In all the media discussion about the viral article on Ballerina Farm, I’ve yet to see someone understand a key fact about Hannah Neeleman, the “Trad Wife Queen” known as Ballerina Farm to her nine million Instagram followers.
She really doesn’t have a choice.
Neeleman is a beautiful 34-year-old with eight children who lives on a large ranch with her husband, Daniel, milking cows, gathering eggs, baking bread, and posting her lifestyle to Instagram, while competing in beauty pageants on the side ‘for fun.’
Key Fact: Both Hannah and her husband are Mormons.
He is the son of the Mormon millionaire Jet Blue founder, so their ranch life is the stuff of dreams for readers embracing the ‘trad wife’ lifestyle it portrays. The ‘trad wife’ term refers to a philosophy of returning to the traditional values of the past, where women stay home and find fulfillment in being a wife and mother, while the husband is the primary breadwinner. This patriarchal arrangement is the norm in Mormon families, where women support the aspirations of their husbands, who make all the important decisions for the family.
While the media and followers debate the ‘trad wife’ lifestyle and how it impacts our dialogue about feminism, I find myself asking another question, one that appears to be overlooked in the debate.
Does Hannah Neeleman really have a choice about her lifestyle?
Her off-hand comment, “this is just what we do…” suggests that the “trad wife” lifestyle isn’t a choice but something that is just expected of her as a Mormon woman. The conservative, patriarchal Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ), has always maintained that a woman’s place is in the home, being a helpmate to her husband and the mother of as many children as the Lord sends her.
I know this firsthand since I grew up Mormon.
Although I left the Church at 19, after discovering its lies, I grew up as a Mormon, and also the great great grandniece of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith. Hannah’s trajectory from ballerina to mother of eight is an old, familiar story to me. It’s the story of many women in the Mormon faith, women who grew up to have dreams and aspirations of their own and then expected to pivot, when married, to adopt their husbands dreams as their own, their own dreams abandoned for the role of wife and mother.
The writer and most of the readers weighing in on the Ballerina Farm controversy assume that Hannah Neeleman has made a fully informed and conscious decision to become a “trad wife.” But did she? As a Mormon, Neeleman has been groomed and indoctrinated since birth that her most important role in life is to become a helpmate to her husband and the mother of many children.
I’m certain that Neeleman would find my assumption insulting; I’m sure that she believes that she is capable of making her own choices and has chosen the life she leads. I did, too. Until I exited the Mormon faith.
Only with distance did I recognize how deeply I’d bought into the idea that a “woman’s place” was in the home, that it was the only path of honor and the only one that would culminate in me achieving the highest level of glory in heaven in the hereafter. If I chose another path, say, a career, to be childless, to not marry, I was jeopardizing my eternal salvation. With so much at stake, is there really a choice to be made?
Is the ‘Trad Wives’ phenomenon really empowering women with choice? Or is it a blow to feminism?
In addition to equal rights and opportunities, feminism to me represents the freedom for all women, and men, to have autonomy and control over their lives and the ability to achieve whatever goals she, or he, desires without interference and suppression.
The Mormon Church has no women in any meaningful positions of leadership and influence within The Church. Men hold the Priesthood, which is the power to act in God’s name, and are the patriarchs in the home. Women, meanwhile, are instructed to act as helpmates to their husbands and focus on motherhood, while encouraged to have as many children as possible.
I saw rampant signs of Mormon patriarchy in action throughout the article. Hannah’s husband kept dodging the report’s request to get alone time with Hannah, without her husband answering the questions the writer asked Hannah, or interrupting Hannah with his own perspective.
Perhaps more revealing is her confession to getting an epidural with one of her children after having the others without any pain relief.
“I was two weeks overdue, and she was 10 lbs and Daniel wasn’t with me. .”She lowers her voice. Daniel is currently out of the room taking a phone call. ”So I got an epidural. And it was an amazing experience.”
So, is not having pain relief during childbirth her idea or her husbands?
My own Mother’s ‘Hannah’ Story
My own mother’s story is eerily like Neeleman’s. Like Hannah, she studied and trained to be an something more than a wife and mother, to be an opera singer. Her scholarship to Julliard was for voice, not ballet, a scholarship she turned down at 19 to marry my father at her mother’s urging.
He was a Smith, the great grandnephew of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon faith and marrying into the Smith family would solidify her accession into the highest levels of heaven in the afterlife. A year later, she held a baby in her arms, the first born of the nine children that would rapidly follow, all birthed without pain relief.
My Mother, Marlene, at nineteen
She, like Hannah, also was taught to focus on her appearance and was proud that she could still fit into her wedding dress after nine children. While social media didn’t exist then, she would have been all in, I’m sure, if it was a thing back then. My father expected her to stay thin, feminine and glamourous, while simultaneously raising nine kids, growing a massive garden, baking our bread and cooking every meal from scratch. We had chickens, a cow, horses and goats, all of which she managed or supervised us kids to care for them. This is the family (below) with two more yet to be born!
My mother put on a happy face at Church and in the community, making her role look effortless and easy, but we knew that she secretly struggled with migraine headaches and depression, overwhelmed and exhausted much of the time. And she blamed herself for not measuring up to Mormon expectations and being cheerful all the time.
What we don’t see behind the Instagram Posts
I can’t help but feel we aren’t getting the full story in Ballerina Farm. The toss away comment from Daniel, her husband, that sometimes Hannah “gets so ill from exhaustion that she can’t get out of bed for a week” suggests that this is very hard work, not the effortless lifestyle that we see, displayed and monetized by a fulltime Creative Director for Ballerina Farm.
And what’s with the beauty pageants?
This, too, is part of Mormon culture. My mother represented her hometown in the Miss Wyoming pageant. Look perfect, highly feminine and attractive. It’s competitive in Utah, where worthy Mormon women outnumber worthy Mormon men three to one. But the focus on appearance and beauty is just part of Mormons expectations for women. The Mormon Church instructs it’s members to constantly look for potential converts in their everyday life with the saying, “every member a missionary,” and to present a perfectly groomed, happy, wholesome image that attracts converts to the church.
Look at the commonality across Mormon Mommy Influencers, the bloggers and Instagram accounts lauding the ‘Trad Wife’ lifestyle. All super attractive, hair and make-up just so, advertising their lifestyle of happy “trad wives.”
The Dark Side Behind the Mormon Façade
So, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Utah has the highest rate of plastic surgery of any state in the country, except for Florida, right? But behind the front, is another story: Utah women also have the highest rate of antidepressant use in the country. So “happy valley,” as Salt Lake City is often called by non-Mormons, isn’t so happy behind the toxic positivity of Mormon women, who are encouraged to put on a smile and repress any feelings of anger, sadness or disappointment.
Especially heartbreaking was Hannah’s birthday gift from her husband. “I hope it’s tickets to Greece,” she whispered, as she opened the gift. Nope. But she hid her disappointment at the egg-gathering apron that had been given instead, trying it on for the family.
Suppressing our own needs and desires,negative feelings and emotions, while putting on a happy face, takes a toll on a woman’s sense of value and self-worth, and can lead to depression, guilt, shame and burnout, when they blame themselves for not meeting the Church’s expectations for them.
My mother and Hannah’s stories aren’t unique. It’s the “norm” in the Mormon faith. And it breaks my heart. I grew up around Mormon women who were talented, smart and excelled in school, who had dreams of being more than a helpmate to their husbands and the mother of a large brood of children. Women who gave it all up when they married and the patriarch of the family, the husband, made all the plans and decisions for the family. I watched these bright, happy young women become exhausted, depressed, uncertain and quiet, and their lives become smaller and smaller.
Why I Left the Mormon Faith
I left the Mormon faith at nineteen after discovering the truth about my famous relative, Joseph Smith, and the early, toxic history of the Mormon Church. Smith, the founder, was a liar, con artist, womanizing predator and the cult he founded was based on fraud, deception and manipulation.
His own wife, Emma Smith, was vehemently against polygamy, which Joseph Smith first practiced behind her back, resisting until Smith declared that God had revealed to him that Emma would be banished from heaven in the hereafter unless she submitted to polygamy.
This is the background to the kind of control we are discussing here in the Mormon faith. Women’s lives are dictated by the doctrine and dogma of The Church, which is run by elderly, white men intent on maintaining the status quo of women being in subservient positions within the organization, without autonomy, influence or control.
My question, again, is whether or not Hannah Neeleman was truly free to choose this life?
I believe some women may find fulfillment in the old-fashioned, traditional role of wife and mother. They have other options but choose it. But for others it isn’t a conscious choice, but the ONLY path that aligns with their conservative religious beliefs. They have been indoctrinated since birth to believe that their worth as women is tied to being the best “helpmate” to their husbands and the mother of many children.
So, is this truly a choice, when it is perceived as the only path to salvation and glory in heaven for a woman? When any other choice has eternally damning consequences? It doesn’t feel like freedom to choose to me but subjugation and control.
Let’s have an open discussion about what patriarchy really looks like in the “Trad Wives” lifestyle!
