I don't buy this narrative about young Kayla as an innocent would-be tradwife. I am not denying that she was religious and wanted to be mommy, but we also know she was a "theater kid." And what I know about theater kids in the early '00s is that they liked Star Trek, LiveJournal, and degeneracy.
Regardless of whether these influences characterized her behavior at the time, she was certainly exposed to more deviant ideas than her non-performing peers. I think it's reasonable to assume that these ideas were present early in her relationship with Nick, making her seem like a 'cool girl' despite her desire for a Scandinavian prude lifestyle. Given such an undercurrent in their relationship, transitioning into active deviancy was inevitable and almost certainly mutual.
The gay boyfriend fetish, "biting," and Anne Rice movies are strongly supportive of the idea that Kayla took in ideas from her theater friends...
Kayla is a greedy woman who wants it all. Good, bad, healthy, unhealthy. She is a woman of incompatible passions and this is largely why she is a such wreck and used to send such mixed signals about her character (well, before she was so publicly outed as a bad mother).
There is enough evidence that Kayla was never an innocent would-be tradwife. Kayla and Nick claimed to be Christian without any real conviction or demonstration beyond lip-service (Nick's own heretical beliefs were apparent in his streams prior to his downfall). Nick went to male strip shows with Kayla since they were cheerleaders together in college.
It isn't just the theatre friends who would play a role in this.
Taking the Cheerleaders to the Strip Club:
Nick still going to "Dick Shows" with Kayla and the Cheerleaders 55 Other Men:
Note: Despite speaking like veterans of the strip club scene and being familiar the 18 different moves of strippers and the general atmosphere, these man have only been to strip clubs 3 times...
Also, I trimmed down the times Drexel expressed admiration for Magic Mike, the sequel, and male strippers in general.
On the Subject of Trad-ness: Homeschooling
The Rekieta's didn't link their homeschooling to being trad. They just didn't want to be told by anyone how to raise their children.
Kayla on Public Education:
This is under the pretense that comes with Kayla saying that she is pro "family values" while leaving the audience to assume what that means.
Kayla makes arguments against the public school because she doesn't think they should determine what a child needs to learn. Kayla also says that the public schools don't teach children how to be good people. Arguments for standardized testing aside, she is inadvertently taking the position that kids in public schools wouldn't learn how to be good people at home (because parents are totally absent?).
Nick makes the nonsensical argument that no one should go to high school because no one likes older people who still act like high schoolers. Rather tellingly, Nick fails to recognize that the issue is the failure to mature
past high school. To put it another way; a teenager acting like a teenager isn't a problem, an adult acting like a teenager is. Moving on...
Essentially, Kayla wants to determine whether her kids are "good enough" in a general sense, let alone good people. Funny stuff, considering who Nick and Kayla have proven themselves to be. It is as if they could never imagine themselves being unfit parents.
The cost was being more hands-on, but Kayla didn't really want to do that either because, surprise surprise...
Kayla would rather watch Star Trek:
Evidently, Nick and Kayla didn't really want to raise their kids at all, neglecting them to the point of criminality where the government they despised
had to intervene with the help and approval of locals (including their church and Kayla's own family). Sadly, what they are doing is likely motivated more by possessiveness than love... and has been for a long time.
After all, they certainly believe that it is their right to do
whatever they want with
their kids. It's the one point they have been most consistent on.