Ballerina Farm founder Hannah Neeleman made headlines last week after a corporate media feature piece that was supposed to document her charming life as the matriarch of a growing Mormon family and co-manager of a sprawling Utah farm implied that she is an oppressed housewife.
The Sunday Times Magazine article in question recently dubbed the social media influencer and mother of eight, “the queen of the ‘trad wives,’” which sparked a massive online debate. The big story, however, was not whether Hannah is the perfect image for the trending housewife movement, but the vitriol corporate media have for women who choose to reject the lies sold by modern-day feminism.
Empowerment Or Oppression?
Questions about how the Neelemans’ millions of social media followers can reconcile the family’s five-figure cast iron stove with their homegrown, homestead image online are certainly worth exploring. The U.S.-based senior features writer who ventured out to the Neelemans’ 328-acre property to pen a puff piece, however, was far more interested in telling a different story.
Instead of concentrating her criticism on the stark contrast between the Neelemans’ wealthy Jet Blue background and seemingly down-to-earth-looking lifestyle, author Megan Agnew took aim at their marriage, family size and decision to center their lives around home and children.
“Is this an empowering new model of womanhood — or a hammer blow for feminism?” the article subhead asks.
Shortly into the article, Agnew queried whether the 2023 Mrs. American’s affinity for pageantry is “the ultimate act of empowerment, Neeleman doing what she wanted, or the ultimate demonstration of oppression, her tender body encased in spiky sequins?”
She also tried to make Daniel look creepy for setting himself up with Hannah via a not-so-coincidental plane seat change he got by pulling some strings at Jet Blue. In reality, it was Agnew who openly dreamed about asking her interviewees about their form of birth control that came off out of touch and absurd.
Agnew even had the audacity to openly disagree with Hannah when she explained she was happy to leave behind Juilliard School in New York for her husband’s overseas job, start a family, and eventually move to the Utah countryside.
“I look out at the vastness and don’t totally agree. Daniel wanted to live in the great western wilds, so they did; he wanted to farm, so they do; he likes date nights once a week, so they go (they have a babysitter on those evenings); he didn’t want nannies in the house, so there aren’t any,” Agnew complained.
By the end of the article, readers are left with the impression that Hannah is being held hostage in a picturesque farmhouse kitchen by her husband, who has tricked her into making grilled cheese sourdough sandwiches from scratch for the rest of her life.
Agnew’s concluding line further suggests that Hannah was deceived into sacrificing her prima ballerina career and storage for her sequined pageant gowns at the feet of her eight children.
Agnew’s interview sparked a slew of corporate media articles speculating if Hannah was oppressed because she only had an epidural for one of her eight usually unmedicated births and gave up “the only space earmarked to be Neeleman’s own — a small barn she wanted to convert into a ballet studio” so her kids had a designated homeschool room.
Agnew, clearly imbued by the attention given to her original viral profile, penned a follow-up piece acknowledging criticism that “I, a childless, unmarried woman, didn’t understand that this is the reality of having eight children, all home-schooled, and with no childcare.” But her analysis that “the trad life makes women feel threatened by one another’s choices” was too little, too late.
Living The Dream
In true influencer fashion, Hannah set the record straight in a voiceover of her morning routine in an Instagram clip posted this week.
“We thought the interview went really well, very similar to the dozens of interviews we had done in recent memory,” Hannah explained. “We were taken back, however, when we saw the printed article, which shocked us and shocked the world by being an attack on our family and my marriage, portraying me as oppressed with my husband being the culprit.”
But Hannah said Agnew’s ultimate framing “couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Nothing we said in the interview implied this conclusion, which leads me to believe the angle taken was predetermined,” Hannah added.
It’s unsurprising that the same class of corporate media mouthpieces that mock big families’ milk consumption, amplify women who regret becoming moms, smear Christians, and think voters are stupid enough to believe lies about inflation, the border invasion, and other crises plaguing the nation twisted yet another story to fit its agenda.
The press have shown time and time again that they hate happily married mothers (not chestfeeders or birthing persons, as the corporate media often likes to call them) like Hannah because she’s found fulfillment in ways that severely contradict the leftist ideology they espouse.
Instead of shouting about abortion, Hannah and her husband told Agnew that they deeply value “the sanctity of life” and “see the joy of having kids.” Instead of loathing the existence of their children, they’ve poured their life into building family businesses and routines that involve and benefit their kids.
The Neelemans aren’t products of a creepy Stockholm syndrome setup to satisfy social media followers seeking “trad wife” content. They are loving spouses who oppose divorce, including that of Daniel’s parents, because of the pain it brings to families.
As Hannah explained in her Instagram statement, she and Daniel are “co-parents, co-CEOs, co-diaper changers, kitchen cleaners, and decision makers.”
“We are one, and I love him more today than I did 13 years ago,” Hannah said.
Record-breaking swaths of Americans have lost faith in corporate media to report accurately. The Neelemans, especially because they have made a living off of leading a countercultural life, should have joined those ranks a long time ago. If they know what’s best for them, they will join those ranks now.
Despite the media’s best efforts to demonize them, the Neelemans already appear defiant and more determined than ever to keep their focus on each other, “God and family.”
“We have many dreams still to accomplish. We aren’t done having babies. We are excited for our new farm store to open, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the rest of it. But for now, I’m doing what I love most: being a mother, wife, a businesswoman, a farmer, a lover of children,” Hannah concluded.
