Hannah Neeleman, co-founder of Ballerina Farm, was left feeling disheartened by a recent Sunday Times profile of her business and lifestyle.
“A couple of weeks ago, we welcomed a reporter into our home to learn more about our family and business, and we thought the interview went really well,” Neeleman, 34, said in a Wednesday, July 31, Instagram video. “However, when we saw the printed article, we were shocked and dismayed by its tone, which seemed to attack my family and my marriage.”
Hannah and her husband, Daniel Neeleman, were featured in an article titled, “Meet the Queen of the ‘Trad Wives’ and Her 8 Children,” which highlighted their rural life with their young children and implied that the former ballerina was a “trad wife,” a term referring to women who act as submissive stay-at-home spouses and mothers.
“The article portrayed me as oppressed, with my husband being the culprit, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” Hannah stressed. “Nothing we said in the interview implied this conclusion, leading me to believe that the angle taken was predetermined.”
Courtesy of Nara Smith/Instagram; Courtesy of Hannah Neeleman/Instagram Who is Nara Smith, and what is a “trad wife?” Allow Us to explain. Viral influencer, model, and mother of three Nara Smith Smith attracted a following on TikTok for her cooking videos, which she started in 2022. She has since accumulated almost 9 million followers on […]
According to Hannah, she and Daniel, 35, prioritize their faith and family, with “everything else [coming] second.”
“The greatest day of my life was when Daniel and I were married 13 years ago,” Hannah said in the video, which included snippets of her daily life on the homestead. “Together we have built a business from scratch. We’ve brought eight children into this world, and have prioritized our marriage all along the way.”
She continued, “We are coparents, 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. We have many dreams still to accomplish. We aren’t done having babies, we are excited for our new farm story to open, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the rest of it.”
Have you taken a trip to Ballerina Farm yet? With 9.3 million followers on Instagram and 8.5 million on TikTok, the original trad wife influencer — real name Hannah Neeleman — has been well-known on social media for years, but has recently become real-world famous too following a controversial newspaper feature. In an interview with […]
While the future is open for the Neelemans, Hannah is currently focused on “doing what [she] loves most” as a wife, mother, businesswoman, and a farmer.
In the July 20 Sunday Times profile, of which Hannah did not mention by name on Wednesday, she claimed she doesn’t “necessarily identify” with the trad wife label.
“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,” the influencer said at the time. “For me to have the label of a traditional woman, I’m kinda, like, I don’t know if I identify with that.”
