The Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker has been subject to a chorus of condemnation after his commencement speech at Benedictine College. The critics have particularly denounced Butker’s claim that his wife believes “her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” embracing “one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.” As a life-long self-described feminist, perhaps I, too, should be offended by this—but I’m in such agreement with the priorities Butker espouses that I recently left my job as a senior attorney for a Fortune 500 company to temporarily be a full-time stay-at-home dad.
Not only is Butker’s message about the importance of “homemaking” and family life worth hearing, but it also applies as much to men as it does to women. Butker correctly points out that “football” and “business” should not be a “distraction” from being a father and a husband. And this for a simple universal truth: Your family matters far more than your job.
My work as an attorney is in a different category than my vocation as a father. For Catholics like Butker and myself, a vocation is not a mere job. It is a calling or mission to serve God in a particular way, and it transforms and remains with us the rest of our lives. Very few careers are also vocations. Jobs can come and go. We can quit and find something better. Even in my highly competitive position, I was fundamentally replaceable. But I am irreplaceable to my family. Whatever influence I’ve had as an attorney pales in comparison to how I affect my family by simply being present for them and, in the case of my kids, showing them the love that only a father can. The rote tasks at work are replaced at home by menial tasks that build a foundation of love and security for my children.
Like Butker's wife, I found that my life started anew with my children. My first daughter and my fatherhood came into existence at the same time; they are inextricably bound together. And in her creation, my vocation as a father was created as well. My identity has been fundamentally transformed: I will be a father forever to my children, and I am powerless to end that mission and that purpose. My only choice is between doing it well and doing it poorly.
It is easier for men to use careers as an excuse to be absent from home, for the burdens of pregnancy and parenthood are uniquely borne by women. Though I give up a lot for my children, it is incomparable to the sacrifices my wife made through the challenges and seeming indignities of pregnancy and labor, let alone the task of caring for a new infant whom she literally sustains with her body. But if we want men to be better fathers and husbands, we can’t simply condemn their absence; we have to also extoll the virtues of marriage, parenthood, and, yes, homemaking.
“Homemaking” is often considered less valuable, less fulfilling, and less important than a career. But precisely the reverse is true. A homemaker is not a house maid, but an educator and the architect who builds the moral foundation for what Catholics refer to as the domestic church. That responsibility is as noble and important as any, and much harder than most. The original feminists, like Mary Wollstonecraft and others, pushed for women to have careers and political influence, but they never denigrated the primacy of home life and motherhood. Rather, they saw motherhood as fostering precisely those virtues our society needs, and they called for men to lead equally virtuous lives, with home always at the center.
As the company I worked for began to be less family-friendly, my wife and I had our fourth child and began to homeschool the older ones. It was no longer possible to be the employee my workplace wanted and the husband and father my family needed. My career was the appropriate sacrifice, and I decided to walk away from it for a while. I was incredibly blessed with the freedom to do this. And my parents had also set an example for me. For non-religious reasons, my mother had turned away from her promising career to homeschool her three sons, and my dad rejected numerous career advancement opportunities to spend more time at home. They modeled for me the value of putting family life first, and sacrificing much for it. For that, I am very grateful, and I hope to model the same for my children—to show them that our career choices should be ordered, as much as possible, to serve our family.
Some have asked why Butker delivered this message at a graduation ceremony. But it is precisely new graduates who should hear it: Keep your priorities in their proper place, lest you chase the lesser good at the expense of the greater one. Butker should not be criticized for speaking that simple truth out loud.
Darren Geist is a practicing attorney.
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Image by Airman 1st Class William Lunn via Creative Commons. Image cropped.
