Hannah Neeleman is best known for her social media handle, @BallerinaFarm, and her January 2024 appearance in the Mrs. World—just 12 days after giving birth. But she has also been identified with a phenomenon of extremely-online photogenic housewifery often called the “tradwife” movement—even as critics point out that many tradwife influencers are essentially running large advertising businesses. In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Neeleman says she doesn’t actually relate to a larger movement, agreeing that her life as a mother of eight, with nine million Instagram followers, is far from traditional.

“I don’t necessarily identify with it,” she said, “because we are traditional in the sense that it’s a man and a woman, we have children, but I do feel like we’re paving a lot of paths that haven’t been paved before.” She agreed when her husband, Daniel Neeleman—who scarcely left his wife's side during her interview, as the reporter is careful to note—said she was a co-CEO of their farm business. “So for me to have the label of a traditional woman,” she continued. “I’m kinda like, I don’t know if I identify with that.”

That doesn’t mean she is completely comfortable calling herself a feminist. “I feel like I’m a femin-,” she said, before stopping herself. “There’s so many different ways you could take that word. I don’t even know what feminism means any more,” she continued. “We try so hard to be neutral and be ourselves and people will put a label on everything. This is just our normal life.”

Though the Neeleman and her family’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is widely known, it’s not a central focus of the content she posts to her millions of followers. According to the Times, it is a frequent topic of conversation at home. Daniel said that they both agree with Mormon teachings on  “sexual relations” and abortion. “We see the joy of having kids,” he said. “And the sanctity of life,” Hannah Neeleman added.

Neeleman also said her decision to grow her family has been influenced by prayer. “It’s very much a matter of prayer for me,” she said. “I’m, like, ‘God, is it time to bring another one to the Earth?’ And I’ve never been told no.” Six of Neeleman’s eight children were unmedicated home births, which she has documented extensively on social media. Still, she said that she did enjoy the one time she gave birth with an epidural. “It was kinda great,” she said with a smile.