Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Hands Free Sundays
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Family
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When I had my son, I promised myself and the little baby sucking his thumb in my arms that I will be the best mummy there ever was to him. I will love him so hard, he would never doubt that he is loved. I will always be there for him; there to hold his hands when he’s afraid, there to do his homework, there to hang out and share laughter with, there so that nobody ever ever hurts him. He would be my bestest friend.
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| http://www.handsfreemama.com/ |
I promised always have time for his excesses, always have time to listen to what he has to say, always encourage him to be the best child he could be….
The 21st Century Dilemma: Career Vs Family
I am a pharmacist by profession but these days {and for the last three years for that matter}, I dress up and play at being a banker! Quite a career leap, yes? Topic for another…post!
Anyways, I am a banker now. When I got my present job, I was beyond estactic. Prior to my job offer, I was a stay-at-home mom for all of eight months and somewhere along those months, I had managed to morph into a very refined mgbeke! Personal grooming took a back seat to tending to my two babies at that time…The Hubby and Chets! In fact, it got sooo bad that once, a market woman asked whether everything was alright in my life. That fateful day, I was garbed in an ill-fitting tank-top, The Hubby’s cargo shorts and some random bathroom slippers i stumbled on in the house! {I fall my hand seriously sha}. You see, Aunty MarketWoman knew me from when I just entered Gidi from the The Garden City and so watching me transition from chic-squared to less than status quo, was a cause for concern for her. I never forgot that incident…it was a turning point in my life!
So, going to my new job at the bank meant the world to me! I was grateful for the opportunity to gadge up every morning, put some make-up on and attend to random faces from all works of life that the job afforded me. Ego-boosting compliments tossed casually my way made my days. Not to mention the moola I get to pocket at the end of every month.....now I don’t havta rehearse lines before I ask of him! Let’s even forget the fact that I get to practice all them vocabs I learnt in school on my peers! If I had stayed a couple more months at home, all my knowledge of the English language woulda been reduced to cooing sounds! Honestly, having a job after such draughts, well-paying or no, does things to one’s self confidence…all positive!
You can then imagine my discomfort when I started hearing the word resignation in more than just passing at the home front. From my momma, to the hubby, to the inlaws...i swear, it was an overload. Can’t say I blame them...my job is mental! In this age of electronic everything {e-banking, e-toasting, e-mailing, e-fighting...y’all get the picture}, you’ll shudder at the amount of mindless paperwork I deal with every darn day! Frustrating as it is, sometimes i do wish just the paperwork was my problem. If CBN wakes up from the wrong side of the bed, I pull a 7-day work week...from Monday to Monday! If my employers feel they haven’t sucked me dry enough, i get drafted to training exercises every other week!! You break down? Pooh! Big deal...folks be breaking down way before you! There is little or no time to play with the kids, all three of them. In fact, their little tricks to get my attention start to waltz on my very last nerves. So I get how I, as the woman of the house, the homemaker, am expected to quit my uber demanding job. Problem was that I wasn’t ready to give up the income that sources my designer cum wanna-be designer bags and shoes; and all the Brazilian/Indian/Aba weaves that chic-ifies me!!! Just kidding! I was {still am sef} reluctant because I wanted to be able to assist my boo...if need be...in providing for the home!!
Anyways, I am a banker now. When I got my present job, I was beyond estactic. Prior to my job offer, I was a stay-at-home mom for all of eight months and somewhere along those months, I had managed to morph into a very refined mgbeke! Personal grooming took a back seat to tending to my two babies at that time…The Hubby and Chets! In fact, it got sooo bad that once, a market woman asked whether everything was alright in my life. That fateful day, I was garbed in an ill-fitting tank-top, The Hubby’s cargo shorts and some random bathroom slippers i stumbled on in the house! {I fall my hand seriously sha}. You see, Aunty MarketWoman knew me from when I just entered Gidi from the The Garden City and so watching me transition from chic-squared to less than status quo, was a cause for concern for her. I never forgot that incident…it was a turning point in my life!
So, going to my new job at the bank meant the world to me! I was grateful for the opportunity to gadge up every morning, put some make-up on and attend to random faces from all works of life that the job afforded me. Ego-boosting compliments tossed casually my way made my days. Not to mention the moola I get to pocket at the end of every month.....now I don’t havta rehearse lines before I ask of him! Let’s even forget the fact that I get to practice all them vocabs I learnt in school on my peers! If I had stayed a couple more months at home, all my knowledge of the English language woulda been reduced to cooing sounds! Honestly, having a job after such draughts, well-paying or no, does things to one’s self confidence…all positive!
You can then imagine my discomfort when I started hearing the word resignation in more than just passing at the home front. From my momma, to the hubby, to the inlaws...i swear, it was an overload. Can’t say I blame them...my job is mental! In this age of electronic everything {e-banking, e-toasting, e-mailing, e-fighting...y’all get the picture}, you’ll shudder at the amount of mindless paperwork I deal with every darn day! Frustrating as it is, sometimes i do wish just the paperwork was my problem. If CBN wakes up from the wrong side of the bed, I pull a 7-day work week...from Monday to Monday! If my employers feel they haven’t sucked me dry enough, i get drafted to training exercises every other week!! You break down? Pooh! Big deal...folks be breaking down way before you! There is little or no time to play with the kids, all three of them. In fact, their little tricks to get my attention start to waltz on my very last nerves. So I get how I, as the woman of the house, the homemaker, am expected to quit my uber demanding job. Problem was that I wasn’t ready to give up the income that sources my designer cum wanna-be designer bags and shoes; and all the Brazilian/Indian/Aba weaves that chic-ifies me!!! Just kidding! I was {still am sef} reluctant because I wanted to be able to assist my boo...if need be...in providing for the home!!
Trying to find achieve a workable balance between career and family is very difficult but not impossible. But at what cost? So, you work your butt off to give the kids the very best...commendable! However, what IS the very best? Expensive schools and everything money can buy...which sometimes eventually turns them into spoilt brats OR your time and love and the coat made according to available material...that nurturs them into decent beings?
My 2 kobo on raising kids happens to be that parental presence/influence should be felt more in the formative years of a child's life, at least to age six! In those early years, a kid's mind is not unlike a sponge...soaks in every and any values sent his way! The all-important question is whose values does he/she imbibe? The parents' or the househelp's?
My son is growing right before my eyes. He used to love kissing and cuddling and doing the *naked chicken dance* {every time i wanna have a bath, he’ll perch on the toilet seat and insist on waiting for me till I am done. In the course of waiting, he’ll yell: Mommy, do the chicken dance! It cracks him up each I jiggle in the shower} with me!! These days, kissing and cuddling are restricted to corners where no one will see him being a baby and when i jiggle in the bath, he hightails it outta there...it holds no form of amusement anymore. Bottom line, I am missing out on his babyhood!
My son is growing right before my eyes. He used to love kissing and cuddling and doing the *naked chicken dance* {every time i wanna have a bath, he’ll perch on the toilet seat and insist on waiting for me till I am done. In the course of waiting, he’ll yell: Mommy, do the chicken dance! It cracks him up each I jiggle in the shower} with me!! These days, kissing and cuddling are restricted to corners where no one will see him being a baby and when i jiggle in the bath, he hightails it outta there...it holds no form of amusement anymore. Bottom line, I am missing out on his babyhood!
That’s not all. Because mommy has to work to support daddy, kids are left at the mercy of their minders. Oftentimes as we all know, these minders do everything but mind the children.
Some weeks back, the 40-year plus woman I employed to look after my children undressed my son and then purposely rubbed raw itchy peeled yam that she had picked from the dustbin all over his body! The boy cried himself to sleep that night, confused as to why that number of mosquitoes should bite him all over! Because of his peculiar ultra sensitive skin, by the next morning he had lesions all over his body...he was itchy for days! All these while, the nanny insisted she had no idea how the yam got on the boy’s body until i called my son some days later to ask what really happened. My heart broke when i heard the full gist....I am in love with the Hubby and I love my daughter to bits but Chets IS the very love of my life!!!!
The past coupla weeks has got me seriously thinking: Work or Family as against Work and Family!!! Before now, I would say: Must I chose? Can’t I have both? In my honest opinion, one can have both but
- only if there is some sorta family support...mother, younger sisters/brothers{?}, little cousins...in place to take care of the homefront!
- if one’s job offer flexibility in working hours!
I know for a fact that most modern-day men do not want housewives but they also do not want their children being raised by strangers. And so, most women find themselves subscribing to the Work and Family model. I happen to belong to this group of women. But I am learning to tweak the ratio less in favour of work and more in favour of the family!
No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you cannot look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?
Family IS Everything!!!
Lest I forget, I really like to thank all those that have taken out time to read this blog and comment. Y'all sorta encourage my "harmless" rantings and honestly, what’s the point of ranting without an audience? Defeats the whole purpose!! Mucha gracias!!!
Lets Call A Spade....One!
Labels:
Family
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On the day that The Hubby was snatched at gunpoint and eventually lost his barely-one-year-old tear-rubber car, two things flashed immediately through my mind: (1) How was I going to raise my kids all by myself? (2) How the heck will I afford my house rent? Hard work doesn’t scare me and I do have some savings but the thought of house rent, school fees, light and cable bills and generally being able to afford the lifestyle I was already used to, scared the bejesus out of me!! I felt so helpless….
After that experience, I became so obsessed with the subject of mortality. For every time he leaves the house, I always think, “Will he make it home tonight?” If he doesn’t, would I and the kids be okay? Have I put a plan in place for that contingency? Has he put a plan in place for that contingency? Last year, a group of male journalists were kidnapped and held captive for days. From what I read in the papers on their story, their major regret {while in captivity and with the threat of death looming above their heads} was not how they didn’t booze enough or hang out enough; it was not how they did not build enough mansions or drive the Beast. Their only regret was that they didn’t make enough arrangement, in case of an eventuality such as their demise, to give their wives a soft landing of some sort! One of them even said that his people would give his wife such a hard time if and after he was gone! Sad, init?
On Monday the 7th, a management staff of one of the branches of my office lost his life in an auto accident. My first question on hearing the news was, “Was he married?” If he was, with how many kids? And how old was the first child? As it turned out, he was married with 3 children, the first not even up to seven years of age. Ironically, he had taken a detour on his way to work that fateful morning, to go visit his child who was sick and on admission in the hospital. Life sucks sha!! Imagine the poor widow being informed of the death of her husband while still trying to nurse her child back to good health!
Now you ask: What’s the point to these ramblings of mine? I answer: What is wrong with a man declaring his assets and liabilities, both home and abroad, to his partner whom he has promised to love and protect??? Whats the point in struggling day, night and then some, to acquire riches and properties and have your wife and children reduced to begging on the streets for survival, after you are no more in the picture? Woman, why are you so content with just that one means of livelihood? In the case of an eventuality, would that be enough???? I’m guilty of this too!!!
I’m yet to meet that person that knows when death would come along….there’s a reason why insurance companies are still in business. From listening to The Hubby and a few of his friends talk, I’ve come to realize that truly, the pride of a man is in his offspring…his legacy. Wouldn’t he breathe easier knowing that after he’s gone, his family is well provided for? Isnt that what our rat races’ all about? Granted, bitter “third party” experiences might’ve informed some men’s decisions to keep certain monetary information from their partners but for how long will A’s story be used to judge and find B guilty? If you married a good woman, you’ll know! No need to punish her for the way Emeka’s friend’s brother’s wife cleaned the husband out!! A stitch in time….
At this point, i would really like to say that woment aint really the weaker sex, as cliche would have us believe. We are stronger than we look...we are no charity case! If push comes to shove {and there is no plan in place for that shove}, we rally! It might be difficult, painful, heartbreaking but we rally! We become determined, for the sakes of our children. No sane cum reasonable woman would fold her hands and watch her kids suffer. All i'm saying is, if she's to mourn, let her mourn in comfort! Let her mourn not because she's lost a breadwinner...let her mourn because she misses the heck outta the man that had been her companion, her friend, her lover, her backbone for the better part of her life! Is that too much to ask for?
Shout out to The Hubby, the love of my life, the father of my children…Thank you for taking such good of us. Love you....x
Oh my, but this was a morbid post!
CM: What's Important To You?
Mrs A resides in one of those high-end estates in Lagos, Nigeria. Mrs A is a busy career mother with office located on the island. Mrs A is a mother of three really cute kids, the youngest [Daisy]* less than 18months old.
This post reflects on a subject that has given many a mother sleepless nights: Career Vs Family? Now, if you are a working mother in the city of Lagos, you would really appreciate what this post is about.
Driving home from work most evenings, i'm usually saddened when i see women, some of the clutching to their young babies, begging on the streets for alms, for money to feed. I used to shell out money to those women....not for their sakes but for the sake of these babies that are forced to beg alongside their mothers in the sun, in the rains. I always thought,"What if this was my situation? What if this was my baby...hungry, crying, weak, on the street, under the scorching sun?" It brings tears to my eyes!
I especially remember this lady along Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way in Ikeja that totes a set of twins on both sides of her body and i wondered what the future held for those children. How on earth was a woman that could barely feed herself, clothe and feed twins? So, i usually, always give money as long as i have money on me to give. That was last year....
.....and then last month, i saw this other woman beggar, with the same set of twins...seriously! And i finally came to the bitter realization that this begging-with-babies thingy was a well rehearsed scam, and a well-paying one at that. So instead of sad, i get really angry when i see them....and i usually let them know, verbally, how i felt.
Mrs A had thought Daisy* was breaking out seriously, having all sorts of rashes all over her skin but she chucked it up to change of bath soap (we know how expensive and selective babies' skin can be sometimes). It was until Daisy* started losing weight drastically that Mrs A figured something was terribly wrong. So, she took permission from her boss on a work day, drove home to take her baby to the hospital.....
....and got the shock of her life!!!
Unexpected, unannounced, she had entered her living room to the sight on her child-minder, crossed-legged with a bowl of food on her laps, watching television. No Daisy* in sight. Mrs A had assumed the baby was sleeping in her room. Guess what? That child was nowhere in the house...and the fugly nanny was as relaxed as to be watching the telly!!! Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
The truth??? Daisy* has, on daily basis, been "rented" out to one of the so called begging "mothers" on the street!!!!! Every work day from 9am to 4pm, without fail! The poor child! Ok, i'm going to have to stop here. I am getting all teary-eyed again!
This happened last week. Nanny is in custody. Case has been charged to court! Mrs A has taken time off work to nurse Daisy* back to good health! But i ask: What is important to you????!
(Daisy* is not her real name)
Lets know your opinion!
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