The Educated Homemaker

Another reason why Harrison Butker was right.

The recent conniption from various corners of our culture over Harrison Butker’s commencement address at Benedictine College caused me to reflect on the 22 years I’ve spent as a homemaker and mom to 6 children.  When I read the news accounts of Butker’s address, I sought out the text of his entire speech, which is here if you haven’t yet read it.  I thought it was great that this man publicly acknowledged his wife, the value of her work in the home, and his gratitude for the life they’ve built together. 

And then came the reaction from our “betters,” as they would have us think of them.  Tisk, tisk! This isn’t the 1950’s!  The very idea that women may actually want to be mothers and homemakers!  Perish the thought! And so went the general commentary.

I’m going to get to why it’s significant that Butker said what he did to an audience that included young women who had just reached the goal of graduation from an educational institution.  But first, I want to give a sampling of some of the prevailing misconceptions I’ve personally encountered as a homemaker.  My standard responses follow in italics.

“Aren’t you bored?”  Lady, if you knew my kids, you’d realize that boredom would be a welcome relief.

“Didn’t you ever want more for yourself?”  Define more.

“Ah, you’re a homemaker.  You like making cookies, eh?”  Indeed, I do.  Now if I give you one, will it shut you up?

But it was always this next comment, to which I could never come up with a quip that did justice to my vocation as homemaker:

“It’s too bad that you don’t use your education.”  What do you mean?  I use it every day.

The people who say this kind of thing to homemakers manage to get two important things wrong in one sentence, and therefore a response to it requires further explication on the purpose of education and its impact on the place we call home.

First, a clarification of terms.  By education, I mean the formalized, systematic study of a broad area of subjects—an endeavor that takes many years.  This is different than learning, which I think most agree is important to do throughout one’s life, and can be done in a variety of ways, often informally.  Training, whether it be professional or vocational, is a subset of education, specific to certain jobs.

The problem is that many have conflated education and training, thereby accepting the premise that the only outcome of education is a job, a paycheck, and prestige.  While those things are necessary (at least in the case of the first two), they are far from the most important aspects of being educated.  Education equals something far greater, as Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), the author of a six-volume set on homeschooling wrote, “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.”

When I think back on my own formal education, from K-12 public school and then a Catholic university, I know this much is true:  The education a person receives, at whatever level, shapes the environment in which they live, the habits of mind they cultivate, the ethos they promulgate to a wider society.  I’m a Gen Xer, so I consider myself lucky to have received a decent education, as opposed to the rot we see today in many of our institutions of higher learning.  But the fact that education today is ground zero in the culture war only underscores its importance.

At base, a good education not only trains the student to observe, but also points the student toward what’s worth observing; It imparts a sense of history, and one’s place in it; When focused on excellence, education reveals that self-discipline beats self-esteem every day; It sharpens the ability to discern what one believes and why; It refines our tastes and what pursuits are worthy of our leisure time; Education leads to the correct understanding of what freedom is—the right to pursue the virtuous life. Bottom line, a good education makes you a better person.  

Now, what does any of this have to do with being a homemaker, you ask?  That brings us back to the second thing many people get wrong--the idea that a stay-at-home mom or homemaker is wasting her education, or conversely, that taking care of home and children is a low-status job, so any warm body will do.  Harrison Butker’s speech to an audience of female graduates effectively refuted this incorrect notion. The subtext of what he said is essentially this: Your education is not wasted if you become a mother and homemaker.

One of the underappreciated purposes of education is that its ultimate aim is homeward.   Because a good education inevitably shapes the parent, it also enriches the seedbed of the home—the place where values are lived, the place where civilization is instilled in a new generation.  To paraphrase Charlotte Mason’s quote above, if the education of the young matters at all, then the educated parent affecting the atmosphere, the discipline, and the life of the home matters yet still.

So my answer to the comment, “It’s too bad you aren’t using your education,” remains the same, although I accept that some people will never understand it:

I use it every day.

Okay, folks.  That’s the main course for today.  But read on…Savvy’s got your side dish!

Savvy on the Side

For new readers:  In keeping with the theme of resisting chaos, a regular feature of this newsletter will be a generous helping of homemaking savvy on the side.  Now, if you’re thinking that this will be the place for recipe hacks and pro tips for cleaning—forget it.  There are way better sources for that kind of thing.  No, the kind of “savvy” served up here is meant to help you steer clear of the out-of-left-field scenarios some of us seem prone to.  I’ll share a few of my Amelia Bedelia moments, and how to avoid unintentionally becoming a chaos agent in your own home.  We live in serious times folks, but heaven forbid we take ourselves too seriously.  Where better to start laughing than at ourselves.  So, here’s Savvy—yes, she has a name.  Keep reading…you’ll catch on!

Do you live in the kind of home where you should open your oven before you turn it on?

Be honest, you know who you are, and Savvy’s right there with you.

It had been one of those mornings—Savvy was running behind schedule and was expecting two friends and their children for a playdate at any moment.  The kids had eaten oatmeal and eggs an hour earlier—a rather messy meal.  The dishes were everywhere, the kitchen a disaster.  Ever hoping to appear the competent homemaker, Savvy did a quick version of the “stash and dash.”  The dishwasher was still full from the night before, so she gathered up the pot, frying pan and various dirty dishes and stashed them in the oven.  Then she dashed around her kitchen wiping and picking stuff up off the floor.  Friends arrived; kitchen was presentable.

After the playdate, Savvy and her children went about the rest of the day.  All was well, until dinner time, when Savvy pre-heated her oven to 375 degrees for a casserole.  Let’s just say that when she finally opened the oven door to put the casserole in, she gained a new understanding of the phrase “a hot mess.”  And it truly was, as the hours of clean up would attest.

For those of you who cannot fathom this kind of calamity, congratulations.  For the rest of us, always, always, open your oven and check it before you turn it on.  And that’s the hot tip for today.