As someone who lives in Utah, and covers business as editor-in-chief for Utah Business, I think this article is overthinking Hannah’s life a bit.
I understand, I had a similar reaction when I first moved to Utah and found people giving up their dreams to pursue a simple life in Utah. Like Adam Dietlein who was starring in roles on Broadway, but moved back to Utah because he got married and wanted to start a family. I wrote an article about it at the time and I was incredulous. Why would anyone do that?: https://www.utahbusiness.com/there-are-theater-jobs-in-utah/
Hannah did the same. Starting her ranch was not about trading pageants and ballet slippers to make money as a farmer, it was about the fact that they had kids, and in the Mormon Church raising kids is the most important thing parents can do. And they wanted their kids to live a beautiful life.
And it’s not just her. Just about everyone who lives in Kamas (and Heber and Midway too) are wealthy, Mormon, and semi-retired, farming and raising animals for the fun of it, and raising their kids in a pastoral setting in the mountains. Our state’s most prolific angel investor does the same. Scott Paul farms goats, not for money, but as a fun family activity. He, his wife, or any of his kids could just as easily devote an Instagram account to it if they wanted to.
I think it helps to understand Utah’s tech scene. Imagine Silicon Valley but where all the tech founders are Mormon, so they leave work at four or five to spend time with their families. The value here is family over work. In fact, it’s a bad look to be caught at the office at 7pm if you have kids. For this reason, having kids and moving to the mountains to spend more time with them is the equivalent of the Bay Area’s having kids, moving to Sonoma, working until 8pm, then spending two hours in the car to see the kids before they fall asleep. The value there is work over family. In fact, it’s a bad look to be caught leaving the office before the traffic starts. Why don’t we call that weird?
And the idyllic crafts in the mountains are a thing. Crafting in general is all the rage in Utah. As it turns out, not drinking alcohol manifests in the Mormons as eating sugar and doing crafts. That’s their hobby. It’s why Cricut is headquartered here. It’s why we have more cookie shops and soda shops than anywhere else. It’s an activity to do with family and that’s what they value.
And yes, most Mormons leave BYU off their internet personas because it comes with a stigma they don’t want to have. The Bucket List family learned that early on and a lot of influencers have followed suit. And if I were Hannah I’d shout it from the roof tops that I went to Juilliard too!
It’s true that Mormon women can’t hold positions of leadership, and that does manifest in oppressive ways (it’s why our state also has the highest rates of depression, suicide, breast implants, etc.). But I also think that women like Hannah are kind of sticking it to that regime by creating value and leadership for themselves online. It’s a sort of resistance. It’s “I may not be able to be the CEO of a company but watch me be successful without that title.” Solopreneurship here is a form of feminine power and definitely shouldn’t be discounted!
I think it’s easy to look at Hannah’s story and assume that she gave up a career as a ballerina or a beauty queen because of that oppression, but the even easier truth is that, for a lot of these women what they value even more than having a career is having a family. And honestly, that’s true for a lot of the Dad’s here too.
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