Ballerina Farm as a Good Wife Manual
Because Hannah's musings about cooking as a metaphor for good wifehood were the first thing I saw on Insta at 6:13AM Wednesday morning.
I had no intention of writing about Hannah OR Daniel this week. I really didn’t. But then I saw this post from Hannah.
“Hardly had the ink dried on our marriage certificate when it occurred to me I didn’t know how to cook. I was a 21 year old newlywed bride."
I knew this post would be a doozy after the first line because the first line is really all that’s necessary to understand Hannah’s belief that part of being a “good wife” is being a “good cook.” Her belief that to be a “wife” is to agree to uphold a certain set of expectations, most of which adhere to stringent gender norms.
For today’s newsletter, I was going to feature one of two delightful interviews I did earlier in the week (I’ll share them eventually - fear not). But goddammit guys. I was wedged into my preferred couch crevice as usual. Drinking my PG Tips tea in the dark with earplugs in. As usual. Telling the kids they were capable of pouring cereal in a bowl or putting bread in a toaster without my intervention. Begging them to put on Cocomelon so their toddler brother would stop requiring things of me. As usual! And then this image of Hannah nearly breaking into a curtsy of good wifehood foiled all my newsletter plans.
Big sigh.
So let’s dissect the image itself. Hannah’s pregnant and we know she’s mere weeks away from delivery because she shares these facts on Instagram. We know she’s pregnant with her seventh child (and apparently has no outside help in caring for her other six children). And here she is. Smiling as is her wont. In front of her beloved $24,000 stove which she had every right name to name Agnes. She cradles her belly, her chin high in the air, sort of like an under-servant at Downton Abbey waiting for Lady Grantham to lead a trio of visiting duchesses for a tour of the kitchen to ensure all is up to snuff “downstairs.”
When I was in the third trimester of pregnancy with my third kid, I felt as though my innards were in danger of dropping through my vagina almost constantly. I went to pelvic floor physical therapy twice a month and during the final weeks of pregnancy, I periodically melted to the floor when random hip spasms overtook my muscle control. I do not recall cooking. In those last few weeks, smiling was equally rare!
But because this is Hannah of course she looks thrilled to be super pregnant and standing in front of a stove instead of curled up in the fetal position in a pile of throw blankets simply waiting to no longer feel so uncomfortable.
Before we move on to the text of the post, let’s pause to give Agnes her time to shine (because shine she must).
Back in 2020, Hannah wrote in almost sneering tones about how Agnes eradicated her need for a microwave. “This stove is always on, piping hot, and ready to heat up anything a microwave would. My goal in the kitchen is simplification. I also can’t function until it’s clean.” My only guess as to her anti-microwave rhetoric is that such “new fangled” contraptions don’t exactly match Ballerina Farm’s vintage homesteader aesthetic. Bad for the brand.
Hannah wrote about Agnes again here (“They also are always hot and ready for cooking. I’m not sure if it is the cast iron matériel, the simplicity of its function or its ready-to-cook temperatures, but for me it makes for country cooking of fairytale-quality. 🌻”), and here (“Though our propane bill is likely 4x what it would be, having every meal taste like it was cooked in a Dutch oven makes me 10x happier”). Long live Agnes.
Ok, back to the post in question.