Hannah Neeleman (known as ballerinafarm on social media) is a trad wife, who gave up her aspirations of being a ballerina to fulfil her husband’s dreams of living on a farm in rural Utah with 8 kids, the Times reports. They have no nanny’s, because her husband wanted it that way, and only have a babysitter once a week for date night, because her husband wanted it that way.
Despite not personally using the label, Neeleman is seen as the face of the online TradWife movement.
The ballerinafarm couple insist that they are “co-CEOs” of their household; that they’ve both made sacrifices and are hands on parents. When asked about these sacrifices Neeleman said “Well, I gave up dance, which was hard. You give up a piece of yourself. And Daniel gave up his career ambitions.”
However, the reality is much less convincing.
She sometimes gets so ill from exhaustion that she can’t get out of bed for a week from looking after their kids. She does all the food shopping with the kids in tow, and cooks all their meals from scratch.
“I was going to be a ballerina. I was a good ballerina”
Hannah Neeleman in an interview with The Times
Neeleman left her Julliard educated dance career after meeting her husband who insisted they get married after two months of dating. Their lifestyle is one Daniel always dreamed of and one that for Hannah, was a compromise. “I knew that when I started to have kids my life would start to look different.”
The only space of the farm marked for Hannah is a barn she wanted to convert to a ballet studio. It is now the children’s schoolroom.
The Times profile reveals a new perspective on the Neeleman family, one that shows the glamorous display of traditional motherhood is not all it seems.
The writer, Megan Agnew, speaks of how, while going to the farm to speak with Hannah, she rarely gets a moment alone with her and spends most of the day being shown around the farm by Hannah’s husband Daniel.
Agnew states: “I can’t, it seems, get an answer out of Neeleman without her being corrected, interrupted or answered for by either her husband or a child.”
The profile also explains how Hannah has had all but one childbirth without pain medication, only having an epidural for the birth where her husband wasn’t present which she called “kinda great.”
She also wanted to wait a year before getting engaged so she could finish her Juilliard degree but her now husband insisted they get married after just two months. She then, three months later, got pregnant becoming the first Juilliard undergraduate to be pregnant “in modern history.”
Caro Claire Burke who has previously spoken on the TradWife movement took to TikTok to say: “Hannah is slowly working herself to death to do multiple jobs, take care of these children and perform as an influencer online without any additional help.”
Hannah Neeleman has nine million Instagram followers where she shares her life cooking, cleaning and looking after her children while managing their farm and homestead.
While this presents a homegrown lifestyle, the Neelemans are the heirs to a billion-dollar aviation corporation including the commercial airline JetBlue. They have 30 employees for their farm warehouse, three on the farm and have a creative director.
The traditional lifestyles being presented are unrealistic unless you have the means to bankroll yourself like the Neelemans. This is a dangerous view presented to the millions being influenced into pursuing this lifestyle.
Many of the videos shared online by TradWives create an eerie facade of perfection, making everything from scratch all while looking flawless and speaking softly. The videos depict traditional and archaic values of motherhood packaged into an aesthetically pleasing content.
The TradWife movement is a growing phenomenon on social media. Women who want to escape the rat-race of hyper individualistic “girl-boss” feminism to a more gentle life. This dissatisfaction with neo-liberal capitalism is not unreasonable. But a life dedicated to your husband and kids, forsaking your sense of self as a result is not one that should be promoted.