far towards a so-called 'liberated' existence and away from a family-focused life.I went to a competitive, academic all-girls school where we were all expected to go to university, whether or not we'd become fed up as I had of sitting in a classroom by the age of 18. I, like most of my peers, had no clue what to study, so I plucked History of Art from a vast bushel of other subjects I was uninterested in. It was a complete waste of time. I count my blessings that fate intervened and me and my husband got pregnant with our son and went on to have a daughter, writes Annabel Fenwick Elliott I knew as soon as Jasper was born that I couldn't bear to send him to nursery in his early years, so we built a life that meant I could avoid it: living in cheaper countries, going freelance and working from homeI then spent most of my twenties jumping between dismal boyfriends my age or having affairs with much older men. I drank, smoked and partied for a decade, despite not ever really enjoying going out.I travelled far and wide and found my way into journalism, a career I love. But ultimately I became a nihilist with a drinking problem who didn't have a purpose, or much to do at the end of a long day at the office.It was all getting tiresome by the time I met my now husband in my mid-thirties, and thank goodness I did. I count my blessings, too, that fate intervened and we got pregnant with our son and went on to have a daughter.I so very nearly missed that boat – a boat I didn't even know I wanted to board. In fact, I was convinced for years that I didn't. I never believed in marriage and I never liked kids.The truth is, I still think weddings are silly (we didn't have one, we had a ceremony in our kitchen) and I still don't particularly like kids, with the exception of my own. I'm terrible at keeping a sourdough starter alive. On the face of it, I'm perhaps not a very good trad wife... but I'm a contented one.I won't even pretend that I took to motherhood like a duck to water. I find childrearing hard and boring a lot of the time, but the prospect of life without my children? Unthinkable. I worship them. And their future? That's the most important focus of my life.I knew as soon as Jasper was born that I couldn't bear to send him to nursery in his early years, so we built a life that meant I could avoid it: living in cheaper countries, going freelance and working from home.I wouldn't say I am subservient to my husband, who's a pilot, but I can't deny we rely on him financially: a huge feminist faux pas. 'Feminism' is a dangerous word to throw around these days because it means different things to everyone. For some it's a lofty ideal and for others it's a slur.Personally I believe that women should be afforded all the same opportunities men are, should they wish. But we mustn't assume that all females want to be in the workforce, instead of at home having babies.I think it's sad that in reality, most families must now absolutely rely on two incomes and the majority of women don't even like their job. Anecdotally, most of the mothers I know would much rather be home with their young children and not slaving away at the office, trying to balance it all.Statistically, according to Gallup's annual Global Workplace Survey, only 20 per cent of the UK population (men and women) are 'engaged' with their job. The remaining 80 per cent are essentially going through the motions, or are thoroughly miserable.It used to be that women, at least, were spared that. Now we're bound to it, and in many cases it comes at the cost of our children's happiness. I remember my boomer mother telling me that it was actually a bad thing when, in her twenties, banks started allowing women to be considered on mortgage applications for the first time. What a horribly anti-feminist thing to say!And yet, it was the start of a slippery slope that helped land us here, with couples mortgaged up to their eyeballs, both working and paying a fortune for strangers to raise their kids in daycare.It is unsurprising, then, that birth rates across the Western world have fallen to new lows – a trend that will have dire consequences in the near future. Will it have been worth it, for the sake of feminism? I'd argue not.I've heard it said many times to online figures like Hannah Neeleman, by angry female keyboard warriors: 'What are you going to do when your husband inevitably leaves you?' I've also heard proud trad wives retort with something along the lines of: 'Get a job, just like you. Your current reality is my worst case scenario.'Now that I've been fortunate enough to live both versions of womanhood, I can say with certainty which I prefer. And I hope for my daughter's sake that she spends less time being the sort of person I was in my early adulthood, and more of her life doing what I am now.It's her choice which direction she goes, but perhaps it's telling that I've thrown away most of my skimpy black outfits and am keeping my floral dresses as hand-me-downs for her just in case!