Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Miya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. How far away was
Speaker 2: it from your life?
Speaker 1: Very different. I'm twenty nine and I now live in
Speaker 1: New York, but had been living in London at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the year.
Speaker 2: This is journalist Meghan Agnew.
Speaker 1: And I don't have any children, and I'm not married, and.
Speaker 2: You have a career outside the home, and I.
Speaker 1: Have a career and unmarried and childless at the same
Speaker 1: age as my mom was when she was married and
Speaker 1: with children.
Speaker 2: I'm talking to her today about trad wives. One trad
Speaker 2: wife in particular, perhaps the queen of the tradwives, Hannah Nielman.
Speaker 2: She's thirty four and she runs Ballerina Farm with her husband, Daniel,
Speaker 2: who's thirty five, and their eight children. They live in Utah,
Speaker 2: which is often referred to as Mormon Country because a
Speaker 2: lot of Mormons live there, and Hannah and Daniel are
Speaker 2: both Mormons. Ballerina Farm is an actual farm with actual
Speaker 2: animals which are farmed for food, and Hannah is an
Speaker 2: actual Ballerina at least she was until about after child
Speaker 2: number two or three. When she stopped dancing professionally and
Speaker 2: switched to farm life with her family. Ballerina Farm, though,
Speaker 2: is also a brand, a huge brand with millions of
Speaker 2: Instagram followers, where Hannah makes content about her farm life,
Speaker 2: the meals that she makes from scratch, the babies she
Speaker 2: births in her bedroom, the farm work that she and
Speaker 2: her husband do, and all the many many children that
Speaker 2: she homeschools. You'll see all of that on the Ballerina
Speaker 2: Farm Instagram account. Here's the audio of one of Hannah's
Speaker 2: reels about what an average day.
Speaker 1: For her looks like.
Speaker 2: This one has been liked by one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: thousd people.
Speaker 3: I wake up nurse for Joe, with the kids fed
Speaker 3: and ready for school, which is in a little schoolhouse
Speaker 3: we have here on the farm. Then today I decided
Speaker 3: to make some soup.
Speaker 2: Now, the images that you see when you watch this
Speaker 2: reel are almost like a country music.
Speaker 1: Video entered gathering food.
Speaker 2: It's this depiction of a very wholesome Americana lifestyle, big
Speaker 2: ranch under a big wide open sky, happy kids running
Speaker 2: barefoot everywhere. We see Hannah exercising and nursing her youngest baby,
Speaker 2: picking fresh produce from the garden, cooking, and parenting. And
Speaker 2: there's also a fair amount of Ballerina Farm product placement
Speaker 2: because they sell protein powder and meat and sour dough
Speaker 2: starters as well as merch through their Ballerina Farm website,
Speaker 2: and all of it's a very sort of soft focus,
Speaker 2: aesthetically pleasing, simple vibe. Hannah never breaks a sweat or
Speaker 2: looks stressed or overwhelmed or even disheveled, and as you're
Speaker 2: about to hear in this episode, that's not by accident.
Speaker 2: Because to sell products, the Ballerina Farm sells a lifestyle,
Speaker 2: and the lifestyle it sells is that of a traditional
Speaker 2: wife and mother. Some even call it an ideology.
Speaker 4: If you've been on social media, you've probably seen the
Speaker 4: hashtag beautiful women cooking, cleaning, and embracing life as stay
Speaker 4: at home moms. These glassy, gorgeous videos showcasing life seemingly
Speaker 4: plucked out of history.
Speaker 2: But for all the instagramminess of tradwives and their proliferation
Speaker 2: on social media, it's rare for journalists to get access
Speaker 2: to them. And maybe that's because it's a hard image
Speaker 2: to keep up all day long in front of strangers.
Speaker 2: But somehow the times journalist Megan Agnew did get access.
Speaker 2: She spent a whole day at Ballerina Farm with Hannah
Speaker 2: Nuw and her family, and then she wrote a profile
Speaker 2: for The Times that went viral and sparked a million
Speaker 2: think pieces about Ballerina Farm and tradwives. And what was
Speaker 2: the reaction from Hannah and her husband Daniel after the
Speaker 2: profile came out.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they were thrilled.
Speaker 2: Yeah from mom and Maya, this is no filter. I'm
Speaker 2: meya Friedman, and let's get into it by starting with
Speaker 2: some basics. What even is a trad wife and how
Speaker 2: is a tradwife different to say, a housewife or a
Speaker 2: stay at home mother.
Speaker 1: My feeling about it is that it's about the public
Speaker 1: way of being a housewife. So you can be a housewife,
Speaker 1: but that's not being a trad wife because tradwife is
Speaker 1: performing it on the internet for other people's consumption and
Speaker 1: as a product that has the sort of shop front.
Speaker 2: I guess when I interview former tradwives who've sort of
Speaker 2: escaped from what they call the col of trad wifery,
Speaker 2: we free all rides tend to laid back to the
Speaker 2: duggers in terms of, you know, Michelle and Jimbob who
Speaker 2: with all of their children in that reality show. That
Speaker 2: was the first time we saw this tread wife life
Speaker 2: being performed. Is that your understanding of where it all began.
Speaker 1: I saw it beginning in Lockdown, really on social media,
Speaker 1: specifically when lots of people went back to this really
Speaker 1: earthy existence of having their fingers in the soil and
Speaker 1: making every morning. And we really wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: and we really wanted to escapism, and I think we
Speaker 1: really sort it out, and you know, we were like
Speaker 1: on zoom calls and we kind of wanted that alternate lifestyle.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's been rumbling on in the
Speaker 1: background through pop culture as well. You look at like
Speaker 1: the Kudashians, for example, who are a product that sells
Speaker 1: glamorous motherhood, an easy motherhood. You know, you don't see
Speaker 1: the nannies and you don't see the things happening. They
Speaker 1: are occasionally referenced, but this is not a new thing
Speaker 1: that's just appeared out of nowhere. It's really underwritten by
Speaker 1: lots of other sort of pop culture politics, reality TV,
Speaker 1: weird random things like COVID that we can't predict. So
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of been rambling on for a while.
Speaker 2: Would you consider it like mostly an American phenomenon. It's
Speaker 2: certainly been boosted by Instagram, because you're right, a big
Speaker 2: part of the trad wife aesthetic is the aesthetics. So
Speaker 2: Michelle Dugger certainly didn't tick that box because no one
Speaker 2: wanted to look that kind of amish depiction of what
Speaker 2: a traditional wife looks like. There's also this overlay of
Speaker 2: hotness to treadwives, isn't there. How do you say that?
Speaker 1: Well, it's kind of a man's dream, right, It's like
Speaker 1: she can have all of my children that I impregnate her with,
Speaker 1: and she's a beauty queen and she turns out well,
Speaker 1: and she looks like this while she's on my arm,
Speaker 1: and that's the perfect presentation of like American family values,
Speaker 1: which I think you're right. I think in the US
Speaker 1: the emphasis on family is so strong, particularly as you
Speaker 1: know a foreigner landing here from the UK. Comparatively, it's
Speaker 1: really core to existence and also to existence since you know,
Speaker 1: the pioneers went west, it was drawing a boundary of
Speaker 1: your own land and building a house on it. And
Speaker 1: you know, the politics, the darker politics, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: exists alongside that, building a house on it and filling
Speaker 1: it with your family and pro creating this brilliant, pioneering
Speaker 1: American society. So it's really built on that. And you
Speaker 1: can hear it as well in the current election from
Speaker 1: the Republicans talking about the importance of family and JD.
Speaker 1: Vance talking about Kamala Harris not having a steak in
Speaker 1: the world because she doesn't have children, and it all
Speaker 1: harks back to this importance placed on nuclear, heterosexual family
Speaker 1: by a certain aspect of American society.
Speaker 2: How does Mormonism overlay because I've been thinking about past
Speaker 2: incarnations of this. Of course, there was Martha Stewart, who
Speaker 2: was that sort of waspy, whitebread homemaker, you know, making
Speaker 2: it all look aesthetically pleasing, but there wasn't the hotness
Speaker 2: with her. And then there was Nigella Lawson, which is
Speaker 2: of course, you know, her whole tongue in cheek domestic
Speaker 2: Goddess series in her book. But that felt different because
Speaker 2: she was clearly How was that different? Because it was Nigella.
Speaker 1: Was naughty and is naughty, and she does everything with
Speaker 1: this wink and she kind of makes shortcuts and she
Speaker 1: like crushes packets of salt and vinegar crisps on top
Speaker 1: of her dinner parties, pasta bake that she's just done,
Speaker 1: and she like Wham's whole packs of butter into things
Speaker 1: and yeah, and it's all about it's about being a listen.
Speaker 1: It's about doing the things that you shouldn't do, which
Speaker 1: is also within the confines of another sort of femininity.
Speaker 1: It's not straightforward, but it is about naughty nurse and
Speaker 1: it's about cutting corners, and it's about sort of making
Speaker 1: it all look good but being a bit cheeky and
Speaker 1: probably a great shag, you know, kind of like packaged
Speaker 1: that with all of that, and that was thrilling in
Speaker 1: that era. Before that, we had Delia Smith who was
Speaker 1: like very colored between the lines and it was about
Speaker 1: baking your cakes in the ark and you do it
Speaker 1: like this and you follow the instructions and she was
Speaker 1: very posh. And then Nigella was yeah, cheeky and right.
Speaker 2: So Nigella was sexy, but it wasn't that traditional model
Speaker 2: of femininity with I guess it would be cool, you know,
Speaker 2: it's often referred to as modesty.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. And also the new wave of tradwives or
Speaker 1: the wave of tradwise and not sexual. There is no
Speaker 1: sexuality to them at all. They're very beautiful, but there's
Speaker 1: no sexuality.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about Hannah. Hannah Nielman is unequivocally the
Speaker 2: queen of tradwives. How did you first hear about bellerin
Speaker 2: a farm and Hannah?
Speaker 1: I first heard about her when she did the New
Speaker 1: York Times interview in January February, shortly after or during
Speaker 1: the pageant, when she was twelve days postpartum, and that
Speaker 1: went pretty viral. And then in those months after, I
Speaker 1: started getting fed loads of content by her, and my
Speaker 1: friends were sending me things like how funny is this?
Speaker 1: And it would be Nara Smith making chewing gum and
Speaker 1: talking in this sort of really breathy voice, and it
Speaker 1: all just seemed quite mad and you couldn't really believe it.
Speaker 2: How far away was it from your life?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: How old are you? What's your life like? I'm interested
Speaker 2: in the juxtaposition very different.
Speaker 1: I'm twenty nine and I now live in New York,
Speaker 1: but had been living in London at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the year, and I don't have any children and I'm
Speaker 1: not married.
Speaker 2: And you have a career outside that, and I have a.
Speaker 1: Career, and I am unmarried and childless at the same
Speaker 1: age as my mom was when she was married and
Speaker 1: with children, So there's a diversion there. And I had
Speaker 1: lots of conversations with my mum actually through this, because
Speaker 1: she was like, I'm a trad wife. I was a
Speaker 1: trad wife, you know. She stayed at home for a
Speaker 1: period of time to look after us. So we had
Speaker 1: lots of conversations about that. And a lot of the
Speaker 1: pushback from the article and the controversy from the people
Speaker 1: who felt it was so was around the fact that
Speaker 1: I was in some way judging their lifestyle who had
Speaker 1: chosen these traditional models. But from conversations with my mom
Speaker 1: and her friends and other people, it is a structure
Speaker 1: that enables, not always, but enables for the issues. You know,
Speaker 1: like you can and this is not my parents, just
Speaker 1: for the record, but not having access to money in
Speaker 1: a household has the potential to lead to really serious
Speaker 1: financial and emotional abuse. Or not having a boss separate
Speaker 1: to your husband or your children can also do the same.
Speaker 1: This is a structure that actually deserves more scrutiny. That's
Speaker 1: not to say that we can't choose it, But I
Speaker 1: do think and still believe now despite the endless DMS
Speaker 1: that I received otherwise, but I still do believe that
Speaker 1: it deserves a little bit more eyebrow raising because we've
Speaker 1: seen it before, We've been sold this before, and we've
Speaker 1: been missold it before, and I think that we just
Speaker 1: need to slightly go into it, like not completely blinkered
Speaker 1: by what's happened previously.
Speaker 2: Before I ask you about your interview with the Nielmans.
Speaker 2: For anyone who's not familiar with Hannah and Bellerina Farm,
Speaker 2: can you tell us who she was before she became
Speaker 2: famous as Bellerina Farm. What's her origin story.
Speaker 1: She was born into a Mormon family sort of near
Speaker 1: to Salt Lake City, and she was the eighth of
Speaker 1: nine children, and they were pretty working class family. They
Speaker 1: owned a sort of mum and pop flower shop basically,
Speaker 1: and she was homeschooled and gravitated very naturally towards ballet.
Speaker 1: Her brothers actually both went on to have a really
Speaker 1: successful shed building company, so they were really naturally entrepreneurial family,
Speaker 1: as with the parents, and so she gravitated towards ballet,
Speaker 1: and over various summer holidays got these sort of summer
Speaker 1: camps at Juilliard and eventually qualified to do ballet at Juilliard,
Speaker 1: which is this incredibly prestigious performing art school in New
Speaker 1: York on the Upper Side West Side.
Speaker 2: One of the and I'm not going to contradict, you
Speaker 2: don't worry anyway, super fancy and it's very lofty. And
Speaker 2: that's what she did. And she wanted to be a ballerina,
Speaker 2: and she wanted to live in New York City, which
Speaker 2: seemed wild. You know, it's a long way from Utah,
Speaker 2: and it's a long way from Mormon life, though she
Speaker 2: did live with other Mormon girls who she knew from church.
Speaker 2: Do we know much about her life in New York
Speaker 2: when she was studying ballet, It.
Speaker 1: Was pretty church orientated, and I think in and culture
Speaker 1: that is quite important.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't a sex in the city, you know,
Speaker 2: coming to New York and living that kind of carry
Speaker 2: breadshare life.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a sex in the city life. But she
Speaker 1: also said like something along the lines of New York
Speaker 1: was my dream and New York is where I wanted
Speaker 1: to be, So there obviously was a bit of that
Speaker 1: in her. And she said, when they still go back
Speaker 1: now with all the kids they go back every year
Speaker 1: or whatever. She was like, I love it. I just
Speaker 1: love the energy, and I love the vibe and I
Speaker 1: love being there. So she was obviously really taken by it.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're taken by New York, then
Speaker 1: you are also taken by the sort of sex and
Speaker 1: city late night it's lots going on kind of vibe
Speaker 1: because that's everywhere. It is sort of implicit in the
Speaker 1: city too.
Speaker 2: So what about Daniel Nielman, Where did he grow up?
Speaker 2: He had similar Mormon origins, but he grew up in
Speaker 2: a very different way.
Speaker 1: He grew up in a very very rich family. So
Speaker 1: his father was the founder of Jet Blue, which is
Speaker 1: an airline in the US, and various others and was
Speaker 1: incredibly successful. And they grew up in Connecticut, which is
Speaker 1: real sort of commuter belt. You know, there are so
Speaker 1: many associations with Connecticut, and he would get on the
Speaker 1: train every day and go to New York. And Daniel,
Speaker 1: as a teenager would get on the train with his
Speaker 1: friends and go to the city. And so he lived
Speaker 1: a life that was closer to it all and a
Speaker 1: bit more integrated, I suppose, with secular culture. And they
Speaker 1: had a suburban life. They didn't have any animals. They
Speaker 1: had no animals. He had no family who were farmers,
Speaker 1: but he dreamt of this big wildlife on a farm
Speaker 1: way way out in the west. They had come from
Speaker 1: Utah though his family and they have since returned there,
Speaker 1: so they had a base there. And he at the
Speaker 1: time was at university in Utah when he met Hannah
Speaker 1: and was looking. I suppose to work at one of
Speaker 1: his father's companies. That's what he was going to graduate onto.
Speaker 1: How did they meet, So, as they told me when
Speaker 1: I was there, they met a basketball game, like a
Speaker 1: college basketball game. They were introduced by mutual friends.
Speaker 3: So we're ment of the basketball game.
Speaker 2: I was doing Thanksgiving break.
Speaker 3: I was going to school in New York and Daniel
Speaker 3: was going to school in Utah, so we kind of
Speaker 3: like switched starts. So I went. I went back to
Speaker 3: school the following weekend.
Speaker 1: Daniel was like, oh my god, yes, let's go. I
Speaker 1: want to marry this woman.
Speaker 5: I was instantly smitten.
Speaker 1: Hannah didn't want to date, didn't want to do that yet.
Speaker 3: It took Hannah longer to realize.
Speaker 6: That we were so mad.
Speaker 1: He texted her. He was like, please commendate with me.
Speaker 1: She said no for six months.
Speaker 5: So we didn't see each other for six months.
Speaker 6: After the first night we met, she.
Speaker 1: Was back in Utah and mentioned to him that she
Speaker 1: was flying to New York City on this flight from
Speaker 1: Salt Lake and he said, oh, that's so funny. I'm
Speaker 1: on the same flight. So they went and they checked
Speaker 1: in and she was like, this is so weird. We
Speaker 1: were sitting on seats next to each other, and he
Speaker 1: had made a call to jat Blue, which is the
Speaker 1: airline they're flying with.
Speaker 2: Which had found mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which as father owned, and they sat next to
Speaker 1: each other, and that was their first proper date, which
Speaker 1: is a five and a half hour it's quite a
Speaker 1: long flight. I have done it, So five and a
Speaker 1: half hour flight, it's quite a long date where you
Speaker 1: you can't go anywhere. And that was their first date.
Speaker 2: And so how did things progress from there? Because it's
Speaker 2: interesting when you said she didn't want to date, she
Speaker 2: clearly knew for her what dating meant and that it
Speaker 2: would probably lead to marriage, which would lead to children,
Speaker 2: and she was still focused on her career.
Speaker 1: And this is a Mormon culture too, so you're right,
Speaker 1: it's that you don't date in the same way as
Speaker 1: I would. For example, it's much more proper, and it's
Speaker 1: much more chased, and it's much more you have to
Speaker 1: be respectable. So often it leads to marriage. And that
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been an unusual time for them to have
Speaker 1: got married. In fact, lots of people get married earlier.
Speaker 1: Because one Yeah, and they dated and he said, we
Speaker 1: need to get married, we need to get married, and
Speaker 1: she wanted to date for a year and then finish
Speaker 1: her course and then get married, and he said that's
Speaker 1: not going to work. So they got married three months later.
Speaker 2: Why do you think he said that? Is that because
Speaker 2: the subtext to me on that was that I can't
Speaker 2: wait that long to have sex with you.
Speaker 1: I did also think.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, because it's like when he said that won't
Speaker 2: work for me, I mean like, there's not a lot
Speaker 2: of guys who are like, I really want to get married.
Speaker 2: It's urgent.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they also said, you know, we were so
Speaker 1: in love with each other and we couldn't stay away
Speaker 1: from each other. Yeah, So that is some of the
Speaker 1: subtexts that I read too. But I also think that
Speaker 1: he probably just wanted to lock it down. Yeah. She
Speaker 1: was a cat. She's gorgeous, and she comes from a
Speaker 1: good family in Utah and also had the sort of
Speaker 1: glamour of New York too, which reflected his own life
Speaker 1: in a way. I mean, I'm just reading into what
Speaker 1: they told me. So this is just me speculating, But
Speaker 1: I think he just wanted to lock it down. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if she did a bit as well. You know,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been respectable necessarily for her to have
Speaker 1: dated for a year. She wasn't an unwilling participant in
Speaker 1: all of this, but that was just how the stick went.
Speaker 1: That was the bit that they did and the story
Speaker 1: that they told. So it's difficult to know who felt what.
Speaker 2: When I like that it subverts that idea of the
Speaker 2: you know, young woman trying to lock down the rich
Speaker 2: guy and him wanting to keep his freedom until the
Speaker 2: last possible minute. He was very much the one who
Speaker 2: wanted the commitment. And so then what happened after they
Speaker 2: got married. Did she give up her dancing career?
Speaker 1: Well, they stayed in New York for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and they had their first and second child there, I think,
Speaker 1: and then they moved to Brazil because Daniel was made
Speaker 1: the chairman of one of his father's companies, which is
Speaker 1: a security business. And Brazil's quite a big outlet finally
Speaker 1: for Mormon missions, so instead of a gap year, a
Speaker 1: lot of Mormons go and do mission and they work
Speaker 1: with local community and they volunteer and they also sort
Speaker 1: of spread the word of the Latter day Saints. So
Speaker 1: there's a large community of Mormons in Brazil, and they
Speaker 1: also have a lot of business there. So they went
Speaker 1: to live there and she had a third child, and
Speaker 1: then that is when she gave up ballet.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's amazing. There's not a lot of dancers
Speaker 2: who come back even after one child, you know, you
Speaker 2: writing your piece that she kept dancing, and she stayed
Speaker 2: at Juilliard even when she was pregnant, and was the
Speaker 2: first dancer to do so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean she said that it was really difficult.
Speaker 1: It was like it's one of those things that you
Speaker 1: just can't do when you have babies and when you
Speaker 1: have children, which is a universal experience, I'm sure for
Speaker 1: women that it's a difficult career to continue, not impossible,
Speaker 1: a bit difficult. And so I think there was some
Speaker 1: relief when she decided to give it up, but I
Speaker 1: went back through her blogs. She had this blog when
Speaker 1: they moved there and in the early days of her
Speaker 1: career as a sort of online influencer, I suppose. And
Speaker 1: it's really cute. It's just an account, a really honest
Speaker 1: written account of her days and what she does and
Speaker 1: having babies. And there was real heartbreak about her figuring
Speaker 1: out her new identity as a mother and the long
Speaker 1: days with the children. And as the blog post goes on,
Speaker 1: she says something like, you know, I made the decision
Speaker 1: not to see this as a sacrifice. I am making
Speaker 1: the active decision to see this as a gift that
Speaker 1: I am bringing down the souls from heaven and embodying
Speaker 1: them in my children. And we are creating something bigger,
Speaker 1: And we are creating a legacy, a family legacy. And
Speaker 1: how important is that? And there's nothing else more important.
Speaker 1: So you could see the shift from her really struggling
Speaker 1: with it and losing that identity of her own as
Speaker 1: a ballerina, to then reframing it essentially.
Speaker 2: In a moment. Bellerina farm is big business and Hannah
Speaker 2: and Daniel are super savvy. So is the treadwife thing
Speaker 2: really just a marketing tool or are they for real.
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with journalist Megan Agnew in just
Speaker 2: a tick. So I didn't realize that she had an
Speaker 2: online presence before she got married and before Ballerina Farm
Speaker 2: was born. How was that brand, Ballerina Farm born.
Speaker 1: The name or the brand itself or both.
Speaker 2: Well both of it? Like how did she go? You know?
Speaker 2: I know his dream was to live in a farm,
Speaker 2: hers wasn't, and they ended up doing it, which a
Speaker 2: lot of couples make sacrifices like that to pursue one
Speaker 2: partner's dream and then the other one does often get
Speaker 2: on board with it. But how did that happen? And
Speaker 2: where did Bellerina Farm come from? Because by the time
Speaker 2: I heard of it, it was just this huge viral
Speaker 2: sensation and she had millions of followers.
Speaker 1: It was a really conscious maneuver. So she had been
Speaker 1: blogging and while they were in Brazil, she really fell
Speaker 1: in love with animals and farming. So, as you say,
Speaker 1: this was a transition that was made voluntarily, like she
Speaker 1: wasn't dragged onto the farm in the middle of Utah.
Speaker 1: So then they decide to move back and they buy
Speaker 1: this first farm, and she starts blogging about it and
Speaker 1: there's not even there's not running water on this farm.
Speaker 1: There's no building, there's nothing. It's like completely raw land.
Speaker 1: And every every day after Daniel's work and after the
Speaker 1: kids have done school, they drove an hour there from
Speaker 1: this basement apartment they were renting, and she cooked meals
Speaker 1: on an open fire basically, and Daniel was like building
Speaker 1: this house with his bare hands, and they said it
Speaker 1: was great content. They got loads of followers, and then
Speaker 1: they had this terrible fire in the summer and it
Speaker 1: burnt everything they'd done. It just burnt to the ground,
Speaker 1: and it got them even more followers. And Hannah was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I think after the fire it went from
Speaker 1: ten thousand to fourteen thousand, and Daniel was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was eleven thousand to seventeen thousand.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. So they've always seen it as a mark
Speaker 2: of what is it Their entrepreneur is his entrepreneurial brain
Speaker 2: and clearly hers too, that had seen it very consciously.
Speaker 2: It's not a happy accident.
Speaker 1: No, And she did courses, you know, online internet courses
Speaker 1: to learn how to do it properly. This enabled their
Speaker 1: dream essentially, or his initially, you know, this was the
Speaker 1: way to bankroll a really traditional small holding which you
Speaker 1: cannot uphold just by farming eighty cows. That's impossible in America.
Speaker 2: So she was monetizing the account early on what sort
Speaker 2: of brands wanted to work with her.
Speaker 1: They were sort of doing like tee tat, like homewear
Speaker 1: things and some food things, and now they do things
Speaker 1: like protein shakes and like it's sort of an FedEx,
Speaker 1: so it's much more mainstream. But it was planned, but
Speaker 1: they were also I think it just worked, you know,
Speaker 1: like it just worked because it was beautiful and it
Speaker 1: was an amazing location. And then they bought after the fire,
Speaker 1: they bought this other piece of land which then went
Speaker 1: on to become Ballerina Farm. And they were trying to
Speaker 1: figure out a name, and her brother was there, who
Speaker 1: was this entrepreneur, and he said, what about Ballerina Farm,
Speaker 1: because obviously she had been a ballerina and that's what
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: I thought that was really interesting, Megan, because you know,
Speaker 2: you describe Daniel Nielman as an all American stake of
Speaker 2: her husband square Jewed Denham Clad, you know, from this
Speaker 2: conservative Mormon family, and in some ways, the idea of
Speaker 2: calling your farm Ballerina farm could be seen to be
Speaker 2: quite emasculating or quite feminizing, but he was into it.
Speaker 2: Is that because he understood the value of marketing.
Speaker 1: I think there are two reasons. One is that Hannah
Speaker 1: was the face, you know, and she's also the brains,
Speaker 1: but she was the face of it. She's head of marketing.
Speaker 2: When you say she's the brains, what do you mean.
Speaker 1: She understands social media in a way that Daniel doesn't.
Speaker 1: She understands it really thoroughly, and she understands what other
Speaker 1: people are doing and what works, and she's very engaged
Speaker 1: with it all. And she's the one who uploads all
Speaker 1: the content. But Daniel is the one who makes, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, the main business decisions. So I think
Speaker 1: that he understood that the way that they were going
Speaker 1: to sell it was through her. And the second reason
Speaker 1: is I think that central to the brand is the
Speaker 1: fact that she went to Juilliard, and is the fact
Speaker 1: that she no longer is a vallerina. You know, is
Speaker 1: there a more worthy decision as a super talented, qualified
Speaker 1: woman than to choose looking after and bringing up your children.
Speaker 2: So self sacrifice becomes part of the origin story as well.
Speaker 1: And it always has been every bio, every interview is
Speaker 1: absolutely central. The fact that she went to Juilliard and
Speaker 1: then gave up is one hundred per central to the
Speaker 1: brand from the beginning.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to know whether Daniel is an actual farmer
Speaker 2: or is he just cause playing being a farmer.
Speaker 1: Now he's an actual farmer. He's out on the farm
Speaker 1: all the time, and he loves it. He absolutely loves it.
Speaker 1: He loves all the animals, and he loves all the land,
Speaker 1: and he loves all the stuff. He called himself an
Speaker 1: agricultural missionary though, so not only is it about farming,
Speaker 1: but it's about sharing the farming with other people and
Speaker 1: encouraging people to start their own small farms and repopulate
Speaker 1: America with these homesteads, which I did say to him,
Speaker 1: that's financially impossible, though, how are you suggesting people do it?
Speaker 1: And he was like, yeah, well, you know, social media
Speaker 1: pays for all of our basically allows us to have
Speaker 1: this farm, and it's a thing that allows us to
Speaker 1: charge four times more for a pint of milk than
Speaker 1: the farmer down.
Speaker 2: The road or a steak, so it's not sustainable on
Speaker 2: its own. The income or the revenue comes from social
Speaker 2: and from her Instagram.
Speaker 1: And it comes from being able to sell products mark
Speaker 1: them up by five times, four times more than if
Speaker 1: I had a milk farm.
Speaker 2: Or and you were just so much year old Jerry had.
Speaker 1: A milk farm, right, And I said, like, you know,
Speaker 1: about what if Jerry doesn't have a pageant, queen wife
Speaker 1: and eight beautiful children. And he was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: well you know, social media isn't for everyone. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he was quite deluded, if I'm big completely honest in
Speaker 1: like what exactly he was promoting, because the thing that
Speaker 1: he was promoting, that is impossible unless you're really hot.
Speaker 2: Over the years that they have been, you know, working
Speaker 2: under the brand Ballerina Farm and on that farm and
Speaker 2: having all the babies are there's certain points where things
Speaker 2: went viral and their their fame and their followers jumped.
Speaker 1: The pageant definitely was because that was quite recently. The
Speaker 1: pageant that was January of this year. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: recent and then I don't know. There have definitely been
Speaker 1: these controversies around her not looking after her children properly
Speaker 1: and then running too wild or them abusing animals. She
Speaker 1: said that she dropped kicked to cockrel across the farmyard
Speaker 1: because it had packed one of her children and it
Speaker 1: drew blood. So everyone was pretty hurt up about that.
Speaker 1: And then I think COVID was the thing that really
Speaker 1: like propels them upwards. In her recipes, she was making
Speaker 1: a lot of sour dough and churning a lot of butter,
Speaker 1: and so people went to have that.
Speaker 7: And then we're going to mix the starter with the
Speaker 7: water until it's completely dissolved in nice and milky. Then
Speaker 7: we're going to add our flour. We're going to mix
Speaker 7: it together, and then I just need it with my
Speaker 7: hand because I feel like that's the easiest until it's
Speaker 7: nice and smooth.
Speaker 2: This idea of the tread wife in the case of
Speaker 2: Narasmith and of Hannah, this obsession with building or making
Speaker 2: things from scratch. Can you talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 2: because I mean, I know Narra Smith makes bubblegummy.
Speaker 6: I poured some powdered sugar on some waxed paper and
Speaker 6: created a well before combining my gumbased with some corn
Speaker 6: syrup and slowly melting it down. And so that was
Speaker 6: all melted, I gave it a good stir and poured
Speaker 6: it into my little powdered sugar well as I created, just.
Speaker 2: Like it's almost a joke. Why don't you just go
Speaker 2: and buy some butter? Why do you have to make
Speaker 2: better from scratch? Particularly when you have eight children? Like,
Speaker 2: what's that about? Is that just a weird flex or
Speaker 2: it's an ideology.
Speaker 1: I think the Narasmeth thing is like more knowing, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a bit more baiting people, and it's
Speaker 1: quite silly, I hope.
Speaker 2: But does Hannah do the same thing. I mean there aren't.
Speaker 2: They don't have processed food, they don't have ready made meals.
Speaker 2: She does make it? Does she make everything from scratch?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I said, do you never get like a cheeky pizza?
Speaker 1: She's like, no, no, don't. We don't do ready meals.
Speaker 1: I think more widely in the US, so much is
Speaker 1: processed and so much comes from big farms in a
Speaker 1: way that I wasn't actually ready for moving from the UK.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinary how difficult it is to get good raw produce,
Speaker 1: and so I think here there's a real desire to
Speaker 1: see and then hopefully consume that sort of cooking and
Speaker 1: that way of life. But I think, as we've touched
Speaker 1: on a number of times, it's about this effortlessness, and
Speaker 1: it's about providing, and it's about your role as a
Speaker 1: woman to feed and nourish your children and your family
Speaker 1: in a way that is healthy and not cheating.
Speaker 2: That's what's interesting to me because there's the implied judgment
Speaker 2: of cheating. And when she said to you, no, we
Speaker 2: don't do that. We don't do ready meals, I mean
Speaker 2: even bread, Like I wouldn't even consider bread a ready meal.
Speaker 2: I would consider bread of staple or pasta, or butter
Speaker 2: or cheese. It's everything from scrap, which.
Speaker 1: Like why, it's a really good question.
Speaker 2: Because it's kind of saying I'm better than you, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Or Am I being defensive of my storeboard butter and bread.
Speaker 1: I think in a way it is. Yes. I think
Speaker 1: what she's saying is this is how it's meant to
Speaker 1: be right, this is how family life is meant to be,
Speaker 1: and it's about and it should be away from modernity
Speaker 1: in some way and things that are not good for
Speaker 1: your children. And that's it's so enthrined in Mormon teachings too,
Speaker 1: which is this domesticity of the wife and also this
Speaker 1: performed effortlessness of she can do it, and she never
Speaker 1: complains and it's like the last ten years was kind
Speaker 1: of missed on her. And I said, you know, how
Speaker 1: do you feel about all the women who exactly feel
Speaker 1: like this is judging in some way and are really
Speaker 1: angry about that. And she completely missed the point of
Speaker 1: the question and said, you know, I hope that what
Speaker 1: I'm doing encourages women to see how lovely it is
Speaker 1: to cook lovely males for your family, But that's kind
Speaker 1: of not the point because a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: have time to do that. Most people don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the word privilege is sometimes overused, but
Speaker 2: this whole idea relies on women doing nothing or someone.
Speaker 2: Of course it could be a man, but it never is.
Speaker 2: There aren't trad husbands. Really, it relies on these very
Speaker 2: you know, stereotypical gender roles, doesn't it, and like really
Speaker 2: hardcore gender roles, because the woman is only the carer
Speaker 2: because preparing all that food, I don't even know how
Speaker 2: she has time to look after the children. And that's where,
Speaker 2: you know, the way social media condenses it and flattens
Speaker 2: it in terms of oh, here I made the butter,
Speaker 2: and I churned the butter, and it literally probably is
Speaker 2: shown for two seconds, but that's something that would take
Speaker 2: hours to do.
Speaker 1: And it's also really boring. Again, you know, there's no
Speaker 1: promotion here, like you know, this is eighteen no longer
Speaker 1: than that, who ever knows how many years it is,
Speaker 1: thirty years straight of every day doing the bloody food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I know that some people enjoy it more
Speaker 1: than others. But it's also it has got to get boring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's no acknowledgment. And you know, for her
Speaker 2: perhaps it isn't boring. But it's interesting what you said
Speaker 2: in her blog, how she said I made a conscious
Speaker 2: decision essentially not to complain, to see this as a
Speaker 2: gift and a calling. And so it's the implication, even
Speaker 2: if she might not be doing it consciously, is if
Speaker 2: you don't find this as rewarding as I do, there's
Speaker 2: something wrong with you and you're not a real woman.
Speaker 1: I think that's why it's so controversial, why people get angry, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they have really strongly held believes about saying sex
Speaker 1: marriage and sex before marriage. These have been really really destructive.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these belief systems have been
Speaker 1: really destructive, particularly towards women and around abortion and rights
Speaker 1: over our bodies, and you know, part of that, part
Speaker 1: of not having so many rights over our bodies, is
Speaker 1: that we have to continue to give up our rights
Speaker 1: to our children to provide for them at the expense
Speaker 1: of everything else, and the expense of time for yourself,
Speaker 1: which is really important so that you don't go insane
Speaker 1: and so that you slightly remember where you're at to
Speaker 1: collect your thoughts and all of these things. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's complicated and it can be dangerous as well.
Speaker 2: After this break, how did Megan actually convince the nailman's
Speaker 2: to give her so much access and let her into
Speaker 2: their house and once she actually gets to bellerin a farm?
Speaker 2: Why is it so hard to get Hannah on her own?
Speaker 2: The rest of our conversation coming up. Tell me about
Speaker 2: the process of securing the interview. Was it easy to
Speaker 2: get then to a huge number of interviews? I mean,
Speaker 2: the Times is obviously very prestigious, but what was it like?
Speaker 2: There's always back and forth negotiating an interview and access.
Speaker 2: How did that play?
Speaker 1: That was my brilliant colleagues in London, my commissioning editor
Speaker 1: at the magazine, who is so good at doing this.
Speaker 1: But my understanding is that they were pretty keen.
Speaker 2: Well expanding their market to the UK, so you can
Speaker 2: see what was you know, for them.
Speaker 1: And they also love England. They were like constantly asking me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, do we turna argar off in in the summer?
Speaker 1: I bet it's really beautiful. Where do you live? What's
Speaker 1: it like? Like they were so fetishistic about England and
Speaker 1: it was kind of an interesting element actually to that
Speaker 1: form of really old fashioned countryside e domesticity that they
Speaker 1: want in habit. Like they were asking, they were really
Speaker 1: desperate to hear in a way that they were like
Speaker 1: taking notes and then they just said come, come for
Speaker 1: the day. Come for the day and we'll do the
Speaker 1: interview and you can see the farm. So they were
Speaker 1: really open.
Speaker 2: You'd seen it all obviously on social media a lot,
Speaker 2: as has anyone who's followed Bellerina Farm. When you actually
Speaker 2: arrived on the farm, what does it look like?
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's quite near to this skiing town
Speaker 1: which is pretty like bougie. Actually there are like you know,
Speaker 1: flashy cars and stuff as but forty five minutes away,
Speaker 1: so it's not miles away from anything. But it's really
Speaker 1: out in the sticks and it's along this long track
Speaker 1: off a main road, and it's sort of between these
Speaker 1: water meadows which is where the cows graze, and the
Speaker 1: more arid mountains which go sort of behind the farmhouse,
Speaker 1: which is where they have their rodeo horses and they
Speaker 1: have the pigs and the chickens. And it's really unbelievably beautiful,
Speaker 1: like you just get your phone out and it looks
Speaker 1: amazing on your phone and it's made for Instagram. But
Speaker 1: it's also kind of scary. Like the day before when
Speaker 1: I arrived, I just wanted to go for a drive
Speaker 1: and I was driving along this really really really long
Speaker 1: road and I was planning on doing this big loop
Speaker 1: and I got about half an hour down this road
Speaker 1: and I was like, there is nobody else here if
Speaker 1: I break down or something happens. I just suddenly started
Speaker 1: freaking out at the ruralness of it. And there's something
Speaker 1: a bit scary about it. I mean, you live in Australia,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have had moments like that when you're like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, this is.
Speaker 2: Actually really nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, and then your brain goes a bit funny.
Speaker 1: And I grew up in the countryside in the UK,
Speaker 1: so I'm not like, you know, a city girl through
Speaker 1: and through. So there was this sense of like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: you're far away.
Speaker 2: When you opened the door. When the door was opened
Speaker 2: of the house and you met Daniel and Hannah, what
Speaker 2: were your first impressions?
Speaker 1: Really relaxed, The kids were everywhere. Daniel is actually very
Speaker 1: hands on with the kids and like with the babies,
Speaker 1: and it just looked exactly how it did on Instagram.
Speaker 1: It was kind of chaotic and loose living. You know
Speaker 1: that they're not in any way. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think you can be uptight about like presentation of the house.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like rough and tumble, and it
Speaker 1: looked great.
Speaker 2: So like the kid with the kids all sort of
Speaker 2: in coordinated outfits or share complimentary shades of neutral linen
Speaker 2: pretty much.
Speaker 1: But they were also like very muddy and like had
Speaker 1: fruit all over their places, and I think they just
Speaker 1: have really good clothes. And it was good. I mean,
Speaker 1: the interview was very much involving Daniel, much more than
Speaker 1: I initially anticipated, particularly when it came to politics and
Speaker 1: religion and trad wifeeness. He was the one who sort
Speaker 1: of took the lead on those answers.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, and it felt a little. I know you
Speaker 2: were obviously very tried hard not to inject your opinion
Speaker 2: into the story, and you reported it out very carefully
Speaker 2: in in a balanced way, but it did come across
Speaker 2: as controlling and a little ominous. His refusal to leave
Speaker 2: you alone with her, it seemed like he was diverting
Speaker 2: you away from being able to talk to her. Tell
Speaker 2: me a bit about that. Is that how you felt.
Speaker 1: I think it would be extreme to say that he
Speaker 1: was like diverting or in any way possessive, but he was.
Speaker 1: He's the master of the house. And I've spoken to
Speaker 1: a lot of Mormon women since who've got in touch
Speaker 1: with me to say that, which was very moving actually
Speaker 1: and meant a lot, to say that it was an
Speaker 1: accurate portrayal. They felt it to be an accurate portrayal
Speaker 1: of the gender roles that they see in their own
Speaker 1: lives and throughout their community. And in Mormonism, the men
Speaker 1: have the priesthood. All of the men have the priesthood
Speaker 1: after baptism, so they really are the ones who lead
Speaker 1: the press and who are able to make authoritative comments
Speaker 1: on culture, society, and their community. And it's the women
Speaker 1: who are the homemakers. And that added so much context
Speaker 1: to why she looked to him when it was about
Speaker 1: the bigger world, because it's the men who go out
Speaker 1: into it. They do their missions, and then they return
Speaker 1: and they're full of worldly knowledge. So that's what it
Speaker 1: really reminded me of, was that he is the one
Speaker 1: who's right and has the important views on things, and
Speaker 1: she is the one who looks after the children. So
Speaker 1: I think him leading was more that rather than him
Speaker 1: taking away.
Speaker 2: But did they seem like equals? Yeah, I know they
Speaker 2: call themselves co CEOs. Did they seem like equals? That
Speaker 2: is really important context what you say about it wasn't
Speaker 2: necessarily a sinister thing or a dysfunctional thing in their relationship.
Speaker 2: It's more just the strictures of Mormonism and how they
Speaker 2: were both and those really hardcore gender roles.
Speaker 1: Yes, in terms of the kids and looking after the kids,
Speaker 1: he was way more involved than many other modern dads.
Speaker 1: I would have thought. You know, the kids joined him
Speaker 1: on the farm.
Speaker 5: We have a lot of kids, so we have a
Speaker 5: lot of responsibilities, and I take care of more of
Speaker 5: the ranch side of things. Hannah takes care of more
Speaker 5: the marketing, but we also share so many roles, especially
Speaker 5: with parenting when we're very fifty to fifty. Hannah does more.
Speaker 5: I do as much as I can.
Speaker 7: Well, especially because the kids are homeschooled and both of
Speaker 7: us are at home every day.
Speaker 1: But his decision was the final one. Like we went
Speaker 1: out to the barn and this new barn that they're
Speaker 1: built and it's really beautiful's where the dairy cows are
Speaker 1: going to go, and had built this platform in the
Speaker 1: middle of it all, and I said, oh, why is
Speaker 1: this here? And he was like, well, I want to
Speaker 1: do tours. I want to do tours so that I
Speaker 1: can show people the building, but Hannah doesn't want to
Speaker 1: do them. And I kind of like looked down and
Speaker 1: we were standing on the platform that he had built
Speaker 1: to do the farm tours, and he was telling me
Speaker 1: that they're not going to do them because Hannah doesn't
Speaker 1: want to do them, and I just thought, I think
Speaker 1: the decision might already have been made. Interesting. So I
Speaker 1: think that they are equals and that they're they both
Speaker 1: have different stakes in the same company, But I think
Speaker 1: that from my interactions with him and her, he seemed
Speaker 1: to have the final say in it.
Speaker 2: What are the practicalities of running a farm with eight
Speaker 2: children that you have to prepare all their meals for, Like,
Speaker 2: they must have help. I know that she says that
Speaker 2: they don't. But did you get the sense that the
Speaker 2: help had been sent away for the day.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think they want the help.
Speaker 2: So who teaches the children? Because they're all homeschooled in the.
Speaker 1: Barn, they have a teacher. So they have a Mormon
Speaker 1: teacher from down the road who comes to school the kids, but.
Speaker 2: Most of them, I suppose. How old are the kids, Like,
Speaker 2: they range in age from almost newborn to what the
Speaker 2: eldest is thirty, right, So she's obviously preoccupied with the
Speaker 2: little ones all through the day. And then when they're
Speaker 2: not at school, all of them, I mean even just
Speaker 2: the physicality of supervising them and making sure they don't
Speaker 2: run off into a damn How do they even do that?
Speaker 1: Well, they kind of look after each other, the kids,
Speaker 1: and the older ones look after the younger ones. It's
Speaker 1: like now joined into a circle, and they're pretty wild,
Speaker 1: like they do just go off and do their own thing,
Speaker 1: which again, like that is a genuine fantasy, Like that
Speaker 1: actually really worked and that is really real. And the
Speaker 1: fact that the kids just like kind of run wild
Speaker 1: and are happy with it. Yeah, And that's the core
Speaker 1: of why people love it and want to watch it,
Speaker 1: because you think, oh god, I need to check that
Speaker 1: my baby's not picking up a cigarette bart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and instead of helicoptering, So they're not helicopter parents.
Speaker 1: No, but they don't have to be because they.
Speaker 2: You had some brief time alone with her, and there
Speaker 2: are a couple of things you asked her. You asked
Speaker 2: her if this was what she always wanted. What did
Speaker 2: she say?
Speaker 1: She said no, She was like, I wanted New York.
Speaker 1: That was my dream. But as we said earlier, she
Speaker 1: wants it now. Dreams changed her life now. But I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that it's so extreme that life. It's so extreme.
Speaker 1: And I was really surprised actually when she said.
Speaker 2: That you start your pace like this. Hannah Neielman was
Speaker 2: pregnant with her eighth child, and she had two due dates.
Speaker 2: The first was for a baby, obviously, the second, just
Speaker 2: under two weeks later, was for a beauty pageant. Tell
Speaker 2: me about what you think was the reason she entered
Speaker 2: that pageant.
Speaker 1: I think that so much of this sort of femininity
Speaker 1: is about performing ease and about making things look easy
Speaker 1: and pleasant and nice. And I think that she knew
Speaker 1: and thought that she could do it. She'd had seven
Speaker 1: children before that, and it was in the diary. She
Speaker 1: had this commitment, she had this duty, and I think
Speaker 1: to her it was slightly unthinkable that she wouldn't do it.
Speaker 2: She trained, and you wrote about her extensive preparation for
Speaker 2: the pageant. It seemed to me to be a real
Speaker 2: act of defiance doing that pageant and competing in Missus
Speaker 2: World because she'd won the Missus America title. Is that
Speaker 2: how it came across to you, where it was like,
Speaker 2: I am determined to maintain my identity and do something
Speaker 2: that's not about me being a wife and a mother.
Speaker 1: That's such a good way of putting it that there
Speaker 1: was this determination in her. But I don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: that it was about her detaching herself from being a
Speaker 1: wife and a mother, because the pageant itself is about
Speaker 1: being a wife and a mother. Missus American is about
Speaker 1: being a wife and they talk about that children and
Speaker 1: it's part of that brand. So I think it was
Speaker 1: a defiance in showing people she could do it. But
Speaker 1: I think it was a defiance in showing people she
Speaker 1: could do it with children and with a husband, and
Speaker 1: while remaining modest, wearing her garments and wearing her you know,
Speaker 1: the modesty clothing that she's required to from her religion.
Speaker 2: Well, the pageant itself isn't. I mean, I can't. I
Speaker 2: hate the term modest because it kind of implies that
Speaker 2: people who don't dress like that are immodest. But you know,
Speaker 2: I noticed just this week or last week, she reposted
Speaker 2: some footage of her and it was in a tight
Speaker 2: dress from the pageant. Tight dress. It wasn't the Missus World,
Speaker 2: it was I think the Missus America. And she wrote
Speaker 2: a night I will never forget this year has flown
Speaker 2: by heading to Las Vegas next week to crown my successor.
Speaker 2: I was twenty weeks pregnant with Miss Flora Joe during
Speaker 2: this pageant, and I thought that last line was so
Speaker 2: to because she's in a swimsuit. She doesn't look like
Speaker 2: she's pregnant at all. And this is I think her
Speaker 2: seventh or eighth child. And to me, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of talk about body image and ballerinas and
Speaker 2: weight and all of those kinds of things, and the
Speaker 2: very strict structures and confines that women who are ballerinas
Speaker 2: have to live within but it seemed very important to
Speaker 2: her that she didn't look pregnant, and to be saying,
Speaker 2: look how skinny I am, Look how unpregnant I am.
Speaker 2: And it was again as if that was a flex
Speaker 2: and as if that was an achievement. That she was
Speaker 2: in a swim suit, competing in a pageant with high
Speaker 2: heels makeup and she won, and yet she was twenty
Speaker 2: weeks pregnant. What did you get any sense of sort
Speaker 2: of body issues for her? And this because one of
Speaker 2: the things that the Internet's obsessed with is how skinnys
Speaker 2: she is despite having eight children. You know, she bounces back,
Speaker 2: She got back in that twelve days after postpartum. She
Speaker 2: was back in that you know, tight dress, walking in
Speaker 2: high heels, and.
Speaker 1: She works out hard. She goes to the gym every morning.
Speaker 2: It's like that a razure of evet as well, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's this demand that I've had eight children, but you
Speaker 2: will see no sign of any of it on my body.
Speaker 1: And in Mormonism again, how you look after your body
Speaker 1: is a reflection of how you attending to your soul.
Speaker 1: So that's why so many Mormon women, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're watching this Mormon wives thing on Hulu, are
Speaker 1: so beautiful because it's they see it as being a
Speaker 1: reflection on your goodness, your spiritual goodness.
Speaker 2: Is it the same for men? Them looking hot also
Speaker 2: a reflection of their spiritual goodness? Probably not. It's probably
Speaker 2: about how hard they work, right, that's probably the reflection
Speaker 2: of their spiritual.
Speaker 1: Goodness, right, and how much money they're making.
Speaker 2: And for women, it's how many children they have and
Speaker 2: they look, and.
Speaker 1: How effortless you make it look.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: So I was expecting, like, it's funny that you say,
Speaker 1: like she was kind of like, look at me, look
Speaker 1: at me. I was expecting so much more of that
Speaker 1: metal and she'd had so much backlash, and she continued
Speaker 1: to do it and still does. I thought, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is going to be a woman who's like kind of
Speaker 1: doing a bit of an f you, who knows exactly
Speaker 1: what it's all about and exactly what she's saying and
Speaker 1: exactly what the other argument was. But what I found
Speaker 1: was actually a woman who just said, well, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to do it, and I like doing it, and
Speaker 1: so why wouldn't I post about being twenty weeks pregnant,
Speaker 1: being pregnant, beautiful thing, and blah blah blah, and that
Speaker 1: I didn't find that deceitful. I didn't think that she
Speaker 1: was doing that in a deceitful way.
Speaker 2: It's sort of guileless a little bit, though, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, oh, look, I'm twenty weeks pregnant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and she's tiny, she's like a little
Speaker 1: like she's a Vallerina.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's again that there's no sign of effort.
Speaker 2: There's no I work out, I'll go and dip in
Speaker 2: the dam while I'm nine months pregnant so that I
Speaker 2: can bounce back and get into this pageant and really
Speaker 2: punish myself and torture my body and arraise all sign
Speaker 2: of effort. Like in everywhere else in her life, it's
Speaker 2: all about it being effortless. Do you think that's why
Speaker 2: I Bellerina firm particularly, but treadwives in general make so
Speaker 2: many women angry.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I also think that we see it as
Speaker 1: being a judgment on our own lives and our own decisions,
Speaker 1: So we project things onto what they're posting, and we
Speaker 1: politicize it in a way that we're already angry about
Speaker 1: and I think it's really frightening. It's really, really, really
Speaker 1: scary to see that because you think, oh God, don't,
Speaker 1: please don't make me go there. I really don't want
Speaker 1: men to think that this is the way it has
Speaker 1: to be. I really don't want men to think that
Speaker 1: this is how I should be. And I'm failing if
Speaker 1: I'm not, and other women, please don't. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go back.
Speaker 2: It feels like propaganda, doesn't it, for a time when
Speaker 2: women had no rights and no choices.
Speaker 1: And particularly when you see it coming up on your
Speaker 1: Instagram discover. You know, before I started researching all of this,
Speaker 1: it was coming up on my page and I was
Speaker 1: like why, and all these Catholic influences telling me how
Speaker 1: I should be dressing for church on a Sunday, Like,
Speaker 1: God knows how they found their way onto my Instagram.
Speaker 2: It's that radicalization, Isn't it like that the algorithm will do?
Speaker 2: But in the article you wrote, you pose a question
Speaker 2: in the subtitle, is it's an empowering new model of
Speaker 2: womanhood or a hammer blow for feminism? Did you have
Speaker 2: a view on this before you arrived and was it
Speaker 2: different after you'd spent time with Hannah and Daniel.
Speaker 1: I had had so many conversations with lots of different
Speaker 1: people before I went, because I don't have children and
Speaker 1: because I don't live a life anywhere like that, so
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I had anything written in my head.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of mothers who had spoken to loved
Speaker 1: her and were really respectful of the life that she'd chosen.
Speaker 1: And I'm also trained as a journalist to walk in
Speaker 1: somewhere and not have a preconceived understanding as much as
Speaker 1: I can do, having seen all of her life on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and I really didn't know what to expect, and I
Speaker 1: was surprised, as I said, like I was expecting to
Speaker 1: find someone who was more sort of steadfast in her views,
Speaker 1: and I left sort of feeling like, WHOA, Okay, I
Speaker 1: thought I was going to be interviewing her. And there
Speaker 1: was a point in the day that I was really
Speaker 1: stressed because I was like, she's going to have to
Speaker 1: go and drop these kids off at ballet and I
Speaker 1: haven't asked her the questions that I need to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: clocks ticking, and my edge's going to ask me, like,
Speaker 1: why didn't you ask her this? Why didn't you ask
Speaker 1: her this. So that was kind of stressful and I left,
Speaker 1: like just trying to work it out, and then I
Speaker 1: went for lunch actually with a friend when I got
Speaker 1: back here on the weekend, and I like blooded it
Speaker 1: all out. Everything happened, and in the midst of like
Speaker 1: this huge storm and virality. Afterwards, she called me and
Speaker 1: she was like, you know, everything that you wrote was
Speaker 1: exactly what we spoke about that day. So I don't
Speaker 1: think that I did go in and I think I was.
Speaker 1: It was unexpected anyway. What was the reaction binary people
Speaker 1: thinking that it was an effective piece of journalism that
Speaker 1: as I said, those Mormon women who said that it
Speaker 1: was an accurate representation of their lifestyles and how they've
Speaker 1: been feeling about gender roles, and then other people saying
Speaker 1: that I had no right to walk in there and
Speaker 1: judge her, which I don't think that I did, and
Speaker 1: that I know nothing because I'm childless, and that I
Speaker 1: should get out of other women's lives. There were other
Speaker 1: people who wanted to like thought that I was endangering
Speaker 1: her in some way. I mean, there were just the
Speaker 1: whole huge remit of response. But it was like so passionate,
Speaker 1: people are so moved by her because it's a comment
Speaker 1: on our most intimate personal decisions and how we choose
Speaker 1: to live and how we choose to bring other people
Speaker 1: into the world, also colored by our own experiences of parenthood,
Speaker 1: being parented ourselves. So it's really it goes really deep.
Speaker 1: I think the people.
Speaker 2: Who love her, why do they love her? Do you
Speaker 2: think they are a common thread between those people? Is
Speaker 2: it mostly kind of Trump voters, conservative women?
Speaker 1: Well, there are lots of people who are very bad
Speaker 1: who love her, Like the mothers who love her. I
Speaker 1: think they love her for allowing them to talk about
Speaker 1: how much they love motherhood and to not feel like
Speaker 1: a failure for not choosing like monetary work outside of
Speaker 1: the home. And I think that they've felt like they're
Speaker 1: not allowed to do that anymore, and that she allows
Speaker 1: them to do.
Speaker 2: That even though she does. Right. That's the irony. It's
Speaker 2: very meta because by performing all of that, she's a businesswoman.
Speaker 2: She's an entrepreneur, she's a co CEO of a company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and she's got a full time job.
Speaker 2: When does she make the content? Does she make it herself?
Speaker 1: Yeah? She makes it herself throughout the day and then
Speaker 1: she uploads it once the kids have gone to bed
Speaker 1: from like one am till two.
Speaker 2: And there was a kind of bizarre, almost offhand moment
Speaker 2: where Daniel revealed to you that sometimes Hannah gets so
Speaker 2: exhausted that she's literally bedridden for a week.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, said that to me when we were on
Speaker 1: the ute going around the farm, that you know, she
Speaker 1: ties herself out.
Speaker 2: Did he seem to think that was a problem or
Speaker 2: it was just life on the farm with eight kids.
Speaker 1: I mean it was said in a way that was
Speaker 1: like like she needs to learn. I don't want to
Speaker 1: I don't want to read too much into like the tone,
Speaker 1: but how I interpreted the tone was like she needs
Speaker 1: to land, to slow down.
Speaker 2: Sometimes maybe by a stick of banner instead of churning
Speaker 2: it once.
Speaker 7: In a while.
Speaker 1: That's how I heard it.
Speaker 2: Do you know how they felt about the piece.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they were thrilled. I didn't hear
Speaker 1: from them directly. I know that there was some communication,
Speaker 1: but it was an honest piece against my transcripts. You
Speaker 1: can check my recorded audio, you know, next to the piece,
Speaker 1: and it's a true representation of what I saw and heard.
Speaker 1: So that was that, And I was getting these masters
Speaker 1: like you're being sued, And I was like, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't think we are. I think i'd know that. So
Speaker 1: there wasn't any I mean, it was as I say,
Speaker 1: It was a true representation of what I experience. So
Speaker 1: there was nothing that much that could be done.
Speaker 2: Last question, do you think she's happy?
Speaker 1: I think that she has grown up in a community
Speaker 1: and a world which doesn't allow her to be connected
Speaker 1: to the question, am I happy?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I would love to hear Hannah Nielman interviewed on our podcast,
Speaker 2: But are you happy? I wonder if she is happy?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it's not fair to suggest that
Speaker 2: she's not. If she says she's happy, maybe she is happy.
Speaker 2: But I think that question sums up so much of
Speaker 2: why we're fascinated by the whole trad wife thing, because
Speaker 2: on one hand, it is kind of alluring. Right, life
Speaker 2: is exhausting, and ambition and career and cities can be exhausting,
Speaker 2: and we do live in a culture that centers grind
Speaker 2: and hustle and sort of idolizes it. And there is
Speaker 2: some legitimate pushback to that, and I think that is
Speaker 2: valuable cultural criticism. But look, let's be honest. What the
Speaker 2: traadwives are selling is a little bit dubious because it's
Speaker 2: not easy. They make it look easy, but parenting eight kids,
Speaker 2: living on a farm, making meals from scratch, that's no
Speaker 2: easier than working at a job in a city, is it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it might make her happier, but it's certainly
Speaker 2: not easier, because how do Nielman is working hard? Man
Speaker 2: so hard that she sometimes can't get out of bed
Speaker 2: for a week. And I can't stop thinking about that,
Speaker 2: because when she's in bed for a week, who does
Speaker 2: milk the cows? And how does Daniel look after the
Speaker 2: eight kids and make all meals from scratch and do
Speaker 2: all the other things that he has to do. You
Speaker 2: don't see that exhaustion anywhere on her Instagram. She doesn't
Speaker 2: mention when she's just had to take a week out
Speaker 2: to be unconscious in bed, because I guess that exhaustion
Speaker 2: doesn't sell products or gain you followers, or convince other
Speaker 2: women to buy your stuff or to try treadwifing for themselves.
Speaker 2: And look, I'm all for doing what we can to
Speaker 2: make ourselves happy and simplify our lives and connect with nature.
Speaker 2: If nature is your jam, it's not really my jam,
Speaker 2: I do like cows, but I don't think i'd want
Speaker 2: to like live with them. I'm all for women living
Speaker 2: their lives exactly how they want, and I don't judge
Speaker 2: what Hannah and the other chidwives are doing. I judge
Speaker 2: kind of the idea of them selling a lifestyle that
Speaker 2: they make look one way and don't show what it's
Speaker 2: actually like. And in America right now, there's a sort
Speaker 2: of an underpinning to all of this, as Megan said,
Speaker 2: about this strong conservative religious underpinning of a woman's place
Speaker 2: and this idea of I think the reason it makes
Speaker 2: so many women crazy is that this is where we
Speaker 2: came from, this expectation that we should look beautiful and
Speaker 2: raise all our children and never complain and make all
Speaker 2: the meals from scratch and be really fulfilled by that.
Speaker 2: And it's not to say that some women aren't, but
Speaker 2: not all women are. In fact, most women probably aren't.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this is something that we are really looking
Speaker 2: at closely on no filter, this whole trade wife phenomenon,
Speaker 2: because the steaks are really high and you know, for
Speaker 2: some people it might just be a little bit like
Speaker 2: watching a cooking show when you don't cook. It's kind
Speaker 2: of soothing. I've got lots of friends who watch trad
Speaker 2: rife content like that just kind of to escape in
Speaker 2: the same way that I watch maybe fashion videos about
Speaker 2: street style on YouTube. But we have got more stories
Speaker 2: about trad wife life coming down the pipeline, and we've
Speaker 2: already done several. I highly recommend that you listen to
Speaker 2: our episode with Tea Levings. She escaped her tradwife marriage
Speaker 2: barely and she is raising the alarm about what she
Speaker 2: says are the dangers of the tradwife ideology. Watch this
Speaker 2: space for more. The executive producer of No Filter is
Speaker 2: Nama Brown and somehow she managed to get through COVID
Speaker 2: without making a sour dough starter Dido. Audio on this
Speaker 2: show is by Tom Lyon, and he says if being
Speaker 2: trad makes you happy, then you do you, although he
Speaker 2: also says that his wife is the opposite of a
Speaker 2: trad wife. Her career is soaring and she out earns him.
Speaker 2: But this works for Tom just fine. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Mia Friedman, and the most TRADWIFEI thing about me is nothing.
Speaker 1: See soon