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HuffPost
3 Aug 2024
You may have heard of Nara Smith, the 22-year-old model-turned-mom-of-three who often goes viral for her hushed, ASMR-like videos where she makes things from scratch (often wearing vintage '50s-style clothes). Then there's 34-year-old Hannah Neeleman — better known as Ballerina Farm — whose profile in the Times, labeling her the "queen of the trad wives," went viral this past week for giving curious readers a peek into why a Juilliard-trained ballerina traded pointe shoes for farm life and childbearing.
It's worth noting that while both Smith and Neeleman have been called "trad wives" by the internet (particularly because, with millions of followers, they're some of the most successful stay-at-home mom/homemaking social media influencers), neither have used the label. Neeleman told the Times, “I don’t necessarily identify with it because we are traditional in the sense that it’s a man and a woman, we have children, but I do feel like we’re paving a lot of paths that haven’t been paved before.”
For her 9.5 million Instagram and 9 million TikTok followers, Neeleman's life is filled with cooking (milking cows and churning butter included) and farm-tending, all while looking after eight little ones who both tug at her sleeve and help with the farm chores.
Now, Neeleman is going viral not because of her flower-designing or perfectly poached egg recipe but because of a profile that revealed what life actually might look like on the Ballerina Farm — from exhaustion to a husband and eight kids who seemingly never leave her side.
At one point, the writer asked Neeleman if this was the life she always wanted, and Neeleman admitted that no, it was New York City and to be a ballerina. She told the Times, "I was a good ballerina. But I knew that when I started to have kids, my life would start to look different."
Hannah's husband, Daniel Neeleman, 35, is the son of David Neeleman, a billionaire who founded JetBlue. Both Hannah and Daniel grew up in big Mormon families and are devout Mormons themselves.
Others have pointed out that Neeleman's quote — "I was a good ballerina" — undermines her skill.
Lastly, the internet has been critiquing Daniel — first, because he allegedly would speak over Hannah, as observed by the Times writer. They wrote in the article, "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."
Second, Daniel is facing critique because of how he pursued Hannah. Despite Hannah previously telling Daniel she didn't want to date, Daniel told the Times he found the flight she was on at JetBlue (his father's company), pulled some strings, and "made a call" to get seated next to her. According to the Times, after a month, they got engaged, two months later, they were married, and three months later, Hannah was pregnant.
Other fans have taken to Ballerina Farm's social media pages to share their feelings. Some have written to Hannah directly, commenting on her page things like, "I hope one day you get the chance to dance again," and expressing concern over her alleged situation, including being able to use her voice and getting help.
And others have instead written on her husband's social media page. One person wrote, "Give her a dance studio, hire help for the kids, and take her to Greece!" Several commenters have referenced Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" song, commenting, "Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world."
Of course, not everyone thinks Hannah needs help. Some have pointed out that through all this discourse — from her husband allegedly talking over her to the journalist's own opinions — Hannah hasn't really had a voice, and maybe she likes her life.
In a Times podcast episode that included clipped recordings from the original interview, there were a few quotes from Hannah's perspective that were not included in the written article. First, Hannah told the Times that Daniel encouraged her to dance if that's what she wanted. She said, "We were open to anything, but I knew deep down that I wanted to raise my babies."
Later, Hannah said she and Daniel are in a partnership and that she doesn't "feel like I'm at home raising kids by myself. Like, that's hard. Women need support. So when Daniel said, 'OK let's build something together,' we really carried the mantle together."
Still, others have come forward and expressed concern, even if this was her choice. One ex-Mormon woman, Hayley Rawle, said in a TikTok, "We will never know if Hannah Neeleman herself is really happy or really fulfilled, or if she chose this life for herself. What I do know, as an ex-Mormon woman, is that the dynamic, at least that's portrayed in the article, between Hannah and her husband Daniel was incredibly unsurprisingly and deeply, deeply familiar."
Rawle continued, "It's been super invalidating to see people saying, 'How dare we disempower women by suggesting she cannot be happy making bread and making babies.' It completely disregards the [intense messaging] that Mormon women, and also many other Christian women, get about their only value add to society here on earth and also in heaven (at least in the case of Mormonism), is as a wife, is as a mother, is as a homemaker."
"Whether Hannah Neeleman really had a choice to choose that, or she was pressured into it by the patriarchal powers that be, the Mormon messaging, the messaging from her husband, again, we don't know. I know that I felt immense pressure that I still work against to this day. Even with a progressive ex-Mormon husband, I am still unpacking the layers of that inside of myself. Also, having shame around wanting to contribute beyond that."
Rawle ended, "I don't know Hannah, but I do know as a Mormon woman who is surrounded by so many Mormon women, who I see have suffered a lot and have martyred a lot of their dreams and their hopes and themselves in this same pursuit of being a perfect mother to many children, that is real. The ballerina farm of it all, aside, that is a really real, valid issue."
For now, Hannah Neeleman has made her first post since the profile and ensuing internet discussion began. In a TikTok, frolicking in a field of cows while holding her baby and kissing Daniel, she voices over how she started her dairy farm and announces that products will soon be in stock. "It's the world we created, and I couldn't love it more," she ended.
BuzzFeed has reached out to Hannah Neeleman for a response.