Tradwives Like Ballerina Farm Never Really Existed
They are a figment of conservative imagination and a money making maching on social media
Tradwives don't really exist. They are a fantasy.
Despite the social media success of women like Mormon "tradwife" Hannah Neeleman, aka Ballerina Farm, the tradwife lifestyle portrayed on social media has nothing to do with traditional living.
My mother was a traditional housewife who stayed at home and raised four kids. But like most traditional housewives, her life was nothing like Neeleman's.
It wasn't a bad life but ordinary, not Instagram-able or romantic. Despite making most of our food from scratch, her mundane daily routine would never have amassed millions of followers on social media.
The beautiful fantasy of a life that Neeleman portrays on social media looks free and liberating when you're stuck in an unfulfilling nine-to-five job. But such a life sadly isn't in the cards for most of her 9 million followers.
Sure, they may fantasize about a more natural existence on the prairie, but it won't happen for them, and they know it. Because it's expensive and neither traditional nor realistic.
Beautiful, rich, and Christian
For those who haven't heard of Ballerina Farm, Neeleman is a beautiful, rich, and very Christian social media influencer married to the son of Jet Blue founder and Breeze Air CEO David Neeleman.
A recent, much-debated Times article put her in the spotlight and made her the center of the ongoing tradwives discussion.
She lives on a sprawling farm in Utah with eight lovely children, a husband, cows, sheep, horses and chickens. She milks her cows, makes butter, and cooks meals from home-grown vegetables and meat—and she sells her social media followers an unattainable fantasy of a more natural, traditional lifestyle.
It looks beautiful and truly enviable, and according to her, she and her husband are very happy living this "traditional" life.
I don't doubt it. It's a very privileged life. They're lucky to have the financial means to create this Hallmark-movie-like free-range reality — a life that has nothing to do with the life of the traditional prairie settlers they supposedly recreate.
That traditional life was a life of hardship and poverty—for a long time—well into the 1960s. Remember the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression?
For most of them, life looked like this:
Yes, they had many children — there was no birth control, after all. Yes, they grew their food and cooked their meals from scratch — if they had food.
They also made bread and sewed their clothes, often from old flour sacks, because that was all that was available. No one would watch their lives on TikTok except in stunned disbelief - like we watch an accident happening. Stunned by how hard life can be and how people manage to survive the greatest adversities.
Traditional lives were not a marketable fantasy or an HD ad for natural living like the Neelemans’. People survived by any means possible.
They’re lucky to have the financial means to create this Hallmark-movie-like free-range reality — a life that has nothing to do with the life of the traditional prairie settlers they supposedly recreate
This hard struggle for survival is still the life of millions of people living traditional, rural lives all over the globe. Because, in reality, 80% of the world's poor live rural lives.
They live from hand to mouth, their livelihood at the mercy of the elements. They struggle daily to try to feed more children than they can afford, making food from scratch from the meager resources they've managed to grow.
Like all businesspeople, “trad” ones are looking to make money
The Neeleman's life is mesmerizing to watch on social media because they are rich and she is very beautiful.
Neeleman and her husband are businesspeople. Hannah Neeleman isn't just a "homemaker."
They are Mormons, and Mormons believe in the spiritual value of financial success. Like JetBlue Airways, many successful businesses were founded in Utah by Mormons. And so were many MLM (multilevel marketing schemes) like LuLaRo.
Black & Decker, SkyWest Airlines, and Marriott Hotels are a few examples. In short, Mormons love money. And they strive hard to make it.
Hannah Neeleman is running a successful business. Far from being a tradwife in the unappealing, submissive way that conservative pundits are trying to make happen, she heads a business that she's marketing on TikTok by letting people be part of her "tradwife" world.
Yes, I think the whole tradwife trend is a joke, but not because I believe these social media tradwives are victims of their husbands.
There is no need to feel sorry for her. She has chosen to live this life. All speculation about her husband controlling her is a waste of time and denies her agency in her life and decisions — just like people claim her husband does. She wasn't dragged to this farm. She is there willingly.
The tradwife trend is a joke
Sure, we can debate why she has to give birth without painkillers and why they don't have a nanny, but she is highly privileged nonetheless.
Many people have latched on to the fact that she didn't get to finish her ballet training at Juilliard. True, but no one forced her to marry him. She decided that marriage was more important than her training.
Yes, I think the whole tradwife trend is a joke, but not because I believe these social media tradwives are victims of their husbands. No, they are willing actors in a scheme to portray a life most people can never afford.
Nearly all well-known tradwife influencers have a rich husband or are themselves wealthy businesswomen. They're putting on a show for the masses to make even more money or market their goods to them.
I wouldn't mind if that were all there was to it. But they also trick young women into thinking their lives could be as beautiful as Neeleman's.
Yes, I know this is basically the premise of everything influencers do. They trick people into thinking their beautiful lifestyle is achievable. But for this lifestyle, young women decide to neglect their education or dump their careers to become "tradwives" to men who don't have the resources to give them a life like Neeleman's.
Or worse, they become stay-at-home girlfriends. Women who end up penniless and destitute if their "trad" men swap them out for a younger model.
Or if they want to leave, like Jenny Gage. She stayed in a loveless marriage for 24 years because she had no money to leave. And now, after leaving, still struggles to make it financially.
Because, unlike Neeleman and co., most traditional women are not businesswomen and don't have any skills or resources to fall back on.
Most “tradwives” don’t have a choice
My mother was a traditional housewife, not by choice but by circumstance. She met my father when birth control wasn’t yet available. She accidentally became pregnant and had to give up her dream of becoming a nurse. End of story.
Her life was nothing like Neeleman’s. Yes, she had four kids and was a homemaker, but that was the extent of the similarities.
There was no calling from God, no ideology, and no internet to romanticize cooking from scratch for her family of six. She bought the ingredients for that food at the shops. In a world where people live in cities, there is no way to grow food, no cow to milk or herb garden.
My dad took care of the family, brought in money, and ensured we had everything we needed. My mom had household help and resources. But my charming father was also a womanizer who tried to put the moves on every woman around him, even my mom's best friends.
She stayed far longer than she wanted to because she never finished her education and had no marketable skills. Now, in old age, she has a minimum pension, and we, her children, support her financially.
That is the sad reality behind devoting your life to a man and his offspring: you cannot create any wealth of your own. You're entirely dependent on the goodwill of that man and, eventually, his kids.
Businesswomen in frilly frocks
The tradwives of Instagram and TikTok are not traditional homemakers — if such a thing even exists across cultures. They are all businesswomen in frilly frocks. And they're all rich.
Neeleman doesn't choose life on the farm because she doesn't want a career in a corporate office or as a professional ballerina. But because she can. She has the freedom to run her business out of a beautiful farm and be with the people she loves 24/7.
Who in their right mind would reject this affluent, free lifestyle for a corporate career?
Yes, Neeleman makes food from scratch in her lovely kitchen surrounded by expensive utensils — please look up the price of a Le Creuset pan — and doesn't have an office job that takes up her entire waking hours. She has the freedom to invest her time in things she enjoys.
She may be exhausted occasionally, but show me one person working these days who isn't. I know I am, often.
Freedom is the real appeal
Neeleman's followers don't really want to be tradwives.
Freedom is the real appeal of this lifestyle. They dream of being liberated from daily drudgery, from that daily slog to the office or the shop that prevents them from leading a more meaningful life.
They desire to ditch the nine-to-five (or eight) that leaves us no room for family and hobbies or cooking meals from scratch. To dance under a vast open sky.
They want to have time to do the things they love. They desperately want to slow down and leave the rat race. Spend hours with their families, slow cook, slow dream, and slow live.
Most women watching Hannah Neeleman's life on Ballerina Farm don't want to be submissive to a man or give birth to eight kids without epidurals. But they don't want to be a cog in the machines of corporations either.
Hell, even I would move to that farm in the blink of an eye if I had that kind of money.
Sure, I'd make a few changes. Not having eight kids and a boring husband, for example. But yeah, if I had that kind of money, I'd round up all my girlfriends and the people I love and live the slow life with them on a big ranch under the open sky. Goodbye corporate life.
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A version of this article was first published on Medium on August 4, 2024.