July 2024 recap + thoughts on the Ballerina Farm drama

Life lately and the article everyone is talking about

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I can’t hardly believe it’s August already! We started July with a long weekend at the lake for a family reunion with my side of the family. My siblings and I are all in the same season of raising littles, so picture a house full of toddlers and babies (about a dozen kiddos 4 and under!). It was fun, but also a lot of overstimulated kids and adults at the end.

I went back to work from maternity leave in early July, so we’ve all been adjusting to the new routine. The kids have a new nanny and since I work from home, it’s been a slow transition as the kids get used to having someone new in our home. But, it is a blessing to be able to afford in-home care and to work from home so I can keep nursing Luke and hug / see / hear my kiddos throughout the day.

Our garden is in full bloom - my husband planted corn, sunflowers and zinnias this year and it is a beautiful sight! We’re slowly finding our rhythm in our new town - we found a church we love, Daniel’s slowly growing the seed house, and the area is becoming more familiar to us.

Our life is so, so full, but I am in awe of how many blessings and answered prayers we’re living out. Even though this season is hard, it is so, so good.

My thoughts on the Ballerina Farm drama

Okay, change of topic now, because everyone is talking about it and it’s on my mind too.

I’ve written about Ballerina Farm before - we’ve been following them on social media for awhile. So, when I read the trending Times profile on the them, I had thoughts.

No. 84. Is Ballerina Farm setting unrealistic standards for women?

No. 70. Why are we so obsessed with Ballerina Farm?

The article was clearly written with a bias against traditional family values. There is a subtle angle that paints Daniel as a controlling, rich guy, and Hannah as a victim who had to give up her dreams of being a ballerina to live on a farm and have Daniel’s babies and live out Daniel’s dreams.

In response to all the media coverage of the article, Hannah posted a reel sharing her thoughts and a new “about us” page on their website sharing her side of the story before they got married.

Did Hannah give up her dreams for Daniel?

First, I think it’s interesting that Hannah felt like she needed to focus on the part of her life story that lead her from her dreams of being a ballerina to where she is now.

Because I get it. I think some could say my dreams have changed since I married Daniel. Anyone who has known me most of my life knows I never really dreamed of living in the country or owning a farm.

In fact, if 18 year old me could see me now as a 32 year old, she wouldn’t believe it. 18 year old me dreamed of living in a big city, working in fashion and being a magazine editor.

But then I went to college, and my dreams shifted again. I left behind my fashion dreams and started dreaming of a career in business, journalism or even politics. Or all do the above. 

And then I discovered the pre-law club on campus and a tiny dream was planted: what if I could become a lawyer? 

In law school, I thought I’d become a immigration or corporate lawyer, or even a prosecutor, but after graduation, I ended up working at a big four accounting firm in international tax.

But although my dreams have primarily always revolved around success in my career, as I shared here, over the last decade, I truly believe that God changed the desires of my heart to align with His will for my life and in preparation for me to come alongside Daniel as his wife and for us to combine our visions for a shared family vision.

No. 95. Is your husband's vision the main priority?

For example, in my first year of law school I went through a major spiritual overhaul, and during all that work the Holy Spirit was doing in my heart, I heard God asking me if I’d move out to the middle of nowhere to live in a white farmhouse and raise a family, my initial answer was, “No, thank you.” 

But, years later, as I burned out on my fancy corporate job and my dreams began to shift yet again, I remember sitting around our parents dining room table and telling my siblings of my homestead dreams - complete with a mini horse and chickens, and they laughed. Because it was so not the me they always knew who loved the city and fashion and whose career ambitions were sky high.

So I kept the dream quiet, not quite sure how a city girl like me would ever end up in the country. 

So, yes, I get what it feels like when your dreams and the vision for your life shift as you enter adulthood, fall in love, get married, and start a family, but people around you see those shifts as “settling” or a “sacrifice.”

But as Hannah has tried to articulate and what I have experienced too is that the shifts in a woman’s dreams to align more with your husband’s vision is not something forced on you or a sacrifice of your dreams, but it is stepping into something even better; something so much deeper and bigger than yourself.

Because I wouldn’t trade my life today for the life I thought I wanted when I was younger. That life wouldn’t fit me; nor does it hold any appeal to me anymore.

But even so, there are still many parts of those girlhood dreams that have grown up with me and fit into my life as it is today. I have a successful career as a lawyer. I did start a magazine - not a fashion one, but a Christian one. I lived in a big city in a beautiful high rise for a season. I wrote a book.

I like to think of it as the good parts of my childhood dreams that were within God’s best for me grew to bear fruit in my life, but that which was not for me, God closed those doors and redirected me to something better.

I imagine Hannah feels the same about “giving up” her career as a ballerina. She still dances as it fits into her life in the season she’s in of raising a family and building a business and a brand, but I know she wouldn’t trade the life she has now with her husband and family for the career of a famous ballerina.

So, I get why Hannah feels like she has to defend her life choices when they’re painted as a sacrifice forced on her, when in reality, although it is a sacrifice to some extent, it is more so, a willing choice to step into something even greater than what she had before.

In other words, it’s saying, “I’m putting this dream on the back burner - for a season, or for always - because I have found a greater vision that I want to dedicate myself to building alongside my husband and for our family.”

In the follow up article, the author quotes Hannah saying: “Anything great requires sacrifice. You know that. You know what it took to get to where you’re at.”

As a wife to man’s with a big vision for our life, a vision I share wholeheartedly and gladly call my own, and as a mom who dreams of giving her kids a good life and to build a fruitful legacy, I relate deeply to that sentiment.

It’s not giving up on your dreams. It’s investing in your legacy.

We see Hannah as a “trad wife” but does she see herself that way or is that just her brand?

Another interesting thing that stood out to me is that the article calls Hannah “the queen of the trad wives,” but when the reporter asked if Hannah identifies with the trad wife movement, she said she does not. She admitted they have a traditional family of a man, a woman and kids, but to label her a “traditional woman” is not what she would identify herself as.

Which to me is kind of ironic since I think Hannah’s instagram was really a diving off point for the rise of all the homesteading content on Instagram. If you ask the homesteading and trad wife content creators, they’d probably say they look up to Hannah and see her as one of their own, but when you ask Hannah that, she deflects from those trends.

In fact, when the journalist asked if Daniel is the head of the household, he replied, “No, we’re co-CEO’s,” and in her response reel, Hannah said, “We’re co-parents, co-CEOs, co-diaper changers, kitchen cleaners and decision makers. We are one” (BTW, I LOVE that quote - it’s how I would describe my marriage too, and it’s truly the best way to do life!).

Which, again, to me is ironic since the trad wife movement is the opposite: it promotes a woman’s role at home and the husband’s at work, with a clear separation of gender roles and responsibilities between the wife and the husband.

All this proves a point I made in this post about the fact that Daniel and Hannah have built a business ecosystem that thrives on how they already live their life and on the things they already use and do as a family.

We keep trying to put labels on them and build them up to an ideal to aspire to, when in reality, they’re living the life they want to live and creating content with the intention of promoting their lifestyle brand and products (they talk more about their content creation strategy here).

So, can we please stop making Ballerina Farm the ideal traditional family where the woman is focused on the home and the kids and the husband focuses on the work (which they admit is not how their household operates), and instead admire them for being a couple who does all of life - home, family, work - together as a team, and as a family? Because, to me personally, the latter is much more aspirational than the former.

Okay, I think that sums up the high points of my thoughts on all of this.

If you’ve been following along, what’s your take?

Until next time,

YPS