A Peek Behind the Ballerina Farm Facade Is Bleak as Hell
The new profile is an upsetting read that portrays Neeleman as a victim of both a controlling husband and a lucrative brand that thrives on her submission to his ideals.
Photos: Screenshot/TikTok In Depth
Over the weekend, The Times published an illuminating profile by Megan Agnew on the internet’s most famous tradwife, Hannah Neeleman a.k.a Ballerina Farm—an online empire that boasts nearly 20 million followers across social platforms. Agnew visited Neeleman, her husband Daniel Neeleman—a couple the Mormon church (of which they are members) couldn’t more perfectly dream up—, and their eight children on their 328-acre Utah farm, which also serves as the backdrop to the back-to-the-land fantasy of the Ballerina Farm brand. But what Agnew discovered was far from the blissful, duty-bound tradwife Neeleman portrays (and profits off of) online.
Instead, Agnew discovered a woman both burdened by and completely exhausted from the life she’s found herself in. Neeleman, 34, of course, doesn’t explicitly say any of this. In fact, throughout the profile, Agnew writes about how difficult it was to get any direct quotes from Neeleman. “I can’t, it seems, get an answer out of Neeleman without her being corrected, interrupted or answered for by either her husband or a child,” she writes. Daniel’s looming presence is felt throughout the entire piece, symbolic, I’m sure, of his looming presence in every part of her life.
What Agnew does procure from her short visit is that Daniel demanded he and Hannah got married and pregnant within three months of meeting each other back in 2011 when Hannah was 21, despite her insisting that they “date for a year” so she could “finish school and whatever.” The profile also makes clear that he’s the reason Hannah doesn’t have any childcare assistance and that there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping him (especially not birth control) from continuing to impregnate her until, I suppose, her body gives out, which will be seen as an act of God. Frankly, it was an incredibly upsetting read that portrayed Neeleman as a victim of both a controlling husband and a lucrative brand that thrives on her submission to his ideals. At one point, Daniel says his wife sometimes “gets so ill from exhaustion that she can’t get out of bed for a week.”
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I first learned about Agnew’s profile from dozens of TikTokers recommending everyone read it. As a casual Ballerina Farm checker-upper-on (I can’t bring myself to follow her), I obliged. The overwhelming sentiments now showing up in Neeleman’s comments are pity and worry. “Hannah, I sincerely hope you are okay,” one user wrote, which over 3,000 users hearted. Another user, Rhody Ray, said in a video, “She’s put last every day. She puts herself last. Her family puts her last. Who she was as a person before she was a wife and mother — that part of her is gone.” At one point, Agnew asked Neeleman if this idyllic-looking, traditional-values lifestyle has always been her dream.
“No,” she says. “I mean, I was, like —” She pauses. “My goal was New York City. I left home at 17 and I was so excited to get there, I just loved that energy. And I was going to be a ballerina. I was a good ballerina.”
That answer is a jarring contrast to how she depicts herself on social media, as a woman content to perform her wifely and motherly roles. I write this next thought somewhat jokingly: I can’t help but wonder if her persistent meal-making-from-scratch, endless tasks, and small squadron of children are an attempt to recreate that frantic New York City energy she’s been robbed of.
However, to paint Neeleman as purely a victim absolves her from her active participation in perpetuating the fantasy of a tradwife, even at her own detriment. The highly selective peek into her daily life that shows her child-rearing, beauty-pageant walking, and farm-animal tending as something that brings purpose and self-fulfillment is, should Agnew’s article be taken at face value (which I think it should), a lie. Ray, in her TikTok, went on to discuss how bad Ballerina Farm videos make her feel. While she mostly “hate-watches” them, they also make her feel inadequate as a wife and mother while also making her question her priorities. I think it’s safe to assume that not only is that how Neeleman’s videos make many women feel, but they are specifically designed to do just that.
What Agnew’s article made clear is that superficial design is not simply motivated by one woman’s enlightenment achieved via dutiful domestic bliss. Instead, it seems a lot more likely it’s just a profitable fantasy dreamt up by that woman’s controlling husband.