What is a 'trad wife' and why have they gone viral?

If you know who Ballerina Farm is, chances are news about her “trad wife” lifestyle may have unwittingly filled your social media feeds in recent weeks.

Ballerina Farm is the Instagram handle of 34-year-old Hannah Neeleman, a mother-of-eight who lives on a dairy farm in Utah with her husband Daniel, 35.

She is one of an increasing number of women promoting the lifestyle of a ‘traditional wife’ to their followers on TikTok and Instagram.

But after a recent interview with Neeleman, details of her relentless schedule as a homemaker have caused controversy with commenters, many of whom have expressed concern for her welfare and the message being conveyed to other young women.

Neeleman, however, described the article as an “attack on her family” and “portraying me as oppressed with my husband being the culprit… couldn’t be further than the truth”.

What is a trad wife?

Trad wives are women who embrace traditional gender norms and champion homemaking, childcare, and supporting their husbands.

They often take influence from early 20th-century American housewives, are devout Christians, and express politically Conservative views.

With the rise of social media, they have begun documenting their lives through Instagram and TikTok reels, usually in full hair and make-up, and often with a child on their arm as they cook, clean, or offer ‘life hacks’ for “serving” or “submitting” to their husbands.

Estee C Williams, a self-confessed trad wife with more than 100,000 Instagram followers says in one of her videos: “Being a traditional wife is so much more than cooking and cleaning and wearing house dresses, it’s about taking your house and making it a home.”

She adds that “aprons are like our house uniforms… so we can wear our beautiful clothes in our home and still protect them”.

A typical video on Nara Smith’s Instagram feed is captioned: “Here’s everything my husband cooks in a day/what I cook for him”.

Professor Linda Kaye, a cyberpsychologist and associate head of psychology at Edge Hill University, says: “People who have these views have always existed – we’re just more aware of it now.”

In the age of social media, she says people have more “creative” ways of declaring and reaffirming their social identities.

A study by Media Matters America suggested that viewers of trad wife content are more likely to be exposed to online conspiracy theories.

Professor Kaye says online algorithms can link people with “particular types of world views” to others of “particular political persuasions”, sometimes with “toxic” consequences.

But she adds that although those risks exist, human behaviour both on and offline is “hugely complex” and multiple decision-making processes are at play to stop us “mindlessly imitating” what we see online.

Who is Hannah Neeleman?

Hannah Neeleman lives with her eight children and husband Daniel on a 328-acre working dairy farm near Kamas in Utah.

Their joint business venture ‘Ballerina Farm’ sells meat, dairy products, and household goods, with the help of around 40 staff from farmers to website designers.

Hannah was brought up as a devout Mormon in Utah but left home at 17 to study ballet at the prestigious Julliard School in New York City.

She told The Times in her recent interview: “I was a good ballerina. But I knew that when I started to have kids my life would start to look different.”

Neeleman was introduced to her husband by a mutual friend when he was 23 and she was 21. He told the newspaper in their interview, he was “ready to go… thinking ‘let’s get married'” as soon as they met, but she declined his offer of a date for six months.

Daniel was also raised as a Mormon, in Connecticut. His father is a billionaire and set up several airlines, including JetBlue.

Hannah finally agreed to go on a date with him after he realised they were on the same flight from Salt Lake City to New York – and pulled strings through his father’s position to get them seated next to each other, he told the newspaper.

They got engaged after a month and married after another two, the interview reveals.

She continued to attend ballet school, but three months after their wedding fell pregnant, becoming the first in the institution’s history to be pregnant while training.

They moved from their home in New York’s Upper West Side to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where Daniel took a job with one of his father’s companies.

Eventually, they settled back in Utah, where their family stands at eight children – Henry, 12, Charles, 10, George, nine, Frances, seven, Lois, five, Martha, three, Mabel, two, and Flora, one.

Neeleman is also a beauty pageant model, making headlines in January for competing as Mrs America at the Mrs World competition in Las Vegas 12 days after giving birth.

She posted that month: “What the last 12 days looked like for me! It’s been a postpartum like no other. Your Mrs. American (and baby girl American) are here and ready to roll! @mrsworldpageant“.

Does she see herself as a trad wife – and why has there been a backlash?

Asked if she identifies with the trad wife label, she replied: “I don’t necessarily identify with it because 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.”

“I feel like we’re doing what God wants,” she added.

Her husband then said: “We were already together, doing what we were doing. And then ‘trad wife’ came along. We can’t help it. This is what we are. If we’re trad dad, trad wife, so be it.”

Some of the details in the interview have sparked controversy.

The couple revealed Hannah has no help with childcare, claims to make every meal for all 10 of them from scratch, while producing her social media content and helping with the dairy business.

Her husband said she “sometimes gets so ill from exhaustion that she can’t get out of bed for a week”.

One commenter wrote: “I just read the Times article, and I am so very sad for Hannah. None of this is at all what she wanted, but she does it, because Daniel wants her to.

“Everything about their lives is what he’s always wanted. The only things she’s been allowed to keep is the name. That they use, as a brand. So very sad.”

Another said: “Hannah! Please take time for yourself, you DESERVE things for yourself. You deserve to be happy.”

But others have criticised the critical tone of the Times article, with one person commenting: “Revelation: loads of women simply love being a wife and mother. It’s not oppression.”

TV presenter Kirstie Allsop said: “I had never seen this account before, but I looked you up and I think what you are doing is amazing.”

In response to the comments, Neeleman later uploaded a video expressing her “shock” at the tone of the article, adding that “God and family” are her main motivations.

She signed off the clip: “For now, I’m doing what I love most: being a mother, wife, a businesswoman, a farmer, a lover of Jesus, and making meals from scratch.”

source