Why We’re Still Obsessed With Nara Smith

When you picture a stay-at-home mother of three children under 3 in your head, you probably do not picture someone who looks like Nara Smith. Most of us associate motherhood with chaos. Fisher Price toys strewn across the living room like a plastic war zone, broken crayons littering the dining room table, frozen fish sticks baking in the oven – these are the things our society has associated with child-rearing, but it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Enter Nara Smith. Nara is a 23-year-old South African-born German model who traded in the runway for the kitchen. Nara married fellow model Lucky Blue Smith (who is also incredibly, ridiculously good-looking) back in 2020, and the couple have since had three children together. Having three children at 23 years old is rare in today’s world, and it makes Nara stand out for that alone. 

Even Nara knows that her path to motherhood is outside the norm, but she shared that she’s always wanted to be a young mother and doesn’t feel like she’s missed out on anything. “I know that 22 is considered young nowadays to be having kids, but I love being a young mom and growing with my kids,” she wrote. “I never feel like I’m ‘missing out’ or not ‘living life’ like a girl in her 20s. Everyone’s concept of what they want in life is unique to them, and I wouldn’t change my journey at all.” 

Like her journey to motherhood, Nara’s version of motherhood is also well outside the mainstream. 

Making Motherhood Look Effortlessly Chic

Nara presents a version of motherhood that is chic, not chaotic. Behind the scenes, I’m sure she deals with the same temper tantrums and toy clutter that all parents deal with, but social media is a highlight reel and Nara is highlighting a version of motherhood that’s aspirational. 

Nara has garnered millions of followers across Instagram and TikTok by posting videos about her life with Lucky and their three kids. Her most iconic and popular videos are often her cooking videos, but they’re notable because she’s not cooking your average meals. 

Nara’s recipes (if you can even call them recipes) aren’t intended to be easy to recreate. She’s not like Rachel Ray, and these are not 30-minute meals. Nara is the kind of girl who makes things like Oreos and hot dogs from scratch. Scratch, as in, she makes her own hot dog buns and grinds her own sausage. 

While some recipes are somewhat easier to recreate, Nara’s finely crafted content is more aspirational than it is relatable. Most of us aren’t models and we didn’t marry models, but there’s something so calming and unassuming about her soft-spoken voiceovers and slow kitchen content. 

She’s a model who enjoys rocking an apron just as much as an evening gown. And she still wears those evening gowns even while whipping up over-the-top recipes. Nara’s content shows motherhood in a new light because she makes motherhood look undeniably chic. 

Nara Smith “Controversy”

Because Nara Smith embraces traditional gender roles and enjoys cooking for her husband and children more than strutting down a catwalk, she’s been subjected to a lot of online hate. People claim she makes motherhood look unattainable or that she’s setting women back because her content is “conservatism in disguise” and encourages women to be mothers rather than corporate girlbosses. 

Nara has often been compared to fellow influencer Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm fame. They have a lot in common: they’re both connected to Mormonism, they’re both beautiful (Neeleman is a Julliard-trained ballerina and beauty queen), they both had children at a young age, and they both became famous for creating aspirational homemaking content on social media. Like Neeleman, Nara’s effortless grace and steady hand in the kitchen make homemaking look sexy, not the usual tired mom with spit-up on her t-shirt trope. 

Motherhood is a lot of work, and both Nara Smith and Hannah Neelemen probably get help with some of their responsibilities and/or childcare (how else would they be able to spend hours making content on social media?), but everyone knows social media is a highlight reel. The majority of online influencers present a version of themselves online that’s seemingly unattainable – that’s what makes them interesting. 

The only thing that sets Hannah Neelemen and Nara Smith apart is that they’re presenting a version of womanhood that goes against the girlboss grain, but another thing we love about Nara (and Hannah) is that she doesn’t care. Nara doesn’t bow to the social media mob. She’s unbothered by trolls online who try to cancel her and leave hateful comments on her videos. 

Social media stardom is often fleeting. Many viral TikTok stars disappear from the spotlight quickly after getting their 15 minutes of fame, but it's clear that Nara Smith isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If anything, her fame only seems to be growing. Why is that?

Redefining What It Means to be a Girlboss

I think it’s because there’s a lot more to Nara Smith than meets the eye. She appears to be the anti-girlboss because she has prioritized her family over her career as a model, but with millions of followers across Instagram and TikTok, she’s likely making a hefty chunk of change off her social media content and appearances at designer runway shows like the ones she recently attended in Paris. 

People can make millions of dollars being a social media influencer nowadays, and it’s clear from the quality of Nara’s life and content that she and Lucky are doing very well for themselves financially. 

Nara Smith is redefining what it means to have it all. She’s young and beautiful, she’s a mother, she owns and runs her own successful social media business empire, and she looks damn good while doing it. Nara Smith embraces her femininity, she doesn’t fight against or run from it, and it’s because she’s embraced that femininity that she’s become so popular online and earned her staying power. 

There is a hunger among young women for the kind of life that Nara Smith leads. Of course, I’m sure we’d all love to be rich and married to a hot model, but it’s more than that. Women have been taught for so long that their careers should come first and that they can put off having a family (or choose not to have one at all) while they climb the corporate ladder. 

But as Gen Z and millennial women have grown up, many of us have come to realize we were sold a bill of goods. Is breaking into the C-suite really more rewarding than rearing a family, especially if it means having to forego a family altogether? For many women, the answer is a resounding no, and that’s perfectly okay. 

Prioritizing starting a family and being a mother doesn’t mean that you need to completely give up your career or lose yourself in motherhood. Will it be hard? Of course. I’m not arguing that the version of motherhood Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman present is easily attainable (or that you should even seek to attain it at all), but choosing to be a mother doesn’t mean you need to give up your identity or that your life will be complete and utter chaos for the next 18 years.

Nara Smith presents a new way forward for women who want to have both a career and a family because she created her own C-suite. She has ushered in a new and improved version of a girlboss by starting her own business centered around her family and being true to herself and her values in the process. While Nara’s version of motherhood (and girlbossery) might be unattainable for the masses, there’s a beautiful authenticity to it that women are drawn to. Nara proves that women really can have it all if they’re willing to get a little creative.