Mom-of-8 Utah Influencer Hannah Neeleman Talks 'Trad Wife' Criticism, Her Ballerina Farm Business and More

"For me to have the label of a traditional woman, I’m kinda like, I don’t know if I identify with that"

Despite the headlines, Hannah Neeleman, a self-described “ballerina farmer,” Juilliard-trained dancer, pageant queen and mother of eight, says she doesn’t consider herself the “queen of the ‘trad wives.’ “

But her husband has said he doesn’t mind the nickname so much.

“We were already together, doing what we were doing. And then ‘trad wife’ came along,” Daniel Neeleman told The Times of London in a new profile of the Utah couple that has gone viral.

“We can’t help it,“ Daniel said. “This is what we are. If we’re trad dad, trad wife, so be it.”

Hannah sees it another way, she said.

“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,” she told the Times, “but I do feel like we’re paving a lot of paths that haven’t been paved before.”

“So for me to have the label of a traditional woman, I’m kinda like, I don’t know if I identify with that,” she added.

The couple was reacting to their growing social media fame and their increasingly prominent place in what online observers call the “trad wife” movement, referring to women — including some influencers — who focus on rural lifestyle content around motherhood, homemaking and similar roles.

Though popular, “trad wives” also have their critics who argue it can undermine gender equality.

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Hannah, for her part, has repeatedly distanced herself from the labeling.

She told The New York Times in January that she didn’t really know the term “trad wife”: “I think everyone’s mission is different. I find so much joy and satisfaction in being with my kids.”

To The Times of London, in its piece published on Saturday, July 20, she said, “We try so hard to be neutral and be ourselves and people will put a label on everything. This is just our normal life.”

Together, Hannah and Daniel have built some 20 million followers across the major social media platforms while focusing on their shared business, Ballerina Farm, which sells meat, kitchen goods and accessories, spices and more.

Much of their content emphasizes their work — particularly Hannah’s time as a mother, farmer, cook and pageant contestant, with frequent, intimate-seeming glimpses at their daily life.

Hannah, now in her 30s, has reportedly held pageant titles going back to her teens — once revealing to fans that her “guilty pleasure” was date night with her husband; and her favorite quote, she said in early 2021, is: “My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher, but every day, three times a day, you need a farmer.”

The child of flower-shop owners, Hannah met David through a friend. He grew up among wealth and successful businesses: His dad founded JetBlue and other airlines.

The couple have long invited online users inside their lives with their eight home-schooled children on their 328-acre farm in Kamas, Utah.

Their oldest, Henry, is 12, according to the Times; the youngest, Flo, was born in January just 12 days before Hannah competed in a Mrs. World pageant.

The family’s audience has grown rapidly since 2021, according to The New York Times, which is something they realized early on.

“Hannah found that things she was sharing on social media really resonated with people. People crave that connection [to the farm]. There’s something instinctual about it,” Daniel said in 2021. “Farms are what keep America great.”

Ballerina Farm — a nod to Hannah’s past career as a dancer and to her and Daniel’s future — is the second of the couple’s farms; their first was destroyed in the Pole Creek fire of 2018.

There was something of a learning couple for the couple, too, after they decided to embark on a more rustic lifestyle after living in New York City and Rio de Janeiro.

“There are a lot of sacrifices — emotional sacrifices, physical sacrifices, but that is [the case] for anyone who goes from a life they’re familiar with to a completely unfamiliar one,” Hannah said in 2021. “Before we had the animals, it was just this idea of a farm and raising our kids, and raising the pigs, and it was all just this happy farm life that we created in our minds … but the reality is, that’s not how it works.”

Hannah put it this way to The Times of London: “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. But I knew that when I started to have kids my life would start to look different.”

With Ballerina Farm, they have built a notable business. Hannah and Daniel consider themselves “co-CEOs” in life as they told the Times, which describes some of how they divide their many parenting duties. (They don’t have nannies, they say, though they use a babysitter to get some time for themselves.)

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, both Hannah and Daniel say their religious faith is central to their family.

“I feel like we’re doing what God wants,” she told the Times as he chimed in: “We’re on his errand a little bit.”

They have full lives — ever expanding. They told the Times they could have more children.

“It’s very much a matter of prayer for me. I’m, like, ‘God, is it time to bring another one to the Earth?’ “ Hannah said. “And I’ve never been told no.”

As the family’s profile rises, so do the reactions to how they live their lives and how they post on social media.

But Hannah and Daniel say it does’t faze them all that much, even if it’s “no fun,” Hannah told the Times.

She cited her husband’s advice:

“He says you can’t lean into what people are saying or the titles people are putting on you. You just have to live your life and shut that out, because if not it will overtake you.”

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