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On July 20th 2024 the Sunday Times magazine published a story called "Meet the Queen of the Tradwives (and her eight children)." To write this article a British journalist based in the United States named Megan Agnew traveled to rural Utah to meet a woman named Hannah Neeleman, more commonly known by her famous Tik Tok account handle: Ballerina Farm. On social media Hannah Neeleman posts images of her her photogenic, blonde, 10-person family helping her cook and tend
to the animals on their enormous homestead farm. The image that she portrays is idyllic and loving; a relic of a more traditional time when kids spent more time running through fields and long dresses instead of yelling at iPads at TGI Fridays. But when the journalist Megan Agnew visited the Neeleman farm, she started to notice the signs of something much darker peeking out from beneath this domestic paradise. For example, Hannah revealed that her current reality,
which so many followers aspire to, was never truly her own dream. Her real dream, of becoming a ballerina, was put to bed when her husband, the son of a billionaire, insisted that they get married and start having children before she had graduated from Juilliard. Both Daniel and Hannah come from a very religious Mormon background and the couple got married after dating for only 3 weeks. Daniel also shares that Hannah sometimes feels so exhausted that she can't
leave her bed for for weeks at a time. The article about Hannah Neeleman written by Megan Agnew, which has more details than what I've shared in the intro, came out and immediately went viral. The piece was very well written and it started a wider conversation about the trend of Trad wives, which is short for traditional wives, who are women on social media who uphold a certain aesthetic-- like this old school portrayal of motherhood with homemade food, 50s-style dress,
and traditional gender roles in the sense that the women in these arrangements tend to the home and the children rather than holding traditional salaried jobs. But after the article came out, Hannah Neeleman posted a video calling this article an attack. "We had a reporter come into our home. When we saw the printed article it shocked us by being an attack on our family and my marriage." And even responders on the left accused the journalist, Agnew, of biased journalism.
"Humans have biases. Megan did not put a lot of effort in to conceal hers. I think the article was diluted by her personal speculation about the Neelemans and her sloppy social commentary." I will address those accusations later on. So right when this article was going viral and causing a lot of conversation about tradwives on social media, another article came out about another
influencer and this influencer lived over on the east coast. Whereas previously we spoke about a Trad wife, homeschooling, rural aesthetic there other influencers with a different image: this one of New York City, fashion, movement, money ,and glamor. A notable figure among this group was Candice Miller. Candice Miller started a fashion and lifestyle blog called Mama and Tata
with her sister Jenna Crespi. Candice is the mama and Jenna is the Tata which means auntie in French. Their site aimed to teach Women quote how to be a great mum while maintaining Beauty style and glamour in everyday life close quote. Candice Miller is a well-connected socialite; cousin to the fashion influencer Ariel Charnas, friend to the Olsen twins and Ivanka Trump, and the host of some of the most elaborate and costly parties of the Hampton's inner circles.
Then on July 3rd 2024 Candice Miller's real estate mogul husband Brandon Miller, [redacted] in his Porsche in the garage of their $15.5 million Hampton's Mansion while Candice and their two little daughters were vacationing on Italy's Amalfi Coast. In the wake of Brandon Miller's d**th, it was revealed that the money used to maintain their elaborate lifestyle did not exist.
The family was tens of millions of dollars in debt and virtually none of the luxury that appeared on Candice Miller's Instagram page from the boat to the house to the furniture actually belong to them. I want to compare these two articles, each of which involves a journalist who sought to remove the sheen of filters that covers the lives of famous influencers and their families and toward the end of this video I'm also going to go into greater discussion about traditional
gender roles and how we engage with them on social media and as a result in real life. So first we're going going to go through Agnew's piece about Hannah Neeleman and specifically we're going to address some of the accusations that her personal bias affected the quality and integrity of the article. This piece was published in the Times magazine not to be confused with the New York Times which is actually much younger than the times the times is based in London. Two categories
that exist in journalism are straight journalism and immersive journalism. Straight journalism is what we usually associate with journalism. It's an objective third-party report and the second essay that we're examining today is straight journalism. But this essay the queen of the trad wives is immersive journalism-- it's a profile of Hannah Neeleman so the journalist speaks in the first person about her experience of meeting someone and what her impression of that person was. So
when I see people criticizing Agnew's bias in this article I almost feel as though they've judged it as though it were straight journalism but this was never meant to be a completely objective report. In an immersive profile it is well within the bounds of the task of the writer to comment on their experience and their impression of the person in front of them. Of course there is still a line you can write about what a person said to you and what your experience was like hearing it,
but you can't step back and start to proselytize about your own views. In immersive journalism there is an added dynamic: the presence of the journalist changes the story because the people there react to the physically present journalist. Remember that for later. My opinion is that this article is very particularly and expertly structured and the structure of the writing of of the article aligns with the structure of the photography. Let me explain. When I first saw
this image at the top of the article I thought it was a strange choice for the featured photo. It's such a great photo. The reason that it confused me is because Hannah's face is obscured and she's really the only one in this photo with an obscured face and I thought well there are so many people in this picture most of whom are little kids so it probably is just really hard to get a picture where everyone is looking nicely at the cameraman, but still it's strange that the star of the show
is the only one who didn't get her full face to be in the picture. But then I realized as I went down the article that the photographer and the writer may have made this decision intentionally. The writer in this article carefully peels back the curtain on this flawless life bit by bit until in the end the curtain is flung wide open so you can see what's behind it and I believe that the photography follows that slow descent as well in harmony with the writing, starting with gorgeous
photos of Hannah Neeleman and then in each photo obscuring her identity a little bit more. I'll explain as we go through. The first two paragraphs read quote Hannah Neeleman was pregnant with her eighth child and she had two due dates the first was for a baby obviously the second just under two weeks later was for a beauty pageant. Neeleman had been crowned Mrs American in August 2023 at a Las Vegas Mega Casino and Resort so she was invited back to the city to compete in Mrs World,
parading around the stage in a swimsuit and 5-inch heels shoulders back and hip popped spray tan glistening in 12 days postpartum obviously. Close quote. Agnew goes on to explain the intense Beauty regimen that a very pregnant Hannah Neeleman subjected herself to in order to look so quote perfectly pretty in time for the beauty pageant that was again 2 weeks after the birth of her daughter. She took ice baths in the irrigation ditches on her Farm, she took iron supplements,
and she woke up early to lift weights. She had her daughter like most of her children without any pain medication and 2 weeks later she was able to zip her swollen bleeding body into tight leather pants and sequined gowns, she got a spray tan, and she flew to Vegas with her newborn and her family of 10 to participate in a who is the prettiest girl competition. When a photo was released of Hannah Neeleman nursing her brand new baby girl backstage at the beauty pageant her social media
blew up and she was crowned the queen of the Trad wives by her millions of followers even though Hannah herself never called herself as a trad wife and now with the backstory we go into Agnew's interview with with Hannah Neeleman. Agnew published a piece after the fact that gives us a little insight into her mindset when she first went to interview Hannah she wrote there were so many things I wanted to ask which were inappropriate to do so in front of her husband
or young children about contraception married life the trials of motherhood or just simply who she was and what she thought when she was away from it all close quote. So that tells us that Agnew arrives wanting to do a profile on Hannah she wants to get her alone and ask her pointed questions spoiler alert she will not be able to. Now herein begins The Descent in the writing that I mentioned earlier made visible by the photography. At the beginning of the
article Hannah Neeleman is the super mom and her husband the Valiant Cowboy the same image that many readers have seen on their social media accounts the way Agnew describes the couple is fantastic she says that Daniel Neeleman is quote an All-American steak of a husband square jaw and denim clad and Hannah Neeleman is quote a tiny blonde beauty queen her hair wet and cheeks
flushed impossibly pretty close quote. At this point in the article the photos reflect this image of the couple. This is one of the first photos we see in text the couple is United well-dressed in Clear Sight Hannah wears her Miss Utah America sash over her pregnant belly which her outfit has been tailored to fit as her hair blows in the wind even though she is inside. The next photo
shows Hannah serving homemade food to her blonde children in wooden kitchen while she smiles. The colors are perfectly balanced steam comes off the spaghetti and Hannah is the star of the show as all of her children sit patiently and look to her for their dinner. Agnew describes Hannah by saying quote a devout Mormon who was raised in a Mormon family she bakes perfectly scored sourdough loaves milks cows straight into her coffee cup and gives birth by candlelight with no pain relief
close quote. But already at this point our writer starts laying the groundwork for The Descent back to reality that is to come just as the featured photo foreshadowed. Agnew starts including these little hints of something else something that isn't quite so picture perfect. First she mentions that Hannah is repeating lines that are fed to her by Daniel. Then Agnew poses a question about Hannah's feelings about negative comments only for Hannah to turn to Daniel and ask him about what
upsets her. Then Daniel is standing behind Hannah and simply answering questions for her even though they were directed at Hannah, and it's still not too concerning yet but it affects the feeling of the article. It's almost as if Daniel is looming over everything that she says. When Agnew asks the couple if they like it when Hannah is called a Trad wife Daniel says yes while Hannah cautiously disagrees and points out that it's not an entirely accurate label, so now it seems that
Hannah is uncomfortable and as the reader I'm starting to feel uncomfortable too. The writer is painting a tension here, a disconnect in how the husband and the wife feel about being called traditional Daniel seems fine with it Hannah doesn't seem fine with it. Later they get in a 15 seat car and Agnew asks if they hope to fill it with children Daniel says yes immediately Hannah says that she is feeling quote tired and worn out close quote. Around this time the photos start to
change now as the writing is painting an image of Hannah is more tired more burdened the photographs also start to show more work and fatigue. We watch as Hannah milks a cow we see how her young son holds her littlest baby so she can collect milk we see her with her youngest strapped to her chest while she leads a cow. Just like the writing the changes are still subtle. Hannah and her kids still look gorgeous but now the photos aren't quite so effortless, not nearly as glamorous.
Her facial expressions are a bit more concerned like there's more of a weight on her shoulders compared to the glossy Smiles we saw before. Let's continue. Finally Agnew gets a moment alone with Hannah so she starts to ask more pointed questions and now we learn about Hannah's backstory as a person not just as a mom and a farmhand. I need to sneeze excuse me. Agnew asks her quote is this what you always wanted and Hannah responds no and then she catches herself and she says I mean I
was like 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. By the way when Daniel walks over and Agnew poses the same question was this what you always wanted without pausing to think he says yes. Hannah's parents were Mormon with nine children Hannah was the eighth, she was home schooled her parents were florists so she didn't grow up with a ton of money but she showed a lot
of potential and talent in ballet from a young age so she competed in beauty pageants that offered scholarship money so that she could afford to go to Juilliard in New York City. Juilliard is one of the greatest music schools in the world and it's usually considered to be the best music school in the United States their dance program accepts only 12 women each year so when Hannah Neeleman said I was a good ballerina that's actually not true. She was an exceptional ballerina. Hannah's
husband Daniel also grew up Mormon and was also one of nine children but he grew up in very different circumstances his father was the founder of Jet Blue, making him a billionaire. When Daniel was 23 he saw 21-year-old Hannah at a college basketball game and spent 6 months asking her to go on a date with him but she repeatedly refused him. Then Hannah mentioned that she was flying
back to New York City from Salt Lake and Daniel realized she was flying with his father's Airline so he pulled a few strings made a few phone calls and got himself on the seat directly next to her. She thought it was a crazy coincidence but it was really Daniel's work behind the scenes. The two started dating. Hannah told Daniel that she wanted to date for at least a year before getting
married so that she could finish school Daniel told her quote that's not going to work we've got to get married now close quote. So 1 month after Daniel sat next to Hannah on her flight they were engaged 2 months later they were married and 3 months later she was pregnant she finished her undergraduate degree at Juilliard with her pregnant belly and then Daniel moved his family to Brazil where he would work for his father. We're going to step away from Agnew's article for a
moment because Hannah actually kept a Blog during this time that paints a more honest picture of her experience living in Brazil. Hannah doesn't speak Portuguese and the couple at this time only had one car so Hannah shares in her blog that Daniel took the car to work every day many days working from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. which left Hannah alone and isolated in the house with her newborn.
I've actually personally lived in a country where I didn't speak the language before and I also became quite isolated but I was very fortunate at that time to have a job in person because it got me out of the house and it helped me get that social interaction that we all need. But Hannah writes in her blog that she didn't leave the house for weeks at a time. She wrote that she starts to get depressed usually around Wednesdays because that's when she feels the effect of not leaving
the house for a few days. Of course during this time Hannah was also forced to give up dance because of where she was living and how isolated she was and dance had been her passion since she was a child. She told Agnew in her profile that giving up dance felt like quote giving up a part of herself. Some other things that Hannah wrote in her old blog include "sometimes when Daniel's schedule gets very busy and I'm left to handle momhood on my own in a place where I still can't
communicate it gets very overwhelming. We live about an hour and a half away from from Daniel's work and therefore I never see him. This week has been especially bad. I mean: leaves at 8:00 a.m. and doesn't get home till almost midnight, bad. Poor Henry hasn't seen Daddy all week it's terrible absolutely terrible. I may or may not have had a major meltdown yesterday and told Daniel I was running away. It was quite the Meltdown. The last few days have been especially
hard for me. as much as I want to speak Portuguese I can't and it gets lonely really lonely. I have been on my knees a lot lately. this morning morning I found myself on my knees my cheeks wet from tears asking for a friend. just one just someone to talk to. So sad. it's clear from these blog posts and from Hannah's story that she is not only a mom and a homesteader but she is also
an artist and her chosen art form was an art form that you create in community. when you sing with a group of people dance with a group of people create shows or theater or become part of an orchestra, there is something about that specific social activity that causes a group to become very close and very in tune with one another. and if we add on top of that that Hannah always had a ton of siblings and a religious community to depend on and for her whole life a studio of dancers
who she created with and expressed herself with to go from having such a close intimate community of people to being stuck in a house with little kids and no one her age to talk to of course that was shocking for her nervous system. and being newly married can be tough it can require a lot of work especially if you only knew each other for a few months mons before getting married there is a lot of negotiating that goes on in those early days while you build the marriage that you both want
to have-- a lot of defining boundaries and almost a sort of power struggle sometimes and doing that in a foreign country where you don't speak the language with multiple infants and you have no friends who you can vent to... it can make that process all the more complicated. so compared to this situation I'm glad that now reading the article it's clear that the couple gets to spend much more time together and I was pleased to read in the profile that Agnew's impression
was that Daniel is very involved with the kids that very well could have been something that Hannah negotiated with her husband something that was important to her. but I do think that these blog posts offer a very interesting window into whom Hannah is and what is important to her because even today as a social media star she still doesn't get to dance and she still lives in a very physically isolated location so I ask myself if her dedication to social media possibly
came from an intense loneliness that appears to have haunted her adult years. Back to the Agnew article: at this point the mask starts to really come off and Agnew starts to editorialize more and share more personal opinions Hannah says that she wasn't the only one who had to make sacrifices when they had kids specifically in reference to giving up dance but in her writing Agnew admits that she disagrees with Hannah. she writes quote Daniel wanted to live in the Great Western wild
so they did he wanted to farm so they do he likes date nights once a week so they go he didn't want nannies in the house so there aren't any the only space earmarked to be Hannah Neeleman's own a small barn she wanted to convert into a ballet studio ended up becoming the kids school room close quote. so our writer is now directly pointing out that Hannah might not be a completely
reliable narrator of her own life. she's writing a story about the erasure of Hannah's identity as an individual. do I think that the journalist is crossing a line here? personally I don't. I think that again because this is a profile and an immersive journalism piece Agnew can share her opinion and her impression of the couple Beyond just what they say about themselves it's up to us as readers to decide if we agree with her analysis or not, knowing and understanding that this is the
journalist's personal interpretation. then we get a pretty major reveal I think when Daniel says that Hannah sometimes quote gets so ill from exhaustion that she can't get out of bed for a week close quote. of course I don't know these people personally but many readers commented that Hannah seems to be navigating some pretty serious symptoms of depression and burnout and rightfully asked if your husband is the son of a billionaire and you're both pretty wealthy in your own right
from social media and from your farming business then maybe you should hire more help around the house if you can or maybe even just like take a nice trip without the kids or maybe stop having children that's a very personal decision but if she's experiencing burnout then maybe it's something they'll benefit from. finally Daniel leaves to take a phone call and Agnew gets a little time alone with Hannah. Hannah shares that her first two children were born in a hospital and
then Hannah said after that I was like I'm so ready to go back home I just love having them at home it's so quiet close quote. Agnew asks Hannah why she has her babies without pain relief and Hannah responds I don't know I just have never loved taking it except with Martha I was two weeks overdue and she was 10 pounds and Daniel wasn't with me so I got an epidural and it was an amazing experience. and Agnew asks where was Daniel that day and Hannah says it was shipping day and he was
Manning the crew and then Agnew says but the epidural was kind of great? and Hannah pauses and smiles and says it was kind of great. so the reader has caught on by this point that the writer is portraying a sort of expunging of Hannah's identity individualism but now we're also starting to wonder if the writer is sharing a specific antagonist behind the erosion of Hannah self. Agnew continues quote I want to ask her about birth control but we are surrounded by so many
of her children and Daniel is back in the room now too do you I pause and look at her fixedly plan pregnancies? no Daniel says. when he says no Nilan responds gently it's very much a matter of prayer for me I'm like God is it time to bring another one to Earth? and I've never been told no and then Daniel says but for whatever reason it's exactly 9 months after a baby that she's ready for the next one. and then she says it's definitely a matter of prayer and then he says
it's a matter of prayer but somehow it's exactly 9 months close quote. Agnew then tries to ask about their stance on abortion but a child interrupts shanting mama m mom I want to go to ballet now, so Agnew writes the paragraph that could be pushing the boundaries when it comes to personal bias quote 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. usually I am doing battle with steely
Hollywood publicists. today I am up against an army of toddlers who all want their mom and a husband who thinks he knows better close quote. in my personal opinion this could be when she starts to cross the line into sharing a little bit too much of her personal thoughts and emotions. I think think you could also argue that in some of the questions that she asked beforehand some of the ways that she pushed Hannah it seemed like she was trying to get a specific answer, specifically about the epidural, I think that Agnew maybe got trapped a little bit in the structure. she's been
peeling back this curtain bit by bit for a lot of the article and now the curtain is flung wide open and since she followed that structure The Logical conclusion of this article is to State Point Blank how she really feels about Hannah’s situation and how she really feels about this man but personally I don't think that she needed to. I think that the rest of the article was so well written and the scenes that she painted and the dialogues that she included elicited the same feeling of
frustration in me that the writer felt without her having to explicitly say that she couldn't get time with Hannah without being interrupted. Overall I do think that Agnew's perspective in this article was quite fair but when I discuss the article I'll go a little bit more into detail. I'm glad that Agnew finished the article with an effective anecdote not with an opinion quote why I ask before I leave did she do those pageants in between babies and uh Hannah responds well my
sister called me and she said there's a Mrs Utah let's do it together just to break things up. and the sequined gowns? Agnew asks. well they used to be in her bedroom cupboard but with all of her stuff and Daniel's and Henry's and Charles's and George's and francis's and Lois's and Martha's and Mabel's and Flora's the cupboard got so full that there wasn't any more room so Daniel put them
in the garage. close quote. so Agnew managed to both began and end her article with these perfect little microcosmic examples of how Hannah keeps getting pushed out of her own story. to finish I'd like to go back to the photography for a moment. the final photograph portrays Hannah again this time standing alone. remember we started with you know yassified Hannah and then campesina Hannah and now in the final photograph we see her pretty face obscured. this is when I realized that
the obscuring of her face in the first photo was also likely a deliberate decision and similar to the writing of this article we bookend her story with the vision of her as mysterious and interesting but also only really half there because her hair covers her face. and your hair can be such a symbol of your femininity and youth and fertility and so there might be something to be said for the fact that her hair is what covers her identity and causes us viewers to wonder if
she hadn't been born a woman, if she didn't have the pressure that comes with femininity in her community perhaps she would have been able to pursue her art form and reach actualization and fulfillment as an artist and as a person– and have children, if that was what she wanted. so I do not know these people I don't know anything about them in their personal life aside from what I read in this article so what I'm going to do is look at this article and a little bit of what
I shared about Hannah's blog as an independent piece of literature and use it as a vehicle that brings us to Greater discussions about marriage and feminism. I'm not even necessarily saying that these discussions relate directly to Hannah Neeleman and her husband but there are likely people who follow follow them who have dealt with some of the things that I'm going to mention so I still feel that it's relevant. so what it appears that Agnew is portraying in this work, again
not necessarily what Hannah Neeleman is actually living through, but what is being portrayed looks to me like a psychological leash. psychological leashes can exist in all sorts of relationships but they most commonly exist in marriages or between a parent and child. so let's take an example of a mother who puts a psychological leash on her son and inadvertently creates a Manchild. let's say the mother equates being needed with being loved or maybe she was abandoned by other
people in her life and she fears being abandoned Again by her child so she either consciously or unconsciously puts a psychological leash on her child. she teaches her son that the outside world is scary and unpredictable while depending on her is the only truly safe and comfortable place in the world. her child goes out and has their first major failure in life, could be a failed business could be college, but instead of letting him work through that failure
on his own and come out better but perhaps perhaps less dependent on her on the other side the mother tells him see? the world is dangerous and it's unfair and there's no use in trying you should just come home and be with Mama where you're safe and yes the fault is on the mother for putting the psychological leash on her son and raising a Manchild but it is also on the son for never taking that leash off and instead trading in his freedom for treats and belly rubs. now imagine the
psychological leash of a young girl Daddy's little princess who then grows up and the time comes for a transfer of power. what should be a transfer of power from the parents to their now adult daughter instead becomes a transfer of power from father to husband especially if you're in a community of people who tend to be more traditional when it comes to gender roles and tend to get married quite young. let's expand on that example a girl was on a psychological leash with her parents her
parents were very strict and they instilled in her a fear about the world they were especially controlling of her sexuality who she dated perhaps the way she dressed her body her appearance for this girl that criticism and that scrutiny Feels Like Home she internalizes it she starts to apply these high standards to herself. when she speaks about control she instead calls it protection. she seeks out Partners who exert similar control who have similarly high standards for her she meets
a man who has his own insecurities as we all do maybe he was abandoned before by a parent remember that if a parent is constantly working and never sees their kids that can feel like Abandonment for a little one too. or maybe he was dumped by a different lover or maybe he has issues with his own self worth and all of a sudden this woman comes into his life and she's so beautiful and she comes from a nice family and she's a fantastic dancer who goes to freaking Juilliard and maybe
she's impressive on her own accord while you worry that you're only impressive because of things that were given to you by an impressive father who has left some impossibly big shoes to fill and maybe after they get married her husband starts to worry that one day she'll wake up and realize that she can do better and she'll ditch him so there's a dark insecure part of him that he might not even be conscious of that starts seeking out control and maybe he does this by tearing her down down
in little ways because he thinks that this will keep her dependent on him make her afraid of living without him and prevent her from leaving him behind so he chips away at her confidence in herself so that slowly she gives him more and more power over her life and in reality the only way that you get better at doing things is by doing them and failing and doing them again so if her parents didn't trust her enough to let her make mistakes and learn and then her husband doesn't let her make mistakes and learn over time maybe she really does become less capable maybe she
really does have less confidence in herself and after years and years of this Behavior scraping away at her ability and confidence and sense of self she finds herself one day being asked how she feels about something in an interview and all she can do is turn to her husband and say how do I feel about that? and I say all of this about the psychological leashes because often when I see people respond to tradwives they say be careful that man can leave you he can cheat on you he can [___] you if you don't have your own finances and resume set up then you won't
be able to leave him. and I think that's a very relevant argument but sometimes the consequences of a traditional relationship aren't quite so dramatic. sometimes the issue is just a slow chipping away at the identity of one person in the couple until eventually they become a supporting character in someone else's life instead of the main character in their own. My birthday present from Daniel! tickets to Greece? so plane tickets. a hat I can wear in Greece! it's not a hat oh my
egg apron. and you can gather eggs. you're welcome. thanks honey. now I do want to not not necessarily argue against myself but add another perspective or another interpretation to this conversation. Hannah Neeleman is a performer a social media star a beauty queen and a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints so what I'm seeing here is a woman who is very image focused
and very media trained when it comes to presenting herself to others both physically and otherwise. when Megan Agnew came to Hannah Neeleman's house Hannah probably assumed or recognized rightfully that she was speaking to someone who is more feminist more modern secular possibly more left-leaning than she is and she probably thought of the audience of the times in that way as well if you're English you might say the times is conservative leaning but the Overton window in
the United States is shifted to the right so the times and probably any European publication would still probably be perceived as quite liberal by a true red white and blue blooded Manifest Destiny God-fearing American Mormon. all of this is to say I think that some of the tension that Agnew was picking up on in this article wasn't always necessarily the tug of a psychological Leash from Hannah Neeleman's imposing husband but rather the tension inside Hannah of wanting to be perceived
well by this interviewer sitting in front of her and the interviewer's audience and also her own audience and her own Community. for example Agnew asks Hannah if she considers herself a feminist and Hannah says I feel like I'm a femini– and then she stops herself and then she says there's so many different ways you could take that word I don't even know what feminism means anymore. to me that doesn't read so much as: I'm worried my husband will be mad at me if I say I'm a feminist.
although it could be. it reads a little bit more like I can tell that you and probably other people want me to say that I'm a feminist but I'm worried about how that will be perceived in my audience and among my family and friends. still if you notice in all of these interpretations what is consistently missing is Hannah's own personhood. it's always someone else's wants and feelings prioritized, whether that's her husband her children heavenly father or us the millions of
eyes watching and judging her. that's a difficult position to be in and I don't envy it because by worrying about others first and foremost you can put yourself in a perpetually losing position because you can't make a million in one people proud you can't even make two people completely happy but with introspection and focus you can be proud of yourself which makes self-love a far more reasonable goal. Agnew went deeper into the tradwife trend in her article and how it is
one small part of a larger social feeling I will respond to that as well but first let me share the next article with you so that it can contribute to and inform the discussion at the end okay so this next article is a little bit heavier and it comes with a [Redacted] mentions trigger warning this piece was published in the New York Times on August 8th 2024 and it's titled how an Instagram
perfect life in the Hamptons ended in tragedy it was written by Katherine Rosman remember that whereas the last article was an example of immersive journalism this article is straight journalism so the journalist is not a first-person Observer she is instead ideally absent so this article is shorter and it's a little bit more dry which could be better because that gives us a level of Separation when dealing with subject matter that can be a little bit emotionally taxing
to discuss. the subheading is Candice and Brandon Miller showed the public world of glittering parties and vacations the money to sustain it did not exist and the first paragraph reads in the modern Gilded Age of New York where Instagram is awash and unrestrained displays of wealth Brandon and Candice Miller were royalty. it's a great hook both of the articles that we're looking at today had a good hook. then the journalist sets the scene that she presumably hopes will speak to the
wealth and extravagance of this influencer and her husband for the 10th anniversary party of Brandon and Candice Miller, Candice threw a party with the theme Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare play. Rosman the journalist goes on to tell us a little bit about the mama and Tata Instagram account with around 80,000 followers uh Candice Miller was the owner of the account and the host of
this Midsummer party she was celebrating her 10th anniversary she talked to a lifestyle blogger at the party and said that her husband's speech made me cry by the end with his authentic raw emotion and romantic words close quote. while the last article started with the life that the influencer portrayed trade and then slowly revealed bit by bit what is really going on when the cameras are
off Rosman instead reveals the tragic end of the story toward the very beginning. after describing the midsummer party and telling us a bit about the glitz and the Glam of the mama and Tata Instagram account she then writes quote the midsummer night party was in 2019. 5 years later the Glamorous image that Miss Miller cultivated and promoted has disappeared replaced with heartbreak anger
and a mountain of once secret debt her husband is gone the home that they so ostentatiously lived in saddled by several mortgages is not truly their own lawsuits from creditors business bankruptcies botched Investments and even a repossessed boat the Miller time indicate that the wealth needed to maintain their lifestyle had evaporated if it ever truly existed Mr Miller 43 [___] at a Southampton
Hospital a [____] indicated he had [____] while his wife and children were on vacation on Italy's Amalfi Coast. okay. the writer now finds herself in a uniquely difficult situation. because the subjects of her article Candice and Brandon Miller on one hand are alienated from the average reader by wealth and celebrity. the money that these people spend flippantly to impress their
friends could change the lives of many people who are probably reading this article. some people and Many religious texts actually call this an immoral level of wealth hoarding and the writer must consider that there are likely people in her audience who are going through financial issues right now like housing and food insecurity a lack of accessibility to healthcare, very real immediate dangers due to their financial situation, and maybe those people aren't going to
be particularly sympathetic to the influencers in her article who would happily drop 15K on a half birthday party for their 2-year-old. this creates a level of separation between the reader and the people they're reading about I would argue that a piece that doesn't point out this separation these absurd levels of spending and wealth inequality would be incomplete and a journalist striving for a more objective profile ought to at least be aware of this absurdity. then on the other
hand the writer has a task that may prove to be even more difficult which is to still despite it all recognize the humanity of these people because one of the subject of this article Brandon Miller felt such levels of Despair and inner Decay that he couldn't bear one more day as a human being and so he chose to leave his two little girls without a father and while we may not have
ever touched the levels of opulence that Candice Miller happily flaunted on her Instagram account many of us can unfortunately understand what those levels of Despair can feel like. so the journalist who strives for objectivity the writer who hopes to succeed in writing about subjects like this, subjects who on one hand are so separated from the average human experience and on the other hand have publicly suffered the uniquely human tragedy of [____] must have the courage
to criticize and comment on wealth and power inequality but also they must have empathy a heart big enough to Encompass even those who are most distant from us in terms of power and wealth who are in this moment experiencing crippling grief. so courage and empathy. I would argue that the best writers have heightened levels of both. if you want to read an example of a piece that struck this balance very well I would recommend reading Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s 2015
GQ story about Justin Bieber joining a church Brodesser-Akner acknowledges kind of like the silliness and absurdity of writing a story about this hyper wealthy teenager joining this like hip celebrity mega church but she also really grapples with Justin Bieber's humanity and she gives a very empathetic profile of the pain that he experienced that ultimately drew him to religion. so back to the article um the writer reveals that there was a business deal that Brandon Miller was hoping would
save his family from their financial troubles and it didn't go through or so he wrote in his letter. the New York Times reached out to Candice Miller for comment and a spokesperson said on her behalf, Candice is devastated by the loss of her soulmate and her two young daughters lives are forever impacted by the loss of their beloved daddy close quote. then she ends the intro by writing quote a chasm separated the Miller’s shimmering public lives and painful private reality but their fall
is is also a source of very real grief a story about trying to have it all and what happens when you cannot and then she has a quote from Maurley Miller who is Brandon Miller's sister in which she says what some people aren't discussing in all of this is the loss of my little brother someone I have loved unconditionally. I have a hole in my heart that will never be filled. I am completely devastated. so what I see here is the journalist setting an intention for facing what she calls
the very real grief of this situation. since this is straight journalism she is limited in just how much emotion she can put into this piece so she's instead using quotes from people who were affected by Brandon Miller's [___] more closely to fill in the gaps about how challenging this is for them. for people like me who had never heard of the mama and Tata Instagram account Rosman gives a little
background saying that Candice Miller was once known for big spending. she shared many photos of private Fitness sessions private jets private chefs private drivers Manhattan highrises and vintage designer gowns in one interview Candice Miller sat in an all-white room with her two little daughters. the journalist writes that even the books on the walls had uniform white spines
which reminded me of the scene in The Great Gatsby when Jay Gatsby shows Nick Carraway his fantastic Library filled with books but back then when they first printed books you you would have to that the pages were attached so if you wanted to open and read the book you would have to trim the edges of the pages and Nick Carraway notices that all of Gatsby's books have not been cut meaning that he has not read them or even opened them and the scene speaks to the superficiality
of Gatsby's life he was more concerned with the status and image that comes with owning a lot of books than he was with the actual Act of reading a lot of books. I think about this scene often especially when I see books being used as some sort of interior design prop and Miller's story is very Gatsbian I'm actually surprised that the journalist never described it in that way there're these stories about people who tried and sometimes succeeded to portray a certain image but because
they were more preoccupied with seeming smart and Rich and successful than they were with being any of those things then their stories ultimately ended in the [___] of that person who was trying to reach across the gap between seeming and being and while Candice Miller isn't considered a trad wife because she matches a more modern aesthetic the gender roles in her house were traditional in
the sense that she was a stay-at-home mom and her husband focused on his business a business that the two of them according to this article quote rarely discussed. now in the article we get the background on Brandon Miller whose father had a family real estate business together Brandon and his father bought many buildings across New York City because of Brandon Miller's father and his
business Candice and Brandon who actually met when they were kids in the Hamptons were able to live as if they were hugely successful Mega millionaires even when they were a young married couple but then Brandon Miller's father passed away unexpectedly in 2016 and Brandon Miller took over his father's business but then he was suddenly hit with a bunch of lawsuits that came about essentially as a result of loose ends that his father didn't really get to tie up before his
untimely [___]. and Brandon Miller was also really focused on Commercial Real Estate like Office Buildings so when the pandemic hit their business took another big loss and the value of commercial real estate still hasn't gone up to those pre-pandemic levels. so the Millers had to sell the house that they had gotten with the help of Brandon Miller's father rented out a five bedroom apartment on Park Avenue for a smooth $47,000 per month which is so much [ __ ] money so much
[ __ ] money that they did not have at this point according to the article Brandon Miller starts missing payments for example he stops paying for the docking fees on his boat the Miller time and as a result I'm thinking okay stop spending that much money on things you don't need from the outside the answer seems really obvious and the writer has done a good job of portraying it that way but from the inside of this insular Community these people seem to feel like they have to spend
crazy money so that they can keep up appearances even though for us normal people reading this it's like baby make a budget you know? but the tragedy of this story is that for whatever reason be it social pressure or internal pressure or marital Strife or all of these above these people could not stop spending money and our writer starts to bring us down that rabbit hole with them Brandon Miller takes out a $6 million loan from a traditional bank then a $2 million loan from a
24-hour cash loan business he starts asking his friends for money all the while Candice Miller is still throwing expensive Coastal parties and bragging to blogs about her favorite shopping spot is obviously Chanel in East Hampton so Brandon Miller has been depending on his rich friends to stay in business but now his friends start looking into the projects that they have invested millions in only to find out that they don't exist or that Brandon Miller isn't involved so they get together
and this is the this is what they describe in the article his friends get together to confront him and ask where their money is and Brandon showed up to this sort of intervention and they say how are you and he's like I'm actually really sad it's the 7eventh anniversary of my dad's [___] and I just got back from visiting my dad's grave and his friends were like oh man that sucks like maybe this isn't the time but like where the [ __ ] is my money and Brandon Miller apparently broke
down in tears and said he said that he didn't do anything wrong but he felt like he let his friends down and one of his best friends who remained nameless in the article apparently realized that he wasn't going to get his money back even though it was millions of dollars and so he walked out and he never spoke spoke to Brandon again. so this community of people who they are spending so much money to try to impress is now falling apart and it's not just his friends who are coming to
collect their money now creditors start showing up to collect as well different services that they haven't paid for started suing them one firm that had lent Brandon $36 million for a payment started attempting to collect what he owed them the furniture rental company that said that the Millers owed them more than $100,000 in fees and in furniture that they didn't return around this
time Candice Miller does an interview in the times sharing that she spends $3,200 a month on facials the writer has done a great job of structuring this part of the article where she shares one some huge number that Brandon Miller owes and that he's not paying and then two some huge number that Candice Miller is spending on just like frivolous [ __ ]. the writer actually dug up a Times article
from around this time written specifically about Candice Miller's Botox and facials habits in which Candice shares that every week she gets an $800 remodeling facial during which they inject radio frequencies into your face. obviously not an expense that can be cut. Brandon Miller is still taking out these short-term loans um he took out a $28,000 loan in early June just a few weeks before
he passed if you're familiar with short-term loans like these then you know that they can be very aggressive they were almost definitely coming for his house but there's also a chance that there were thr**ts against his l**e thr**ts against his family loans like these can be very predatory uh also consider that and I don't know the terms of these specific loans that he was taking out but
many loans are forgiven if you [___] without repaying them so if you consider that Brandon Miller was likely already experiencing dark thoughts or depression and depression tells you that the people who you love would be better off without you then on top of that he thinks that in his [___] his wife and kids can live a better or at least more financially stable life, these people seem to equate those two things, then you can start to see why he made the decision that he did. so the friends of Mr Miller Started pressuring him to tell his wife about their
financial problems since it still seemed like she didn't know both from her Public Image and what I guess she said to other people. but he refused to tell her until eventually one of his friends called Candice Miller himself and told her Point Blank your family is broke. and so she confronted her husband and he told her that they would meet with a lawyer and work it all out but they had
already booked a trip to southern Europe so he told her you should go with the kids and I'll stay behind and close a deal that would supposedly make all of their financial issues go away. so she goes to Europe and she's already posting these lovely photos of herself and her girls in Spain and Italy and then according to her travel agent her card started declining. and the travel agency had to like pick up the bill. so 2 days before he [_____] Brandon Miller texted his wife and
he told her that the deal that he was waiting for that would solve all of their problems had closed. But the deal didn't exist. and then on July 30th the police responded to a carbon monoxide alarm and they came to his house to find that he had [____] in his car with a photo of himself and his family. he wrote an email intended for his wife in which he said that he had taken out a $15 million life insurance policy that should help her. he also admitted that he had lied about the
financial deal that was going to save them he said that he had been living with dark thoughts for a long time but he also said that he loved his wife and children and his decision was he felt that [_____] was what would be best for them. and then the last paragraph of this article says quote the dismantling of their dream life began almost immediately. a mortgage lender sued Miss Miller
for $800,000 and missed payments and interest. the Miller time was repossessed that's their boat and the mama and Tata Instagram account was pulled offline close quote. that's the last line of the article. the New York Times published a followup to this article in the end of 2024 in which they revealed that Candice Miller while she did receive the life insurance policy that Brandon Miller mentioned is still living with a lot of debt and she's currently involved in
multiple lawsuits attempting to prove that she should not have to pay it so if she was wasn't involved in the family's finances previously than she certainly is now. despite that debt she is living in a 10 million beachfront mansion in Miami Beach owned by or associated with the socialite and businessman Prince Alexander Von fenberg which is a name that if you say it three times in front
of a mirror causes your net worth to go up. one of the lenders who was pressuring Mr Miller to to pay one of his loans back during his lifetime has said said that he now regrets how much pressure he applied so I can only assume he became a debt collector because he thought it would make people happy and was surprised when it made them want to [___] themselves. the article also mentions that Brandon Miller's mother Barbara Miller passed away in early December and her daughter who was quoted
in the original article Maurley Miller wrote “our beautiful Barbara passed away with a broken heart and we are desperately trying to find comfort and peace in knowing that she has been reunited with her beloved husband Michael and her precious son Brandon” close quote. okay. let's discuss. as always there were some things I thought this article did well and other things that I feel it
could have done better. um the research that went into this article was fantastic they got details and information from so many different people and they assembled it in a way that made sense. I say they not she because the article mentions that Rosman had helped with the research and Reporting Rosman also did a great job of juxtaposing the financial issues of Brandon Miller, these huge amounts of money that he owes with the way that they keep spending money and Candice Miller keeps
posting about how much money they have and what a luxurious life they led and in the context of this major shocking [___] in their family it really highlights just how little all of that other [ __ ] matters like we have one short life and it's often very difficult or at least tiresome to be alive but the greatest Solace is that we get to share this limited time on Earth with people who we love and that love gives meaning to our lives and as Viktor Frankl argues in Man's Search for
meaning having meaning in your life can be just as necessary for survival as having food and water and Frankl makes a strong argument that finding meaning is often without hyperbole a matter of life and [__] and he survived the Concentration Camps so he knows a thing or two about life and [__ ]. so to take something so profound and necessary to human existence as love itself or
the person who you love the most and to trade that in for money you're only using to have a prettier Instagram than your friends and to buy what some marketing company told you to want like if you ask me that's a bad deal and I felt that this article highlighted just what a bad trade it is and left us with the assumption that Candice Miller would take it all back if she could. but I do have some
criticisms for this article one is that there was almost an overreliance on numbers and details found during research maybe if you really wanted to understand the logistics of Brandon Miller’s financial problems then you would like this more but for me it kind of slowed down the pacing of the article and it made it sound convoluted when there were big sections of the article that sounded like this quote instead they rented a 4382 ft 5bedroom apartment on the corner of Park Avenue
in East 71st street according to court records Keeping Up Appearances for $47,000 per month they decorated with rented furniture for which they paid $180,000 for one year according to a lawsuit filed this spring in $12,000 per month after the first year phew! like do you see what I mean? what a mouthful. my other criticism is that I do feel that the writer could have leaned into Brandon Miller's Humanity a little bit more I think there was intention at the very beginning of the article to do that specifically when she talked about the very real grief of the story but I felt
that there wasn't really follow through and you could say well this is straight journalism it's going to be a little bit more dry and I do agree but I think that Rosman could have played with the order of the article a little bit more for example she could have ended the article with maybe one of the quotes from his family or the fact that he d–d with a photo of his wife and girls or the age of his daughters instead of ending the article with the fact that the mama and Tata Instagram
account is now deleted. I would hope that the Instagram account is the last thing on the minds of the family right now. and I know that Candice Miller committed a grave error in posting their life online and specifically using her account to essentially boast wealth that wasn't there and there is almost a masochistic sense of validation in finding out that these wealth influencers are full of [ __ ] but I don't think that that's the main story here that we should focus on because
the Instagram account wasn't real but the years of pain that this man felt were very real the silent plane ride that Candice Miller took back to the United States to attend her husband's funeral was real the two little girls who can't even fully understand or process the grief that they have right now and this grief that will touch them for the rest of their lives that's also real and it
can be difficult for writers and people in general to really look down the barrel of that sadness and that heaviness but in order to tell a complete story I think that as writers we must be able to. now why did I choose to discuss these two articles together I would love to hear you notice um similarities and differences in the two stories in the comments below but here are a few similarities and lessons to be learned that I noticed for one these stories both had an aspect of exposing
the reality behind the lives of influencers and while you've likely heard it a million times that what you see on social media is not real I think it's always a point worth repeating both of the women in these articles Candice Miller and Hannah Neeleman are sort of like photographers and we should look at their social media Pages as these like curated art exhibits that are meant to communicate certain messages or promote certain products uh in more cases instead
of an accurate reflection of a stranger's life. and when the article about Hannah Neeleman came out there was a lot of discussion about Trad wives and her followers who came to her defense all said essentially the same thing well it's her choice right shouldn't women be able to choose what they want to do and if she chose to be a homemaker then that could even be seen as a feminist act
because it was her choice and I think that's an okay point but I also think that it's a very reductive argument um Megan Sanders video called we need to talk about ballerina farm and choice feminism gave a very well-written rebuttal against this idea that choice is inherently feminist by basically raising the point that yes Hannah Neeleman chose this but if she was raised by and molded by a community that has sexist and retrograde views when it comes to gender and
sexuality then that choice was not entirely her own. NPR did a story recently about ex tradwives and one of them shared that when she was a little girl growing up in a Mormon family she wrote in a class project that she wanted to be president when she grew up and when she got home her mother saw this project and burst into tears and told her but you can't be president heavenly father needs you to be a wife and a mommy and if that little girl then grows up to be a wife and
a mommy you can't ignore how much socialization influenced that decision by oversimplifying the whole situation into it was her choice. Brandon Miller chose to [____] but any conversation that ignores the societal and financial factors that drove him to his [___] is incomplete. and one thing that I would like to add to the choice feminism conversation is that it tends to focus
specifically on religion as if Mormons were the only ones influenced by their social groups but we are all members of cultures and subgroups that dictate when we have kids when we get married the clothes we wear the jobs we look for– Candice and Brandon Miller were also members of a social class they are members of a high society that expected a certain income level for them and that kind of social pressure can be secular yet equally as suffocating as religious. and to go back to
the influencer conversation that social pressure doesn't just come from your social environment anymore now it also comes from these strangers who influence Us online. I mused about this a lot in an article called All My False Gods on my blog which I Linked In the description if you would like to read it. now in her article about Hannah Neeleman I promised I would come back to this, Megan Agnew at one point stepped back from Hannah's personal story and put the tradwife
trend in a greater context she said that there was a sort of girl boss feminism that put the onus on women to exert themselves in order to overcome inequality and Prejudice and she sees this Trad wife cosplay as a sort of reaction to that. the tradwife lifestyle presents itself as an easier alternative to girl bossing and I think I understand that right? becoming a farm girl Trad
wife there's something about it that seems very tempting I mean you don't have to worry about corporate pressures you get to live in the fresh air and dress like Jesse from Toy Story and there is something about relinquishing control that sounds very relaxing especially in the modern world where so many of us suffer from decision fatigue. it sounds nice to not have to make major decisions because your husband takes care of it for you but and I'm really sorry to be the one to burst your bubble Here Homestead farming is incredibly difficult. raising children is
exhausting work. giving birth in an attic with candles is probably harder to be be honest than anything I've ever done in my life. I think many of the people who see these tradwife Lifestyles especially on social media maybe didn't have the chance to really explore their careers before having kids but I have and I'm sorry you will not convince me that my fully remote
digital marketing job is harder than raising a Dugger sized family on food that I pulled out of the ground. and then should we end it with best or sincerely? what about warmly? oooo. another blight has befallen the potato crop. to be honest I think that Homestead farming looks really cool I love looking at Hannah Neeleman's account like she's curated this simple peaceful
image and it's awesome like she's a talented artist you can tell. but if you choose the Trad wife lifestyle for its ease then I believe that you've been misguided. and even if the pilgrim lifestyle was actually easier than a modern working woman's lifestyle I don't think that you should necessarily build your life around ease. you should build your life in a way that feels true to you with challenges that you accept and then overcome you can and should do difficult
things but do them because it's what you want to do and what will bring you fulfillment not because an influencer or your husband or wife or parents or children expected you to become some embodied stereotype because if you go that route then you'll wake up one day with a life that isn't really yours. when feminists preach this message of like individual empowerment we're often accused of being anti-family or anti-marriage but I would argue that the evidence shows that
empowering women is healthier not just for women but also for Children and Families. here are some examples to clarify what I mean by that. studies show that the education level of the mother is one of the strongest predictors not just in the education level of the children but also in Children's Health. this is in large part because educated mothers are more likely to seek
out preventative care, trust doctors and offer healthier environments for their kids. women as a whole staying in school greatly reduces the rates of infant mortality on a societal level. Studies have shown that when women control household spending there is a direct positive impact on the nutrition health care and overall well-being of children. women with greater autonomy and access
to resources experience lower levels of stress and depression which in turn leads to better emotional and physical health for their children. women with autonomy over their own health care specifically with access to family planning methods like birth control leads to lower maternal mortality healthier pregnancies and again healthier children. people with higher levels of social
support like a group of friends or a supportive family tend to have better health and their social networks can also improve the health of their children by providing emotional and practical support during times of need. studies consistently show that women who are empowered through education economic opportunities and social support systems experience better physical health. women who are economically empowered tend to have lower rates of chronic diseases like hypertension
diabetes and obesity which are critical for both maternal and family health. these facts that I've just listed don't come from new or barebones research these are well established sociological findings. a society born to mothers who are educated socially supported mentally healthy and happy with control over their finances and bodies will statistically outperform a society
born to disempowered or victimized mothers in every category. and I worry that this tradwife trend is the antithesis to all of the forms of empowerment that I mentioned above. it encourages women to forgo their education in favor of young motherhood. it props up women who say their form of birth control is prayer. many tradwives homeschool their kids and thus often rob them
of the opportunity to learn about and perhaps even come to understand viewpoints that are different from their own. the people who promote this type of lifestyle will claim that the most important thing to them is the nuclear family meanwhile raising kids with a disempowered mother and relying on antiquated gender roles as an excuse to take away her autonomy is again statistically one of the most potentially harmful things that you can do to your children and the family unit.
I also worry that the tradwife trend is part of a greater shift of online discourse toward tradition. here's a tweet I saw that got 315,000 likes in just a few days that states men will literally choose a shy polite soft woman with zero achievements over an arrogant career woman. before I met my husband I used to see posts like that posts that are kind of like anti- female success
and I would get so nervous because being a writer and an artist on my own accord it was so important to me. actually for a lot of my Adolescence and young adulthood my writing was probably the most important thing to me but I also wanted to get married I wanted to have kids I wanted to love and be loved in return so I used to hear opinions like men are intimidated by successful women and I would worry that success and domestic Felicity were mutually exclusive like I would have
to choose between being an artist and having a successful career and being intellectually fulfilled or being loved, but the statistics say I actually had nothing to worry about. according to a study by the Hamilton project almost all Financial demographics of women are getting married less and less over time except for women who are high earners who are getting married more. it makes sense when you think about it like a shy polite soft woman with zero achievements?
in this economy? darling please get a job I need help with the finances! our son is starving! I can't get a job! I'm literally soft and shy. but sometimes people feel insecure or unlovable and they think that seeking out a weaker or less accomplished spouse might make their spouse more easily impressed by them and maybe less likely to leave them and this isn't a dating advice Channel
but remember that for a long-term marriage you aren't just looking for somebody who's easy to boss around you're looking for a teammate. someone to win with not someone to win against. my grandfather had seven sons and he would always tell them the most important thing you will ever do for your kids is choose their mother and I believe that a lot of the studies that I've cited in this video support him. but if you married young or had kids young and all of this
sounds like Doom and Gloom I really don't mean to communicate that if you notice many of of the forms of empowerment that I mentioned above are pretty easily attainable like I'm not saying that you need to become an astronaut and run a Fortune 500 company all while being present of the PTA and packing homemade meals for your kids and husband every weekday it's simple things like building a Social Circle learning about and potentially using birth control finishing school and making
a budget to understand your household expenses I need to work on that. I need to work on that last one. you don't need to get a pHD to be empowered empowerment can come from Reading great literature experiencing mind warping works of art getting physically stronger meditating traveling to cultures entirely different from your own talking to people with different opinions
and ideas ideas that make you mad and make you argue and then make you realize that you can't defend the way you feel which in turn causes you to question your whole life View and maybe you'll go through all these empowering experiences and realize that your opinions haven't changed and you were right all along but you have to go through your hero's journey first you have to go stare at a horizon line for long enough until the universe starts speaking to
you. I knew I was smarter than those [ __ ]. and I also wanted to include the second article about the Hampton's people because I think it's a great example of how these Antiquated gender roles can be toxic for men as well. these videos you see on social media which I really sometimes doubt the validity of the girl saying they would never marry a man making $75,000 a year. they would
never accept an engagement ring worth less worth less than six figures. how much should that guy make for you to date him seriously? a good 250 to 300K. would you date a guy that makes 75k a year? that's so cute. no. how much do you expect him to make? a million. this is just another offshoot of patriarchal thinking. honey please hold our son he doesn't even know you. I can't I'm increasing
shareholder value. and if Brandon Miller was feel feeling so much economic pressure as the son of a Real Estate Mogul living in a $15 million Hampton's mansion that he [_______] himself then imagine how much pressure the young working class dad feels whose hours worked determine if his kids will eat that month or be taken away by the state. if Hannah Neeleman is driven to exhaustion by maternal responsibilities even as one of the heriesses of the JetBlue Fortune then
imagine how a single mom feels whose tips or commission will determine if her kids get to go to the doctor or not and people with those concerns are far more numerous than the Trad moms and the rich husbands they just don't have time to post Tik toks every day. you shouldn't treat your spouse like a money-making machine in the same way that you shouldn't treat your spouse like a baby making machine. we all benefit when we recognize the humanity in one another and the
complexity in one another. in meditations marcus aurelius writes that all beings in nature fulfill their purpose and you as a human must do the the same the spider builds a web the seed grows into a plant Fire Rises and Stones Fall they do these things not because they are waiting for accolades or Applause but because it's in their nature so what is the nature of humans our destiny in the
natural order of things according to the stoics it is to be social and Cooperative with the greater whole to live in a way that is harmonious and aligned with nature and to be good and virtuous thus the greatest crime against nature that you can commit is that of unfulfilled potential Marcus aelius wrote you have forgotten the value of your dignity the worth of your potential you were made for a purpose to work with others in harmony close quote Marcus aelius wasn't
against the accumulation of wealth but he called wealth the smallest of things so let the stories of the late dtor and the former ballerina be a warning of what can happen to a human soul when it is taken from its original fluid form and instead beaten down into a walking stereotype we are all far more complex than the roles that were assigned to us at Birth we are more complex
than what our parents expected of us we're more complex than what our children want from us and we are more complex than who we thought we would be when we were kids humanity is destined for far greater than the simple accumulation of material things and we're destined for greater than a never-ending list of domestic chores both of those things are important parts of day-to-day life but they are not your entire identity your life life like nature needs balance you are destined for
more fellow human you are destined for harmony it's in your nature. I'm Siobhan Brier Aguilar. I'm a writer I have a monthly newsletter that you can sign up for on my blog if you require writing editing or SEO Services I work through inkless writing agency who you can contact by emailing info@inklessagency.com if you're listening to this if you made all the way to the end of this video
you should definitely subscribe to my channel because that was I just looked it up that was 14,525 words that I said that you listen to so I think you like me you should subscribe to my channel okay that's all bye our son is starving you're such a good actor good boy
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