I never thought I could be an author—memoir felt too vulnerable, too dangerous. That changed in early 2025, as I watched "tradwife" nostalgia flood social media while politicians worked to recreate power imbalances that enable abuse regardless of who holds that power.

The frustration became overwhelming. We're forgetting what women actually fought for—and what happens when those protections disappear.

This isn't just my story—it's the fulfillment of a promise Laurie and I made to each other and our children: to break the cycle by refusing to be silent. Before his decline and death, Laurie had begun writing our family's story, determined to expose how dangerous men could be and the generational trauma that followed. His early words about breaking cycles are included in this book, alongside the brutal reality of how trauma ultimately consumed him.

This is the story of what "traditional values" actually could look like for the women who lived them: legal rape within marriage, no right to financial independence, children treated as property, and a conspiracy of silence that protected violent men while destroying everyone else.

The curated Instagram version of the 1950s family is a lie. I'm writing the truth—about generational trauma, about what it costs to break free, and about why we can never go backward. Because when people understand what's really at stake, they fight harder to protect it.