Who knew that being a homemaker was so disgusting?  It was all over social media: “You’ll never believe what he said.”

So, prepared to be scandalized!

I watched the commencement speech that shook the world, made by the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, Harrison Butker, and discovered that the world was shocked, simply shocked, that he had the gall to go and say the most natural thing to have ever been said  by a loving husband about a loving wife.

“It cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: Homemaker.”

What? Who wants to be a homemaker? This is a clear case of a misogynistic, patriarchal, white traditionalist suppressing the true dreams of a talented young woman.

I don’t know about you, but I know inside the heart of every woman (or at least the women on The View) there is a longing to be a cubicle-maker, a phone answerer, a spreadsheet calculator, a business maker, but not a homemaker. And certainly not (I am whispering here) a baby maker.

That would be embarrassing. That would mean women were little and stupid and meaningless, because, obviously, home is little, and stupid and meaningless. While the office building…cue the daydream filter…whoa…the office building…the tomes of poetry written about the office building.

Come now, why was this such a scandal?

Here is a handsome, successful, intelligent, virtuous man, who is literally at the top of his game, praising his wife, holding back tears because she is the maker of their home and the mother of their children.

Well, because Harrison Butker had the courage to call a lie a lie. Not just any lie, but a “diabolical” lie.

“For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment… I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you…Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

Women have been told this “diabolical” lie for the last 80 years: home isn’t anything compared to a career.

If you get a degree and a job and a boyfriend and the pill, until you are at least thirty-five, then you can eventually upgrade to a husband and a career and one, or maybe two babies.

But none of this will be at the expense of your true value as seen in bottom lines, promotions, vacations, and social ladders.

You will be free and you will have it all.

We watched this story played out in countless sentimental, period piece films, like Mona Lisa Smile, and female celebrities purport its truth. It's all propaganda for the lie.

After decades, we now know what happens when women serve mammon. They are miserable.

Has there ever been a richer and more unhappy female populace than our own?

The latests statistics are that nearly 20% of women between the ages of 18 and 50 are on antidepressants. Note headlines like this from the Wall Street Journal “Why Are So Many Middle Aged Women on Antidepressants?”

In real life the majority of people sacrifice to work as the mid-level something-or-other at a mid-level something-or-other. Like Jordan Peterson says, “Most people don’t have a career, they just have a job.”

I have heard women say they longed to have more children or educate their children at home or even to nurse their infants, only to be shamed by their extended family, their church or social community for “wasting your degree, wasting your talent, and not contributing to the family financially.”

Women wanted to make a home, but now we just help other people get rich while we drop our kids off for someone else to raise.

So what does it mean to be a homemaker?

Home is the poetic inspiration of countless songs, the four walls in which love blossoms into family, the seed bed of patriotism, the communion of community.

Home is where your life -- not your job, but your life -- exists. It is a place ravaged by a culture that calculates the value of a life by dollar signs and ladders climbed.

150 years ago, home was the place you were conceived, you were born, you probably lived, and possibly died. And if your home wasn’t literally the same shelter your whole life, you probably moved a stones’ throw away from the home of your childhood and married someone you met down the road in a one-room school house.

Your whole life is home because your whole life is family.

That is why it is truly diabolical, as in “of the devil,” for the glory of home to be minimized, or the one who cultivates home i.e. the mother, or the one who protects and provides for home i.e. the father, to be shamed for recognizing the nobility of this most sacred and primitive reality.

There is no greater title given to women than to be the maker of a home.

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