In Defence of Harrison Butker

Last week, American football player Harrison Butker challenged the liberal orthodoxy that a woman’s place is anywhere but the home—and it landed him in a fair bit of bother. Addressing the graduating class of Benedictine College, a U.S. Catholic university notorious for its conservatism, Butker said that a homemaker was “one of the most important titles of all.” Had the president of the university uttered similar remarks, he’d be celebrated by those present for his pastoral care and concern. But an NFL player does not benefit from the same inconspicuousness and is therefore held in contempt for his Catholic beliefs about the prioritisation of family. In other words: cue media onslaught. 

While the secular media got their knickers in a twist over Butker’s comments, Catholics should have found something in Butker’s speech to rally behind. Far from relegating women to the sphere of domestic life, Butker drew attention to the fulfilment found in marriage. But no matter how reminiscent of the Second Vatican Council Butker’s esteem for the natural vocation of marriage may have been, some Catholics took to turning on their own. 

The Benedictine Sisters of Mount Saint Scholastica thought it more fitting to issue a statement distancing themselves from Butker’s comments than to defend his elevation of motherhood and finding fulfilment in family life. The Sisters’ statement falsely claims that Butker asserted that being a homemaker was the highest calling for a woman. The statement goes on to stress that women can make a difference through both motherhood and careers—a premise that Butker’s graduation speech did not contest. The Sisters’ bad faith engagement with Butker’s speech resembles a petulant teen arguing with her parents: they must be seen to disagree after taking umbrage with being told what they already know to be true.

Butker’s address to the women graduates of Benedictine College is perfectly consistent with Catholic Social Teaching, not to mention basic common sense. Perhaps the furore that followed Butker’s comments, however, is grounds for a reminder. In Laborens Exercens, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote: 

Experience confirms that there must be a social re-evaluation of the mother’s role, of the toil connected with it, and of the need that children have for care, love and affection in order that they may develop into responsible, morally and religiously mature and psychologically stable persons. It will redound to the credit of society to make it possible for a mother—without inhibiting her freedom, without psychological or practical discrimination, and without penalising her as compared with other women—to devote herself to taking care of her children and educating them in accordance with their needs, which vary with age. Having to abandon these tasks in order to take up paid work outside the home is wrong from the point of view of the good of society and of the family when it contradicts or hinders these primary goals of the mission of a mother.

Sensitive to the value women bring to society in myriad ways, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church also notes:

The feminine genius is needed in all expressions in the life of society, therefore the presence of women in the workplace must also be guaranteed. The first indispensable step in this direction is the concrete possibility of access to professional formation.

I struggle to see how Butker’s comments diverge from the truth of the above. While recognising that women might bring their talents to successful careers, he recognised that most women would be more excited by the prospect of marriage and family life. Is that really so controversial? 

We also find in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church an imperative to value the work of making a house a home:

The work of housekeeping, starting with that of the mother, precisely because it is a service directed and devoted to the quality of life, constitutes a type of activity that is eminently personal and personalizing, and that must be socially recognized and valued. 

If graduation—at a Catholic university no less—is not an appropriate time to extol the virtues of homemaking, when is? Most graduates today have spent their last three or four years working on assignments and internships, focussed on launching their career. For many, undergraduate years are the most selfish years of a person’s life—living away from home and distanced from family responsibilities. Graduation offers the ideal time to challenge young people to turn their minds to what and whom their (or indeed their spouse’s) monthly payslips might support. Daring women to think about family on the day of their graduation does not undermine their professional accomplishments. It invites them to think beyond them. 

Admittedly, on the day of my graduation I was not thinking about a possible future husband and future children. The prospect seemed remote, so I gave it little thought. Whether a result of feminism’s focus on career advancement or the harsh reality of the two income trap, the conveyor belt of school followed by university gears women to think about future wage-employment—not family life. But fast forward four years and of course my marriage and son have brought me a great deal more joy than reading through the items on my curriculum vitae. 

As a recent Harvard graduate who is now a full-time mother, I for one appreciate Butker’s candour. Butker rebuked popular opinion that women can have it all when he said his wife Isabelle’s “dream of having a career might not have come true, but if you asked her today if she has any regrets on her decision, she would laugh out loud, without hesitation, and say, ‘Heck, no!’” How refreshing! At a time when women are told they can be whatever they wish, how lovely that the hidden life of nurturing a family might be honoured. 

Let us remember that no, a woman’s place is not only in the home, but it should be if she so wishes, as many of us do. And thank you to Harrison Butker for flying the flag for such a choice.