Did you actually listen to Mr. Butker's speech. I actually agree with what he said. As a father of five children including four daughters (like you), I have found much more joy in my wife and children, then I found in my career.
I had one of those amazing careers, that peaked before I retired as CEO of a company with 42,000 employees. And previously was highlighted by becoming an VP of a billion-dollar corporation within 6 years of graduating college and a senior vice president for Merrill Lynch eight years after graduating college. Earning the kind of compensation most people dream about.
And yet thankfully, I developed a heart condition that caused me to retire at age 50 before I had spent my whole life at work. I feel lucky, I got a wakeup call before I had lived my whole life racking up the bucks, building that resume, and sitting alone on top of the mountain.
Instead, I got the unparalleled joy of being the father that was there for his children and the husband I was meant to be.
Butker was clear careers are important, but they don't compare with family or an eternal relationship with God.
I think the women in my family would agree with Butker. My wife stayed at home to raise our children, but when they no longer needed her, she started her own company. I laugh because I am her least productive employee and most underpaid. I no longer define myself by what I do, but who I am.
As for my wife, she is enjoying her career these days, but she is clear, her children still come first, and owning her own business, she can do that.
My oldest daughter is a single mother. I know from conversations with her, that she loves her daughter to much, she goes to work at a health care tech to support her. But would stay home in a heartbeat if she could afford to.
My second oldest daughter is getting her fourth degree, a doctorate in Nurse Anesthesia. She actually loves what she is learning and doing in her final year in school but thinks about whether she can shape her career to work three days a week to spend more time with her husband and two children before they all grow up.
My next daughter is in her last year of medical school. She looks forward to being a doctor, but more than once has remarked she hopes to meet her soulmate and have children.
The next daughter just graduated with a business degree in Information Systems. She is looking for a Christian husband to raise a family with. She knows she can support herself, but sees no joy in that.
Butker was speaking truth, except his speech applied to young men as much as young women with one exception. Women are smarter than men in this area, so he might have wasted his time speaking to the young men.
I have employed thousands of men and women over my career as in somewhere between 50,000-100,000. Without stereotyping because there are exceptions, women for the most part have had healthier perspectives regarding their careers then man.
Women see their careers as a means to an end, not the end itself. They embrace their role as mother and spouse in a way too many men do not. That does not mean, they don't take their career seriously, but they are far less willing to sacrifice their families for success. Again, there are plenty of exceptions among men and women, I was not one of them. I spent so much time on the road, I am a Lifetime Titanium Marriot Rewards holder even though I retired at age 50 and in my retirement have enjoyed the millions of reward points with my family, that I had no time to spend when I was working.
I think Butker is spot on. A career is a means to an end. Your family and God are the end. Bill Maher recently made an interesting comment regarding Butker's speech. You should check it out. He basically said, that while he is an atheist, he does not believe women should be bullied into pursuing careers instead of being homemakers. Instead, he believed true feminism is about allowing women to make their choices, one of which could be to be a homemaker. I agree with him with one caveat... given how hard it is for young Christian women to find their soulmates and how expensive it is to raise a family, and add to that the risk of divorce, every young girl growing up today needs a Plan B, which means preparing for the possibility that she will go through life alone.
My daughters and my wife could easily thrive without a man in their lives or without children, but they wouldn't want to. And now that I have some common sense, I wouldn't want to go through life with my wife and family, no matter how successful I could be without the distraction of a family... because the distraction is what life is all about. My observation is the luckiest people in the world are those who go whom to people they love and who love them back.
