No. 001: Pretty Righteous.

On chickens, trad wives, and aesthetic humility.

We started with three Rhode Island Red pullets, purchased impulsively one Saturday from a Craigslist rando in the seedy part of town who, thankfully, did turn out to be a real person with a real of flock of hens to sell. Chris brought them home in a cardboard box, and we set them up in a rudimentary coop. I don’t now remember their names—Henrietta? Louisa? Anyway, they all sounded like characters from Downton Abbey, as any proper chicken should.

Chicken coops are expensive, but chicks are cheap, and once you get started with a small flock, it’s hard to say no to more (and more) birds. After a couple years, the flock had grown from three to a couple dozen, and I kept a small fleet of barnyard ducks as well. I built two sturdy coops, painted farmhouse red with leaf green accents, and on the chicken coop I hung a petite, hand-painted barn quilt. I would daily collect a rainbow of eggs—tan, white, buff, and dreamy shades of pastel blue and green—and this went on for several years, until our family picked up and moved from Louisville to Atlanta earlier this summer.

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Last week, I noticed the internet astir with comments about a Times article detailing an interview with Hannah Neeleman—former Julliard ballerina, current mother of eight, co-owner of a sprawling ranch and active dairy farm in Utah, and creator of the social media brand Ballerina Farm, where millions of Instagram followers vicariously enjoy idyllic scenes of sourdough loaves shared by sixteen precious, little hands, as Hannah gracefully subdues her little corner of the universe wearing feminine calico dresses and a baby at all times upon her chest.

The internet has crowned Hannah as the “queen of trad wives,” and although she does not personally embrace the title, it is easy to see how she perfectly embodies the “trad wife” ethos—forfeiting a promising paid career of her own in order to submit to and support her husband in his, to fill the house with children, and to pour herself into domestic pursuits that create a home culture thoroughly soaked in wholesome, organic beauty.

I do not have any friends whom I fear may be tempted to become trad wives. And while I do stay home with and homeschool my children full-time, this was a decision rooted in the particular circumstances of our family and in our joint desire to operate as a family with some margin at the edges—not in some sense of obligation to fulfill my ethical feminine “duty.” Submission is a mutual exercise in our family (Eph. 5:21), and my husband and I both believe that I have significantly more to offer the world than just what my womb can bear and what I can produce in terms of an aesthetic home economic (although we do value these contributions as well). On the whole, my circles seem to understand that the trad wife lifestyle is unrealistic and unhealthy.

I do, however, recognize that many—especially women—in my little Evangelical world are at least a little sympathetic to the trad wives. Echoes of the “cottagecore” aesthetic and its relatives (naturecore? campingcore? Charlotte-Masoncore?) pervade much of Evangelical social media, even among women who do not have children or are not married. At its root, I would argue that this trend represents a positive shift. That is, the many Millennials who were raised by stressed-out, divorced parents; who grew up with steady diets of Hot Pockets and Diet Coke; who felt tremendous pressure to “hustle” and rise to the top in their studies and sports; who have seen firsthand the damage done to our planet by America’s voracious consumption; and who now struggle with burnout, anxiety, relational insecurity, and unhealthy relationships with food, are regaining an appreciation for the simple, for the natural, for the wholesome, for the handmade, for the slow-paced, and for the lovely. We recognize that God cares about the health of the planet, about the health of our bodies, and about our consumption, and we appreciate natural beauty as a signpost towards its good and wise creator. I’m proud of us for seeking to honor God with our material decisions.

When I kept chickens and ducks, occasionally I would upload photos of my colorful eggs and my fluffy hens and my handsome red coops to Instagram. Friends and family members left kind comments, and occasionally I sensed in their words a subtle shade of envy—not a malicious envy, but an insecure envy. People told me that I didn’t know how lucky I was, living out an idyllic, pastoral life like that (I didn’t tell them about the hours I regularly spent shoveling wheelbarrows full of rank manure or about the frequency with which I had to handle chicken carcasses disemboweled by raccoons), and if only they had the land and the resources, they wished they could do the same. They seemed eager to prove to me that they were the “type of people” who would be also able to achieve this organic aesthetic if only the circumstances allowed them to.

I believe that the envy I perceived was tied to a troubling side effect of the Evangelical loveliness movement, and that side effect is the rise of what I can only think to call a “self-righteous aestheticism.” It’s not exactly vanity, because it is not a prioritization of beauty over virtue. But I wonder whether vanity would ultimately be less dangerous. What we have on our hands now is a construal of beauty as virtue. Whether or not we intend it, when we post to social media our sun-kissed, makeup free smiles from our latest hike through the woods, or our toddlers sporting moss green and rust orange organic cotton gauze jumpsuits, or our fresh-cut bundles of dahlias and cosmos and billy buttons from the farmer’s market, I fear that those of us who think alike (or at least who style alike) often become tempted to think of ourselves as ethically superior to Evangelicals who listen to Taylor Swift and watch Marvel movies and eat Doritos and buy their children noisy, plastic toys. The “haves”—those who are able to present themselves as holistically lovely—are tempted to puff up with pride over their aesthetic achievements, and the “have-nots” feel insufficient, insecure, and anxious.

I speak to this side effect not as an external critic, but as a self-aware participant: I sew many of my own clothes; I style my home with whimsical antiques and art handmade by myself or by friends; and my children’s bookshelves are full of Patricia Polacco and Robery McCloskey. I own several signed copies of Wendell Berry’s greatest works, and—hey—my cat is even named after him. I can make a mean peach pie wrapped in a homemade, all-butter crust with exquisite lattice-work, and I’ve been known to keep a sourdough starter or two.

I genuinely enjoy aesthetic and domestic pursuits, and God’s grace often meets me through them, so I don’t intend to give them up. However, I would entreat us aesthetes all to check ourselves in our self-presentation; to recognize our ability to afford lovely artifacts and to prioritize wholesomeness over efficiency as a luxury that is inaccessible to many; and to celebrate our brothers and sisters in Christ whose identities are not so tightly wrapped around their embodiment of natural beauty as the valuable saints that they are. God delights in the beauty of the feet of those who bring the good news of Christ whether they are shod with Birkenstocks or Skechers.

Humans will always be tempted to strive for material shortcuts to God’s favor. Although we do not often consciously recognize the full character of our motives, at a deep level we suspect that we can buy righteousness before God and man with our dollar bills whenever we spend them on what is lovely and organic.

If you prefer to wear garment-died linen trousers rather than neon yoga pants, then go for it—I certainly support you in that decision. However, keep your heart grounded in the recognition that the Spirit is closer to the heart of the Basic Pumpkin Spice Girl-boss who deeply recognizes her need for the saving mercy of Christ than he is to the heart of the self-important aesthete.

I do hope that someday, once we’re more fully settled in Georgia, I can build a new chicken coop or buy a couple of honeybee hives or plant a pollinator garden. But for now, God’s grace is meeting me sufficiently even as I sit on this couch eating a bowl of ultra-processed Cinnamon Toast Crunch with greasy hair and a microwaved cup of coffee. I have everything to be thankful for.

Until next time—

Affectionate thanks,

HLS

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