Trad wife is short for traditional wife: a woman who embraces traditional homemaker roles, often shared on social media. Politically charged on the right. Worth a conversation if your teen idealises this lifestyle uncritically. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in. Most slang of this kind moves through TikTok and group chats, so seeing it in your child's vocabulary just means they are plugged into normal teen internet culture.