The times covers trad wife, ballerina farm, backfiring on her
Eight children, one husband, hundreds of acres beneath the enormous skies of the American west - and millions of social media followers. I spent the day with "trad wife" Hannah Neeleman, or Ballerina Farm, to figure out what all the fuss was about https://t.co/FapSYfq8id
- Megan Agnew (@MeganAgnew) July 21, 2024
Hannah Neeleman or ballerina farm, is arguably the most famous trad wife online, with almost 10 million followers just on Instagram, she showcases her apparent perfect life, as a former miss Utah, mother to a family of 8 kids, a loving husband, a farm that allows them a well off lifestyle and acres and acres of land, as such Megan Agnew from the times, covered her story.
The article says that at 17, her dream was to live in New York to become a prima ballerina, leading her to attending the ballet program of Juilliard, “and I was going to be a ballerina. I was a good ballerina…” reflecting on her past.
Shortly after, she met Daniel Neeleman, son of David Neeleman, founder of commercial airlines: Morris Air, WestJet, JetBlue Airways, Azul Brazilian Airlines, and Breeze Airways, who worked as director of home security company Vigzul, founded by his father; after a month they were engaged, 2 months after, married and moving into his upper west side apartment, 3 months after she became pregnant, becoming the first Juilliard undergraduate to be expecting in modern history.
“Our first few years were really hard, but we had this vision”, she says, referring to giving up dancing, Daniel interrupted to add, “we still do”. Since Daniel wanted to live in a farm on the great western wilds and doesn’t believe in nannies or additional help, they relocated onto a vast farm in Utah, however, they do have a cleaner who helps them once a week, as such, she does all food shopping and meals from scratch for the whole family. Daniel says that sometimes Hannah ends up so exhausted she can’t get out of bed for a week.
The only space in the farm originally allocated to her was a small barn she wanted to convert into a ballet studio, but ended up turning into the kids schoolroom.
She also gave birth without pain relief, except with her youngest daughter, confessing this fact to the writer, while Daniel leaves the room to take a call. “I got an epidural and it was an amazing experience…”, able to get it since, on the delivery day, he was shipping meat boxes and manning the farm crew.
The article ultimately caused big waves online and negative reactions towards the rising trad wife lifestyle, feeling sad for Hannah and urging her to leave Daniel.
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