I wrote two years ago about how Hulu’s bizarre portrayal of my faith painted a picture of men that was the inverse of my own experience. Multiple historians and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pointed out the glaring historical inaccuracies on which the narrative hinges in “Under the Banner of Heaven,” with Brenda Lafferty’s sister lamenting the disservice it did to her sister’s memory.
McKay Coppins, writing for The Atlantic, noted how nearly every facet of the show was unrecognizable to him as a lifelong member of the church. “To say that I have never met a Mormon in my life who talks like this would be to miss the point.”
And what was the point? Rather than creating something to accurately describe the faith, the columnist suggested the portrayals were “there to serve a stereotype, to exoticize a people and flatten their faith tradition.”
This week, Hannah Neeleman of the Instagram account Ballerina Farm responded to a recent article about her family in The Times as “an attack on (her) family and (her) marriage” that “couldn’t be further from the truth.” The Neelemans agreed to be interviewed by The Times and felt it had gone well, until they saw the printed article, which left them “shocked.”
Whatever your feelings about Neeleman and her popularity, she gave a journalist an insider view into everything that mattered to her, and she came out looking like a victim to a fundamentalist religion, a despotic husband, and eccentric children. Even if Neeleman herself had not corrected the record, the unidimensional family depicted in the The Times was about as realistic as the characters in certain TV miniseries.
The most striking feature of The Times profile is its lack of curiosity; in it, we learn very little about the people on whom it’s based. We never learn even basic things about the Neelemans, such as why they started Ballerina Farm, what their goals are for the future, or what life is like for them on a ranch in the rural American West. There’s an implied assumption that the average reader of The Times has all the context they need for sizing up the Neelemans without that context.
Instead, we learn how many epidurals Hannah Neeleman has had, that she has a maid, and that her pageant gowns are stored in the garage — a heavy-handed metaphor for Neeleman’s loss of ambitions and identity.
I’ve only had four kids, but I confess that a lot of my stuff is stored in the garage too, literally and metaphorically. I found myself cringing inwardly every time Megan Agnew pointed out that a child had interrupted their conversation. I generally cannot get through a single phone call without multiple interjections from my boys, let alone a daylong interview. It’s simply the nature of life with small people who depend on you for everything.
While all of this cute chaos isn’t nearly as vexing to me, as their mother, as it is to everyone else, I know how it looks: this poor, bedraggled woman.
In fairness, I suppose sometimes I am a mess, but one of the wonderful things about life in Utah is that I can be honest about the struggles of motherhood without the condescension of being viewed as an unwitting sacrifice on the altar of patriarchy.
The joys of family life are a given for many here in the state, and so I don’t have to worry when our conversation is halted by my kid throwing Hot Wheels at the television. There’s a tacit understanding that the messiness is all part of something much bigger and more beautiful — a meaning and joy born of ongoing commitment and sacrifice that isn’t going to show up in a single snapshot from the outside.
Without that context, there’s a lot about my life that isn’t going to make sense — all of which context was glaringly absent in Neeleman’s interview. Without vocabulary in which sacrifice is something more than oppression or drudgery, you can’t accurately describe someone like Hannah Neeleman.
Indeed, The Times article on “the queen of the ‘trad wives’” hardly seems to be about Hannah Neeleman, who explicitly states in the interview that she doesn’t identify as a “trad wife.” The article concerns itself instead with a debate about women’s roles. And it’s that preoccupation, rather than Neeleman herself, which takes center stage.
There’s an irony in the article so often noting interruptions from Daniel Neeleman and the children, but then obscuring what Hannah Neeleman herself cares about to such a degree that Neeleman — who never engages with media coverage of herself — felt she had to address it.
If Neeleman felt she was being talked over and her identity was being taken from her, it seems it wasn’t by her husband or children.
For the uninitiated, “trad wife” describes women who openly embrace hyper-defined gender roles and, sometimes, female submissiveness. It’s often, but not always, framed in religious terms. For obvious reasons, it’s extremely controversial, with “trad wife” accounts inviting voyeurism and critique at least as often as sincere interest. Much “trad wife” content is intentionally provocative, bizarrely circumscribing women’s roles for unclear reasons and sexualizing domesticity, so it’s no wonder Neeleman avoids the moniker.
It’s more than reasonable to question the value and authenticity of much “trad wife” content, and even to warn about the dangers it poses. Mary Harrington wrote recently about the experience of Lauren Southern, a former “tradlife” influencer. Southern’s blind commitment to the romanticized — and largely imaginary — social order of days past culminated in marriage to an abusive, controlling man whom she eventually divorced with much difficulty. It’s a cautionary tale about oversimplifying roles and responsibilities, especially in pursuit of an ahistorical aesthetic.
But others have noted the ways in which the “trad” movement speaks to an earnest dissatisfaction with the breakdown of institutions, particularly the family. Alena Kate Pettitt describes realizing she wanted to be a homemaker after her parents separated. She noticed a stark difference between the warm domestic life of her grandparents’ home and drudgery of her mother’s working single parenthood.
“I’d see that and think, No, I want family,” says Pettitt in The New Yorker. “I want to be in my home.” For women who are tired of competing with men or who were reared by divorced or absent parents, the rigidity of “trad life” might look like the ambience and interdependence they’ve craved. For both men and women, more clearly differentiated gender roles and old-timey domestic pursuits offer a kind of refuge from postmodern meaninglessness and the corporate rat race.
Understandably, role playing as a ’50s housewife is a poor response to the side effects of feminist liberationism. The answer to the cultural disparagement of men, marriage or family life is not prairie dresses or homemade breakfast cereal. The theatrics of much “trad” content threatens to reduce family life to a farcical protest of our wider culture, rather than a source of strength and meaning to draw upon for engaging and improving the world around us. Even the onlineness of “trad” content risks turning loved ones into props or depriving them of unscripted attention.
But cynicism is certainly not the answer, either. Building on the momentum of The Times piece, others have made their own case against Ballerina Farm. Neeleman has a cleaner, the farm hires outside help, her in-laws are rich. Apparently, this makes her a fraud. By these accounts, all the beauty of the homemade meals, the scrappy flower arrangements, the rustic warmth of the home, the disheveled but happy kids, and the impromptu dances with her husband … are just a schtick.
One writer even tried life as a stay-at-home mother for a single week, and decided Neeleman must by lying about not having a nanny. It’s hard to find this level of condescension directed toward any other group of women.
It’s as though we’re being told, “It’s OK, folks, you can go back to your lives — that kind of abundance and beauty isn’t real and it’s not worth striving for (especially if you need help to get it).”
Instead of looking at what they chose to do with all life has given them, the Neelemans are condemned just for having it in the first place.
The Neelemans are showing the world something beautiful and worthwhile, even if it’s a bit idealized and romanticized: a fulfilling family life built on hardwork and togetherness. Let’s not punish them for it.