I was talking with a mum of 5 the other day. She hadn’t planned to have five children; she wanted a baby girl so badly and after four boys her baby girl finally came. What a joy! Many years have passed and her children are all grown up. But the interesting thing about it all is that her boys are amazing helpers around the house. They do practically all chores in the home and same goes for her girl. They cook all kinds of food except when she wants to cook the soup herself! Not many mums can boast of their children like she did, when in most homes today children are ‘spoiled’ and wouldn’t lift a finger, boys and girls alike.
She told me she runs classes on baking and cooking and in the course of working with young girls she discovered most of them have no idea what to do around the kitchen. She said with so much pain that we mothers have become so ‘busy’ we have no time to train our children especially our girls. Unlike in our own days, a teenage girl today can’t go to the market, buy food stuff and prepare a decent meal for the family. No thanks to makers of all kinds of instant foods particularly noodles, all she needs do is walk down the street grab a few packs of noodles and there you have a meal! *Sigh.
Who is to blame for this anomaly? The girl? I don’t think so. We mothers should take the blame for abandoning our responsibility to bring up the child the way she should go. We often assume that somehow our daughters will get to know how to do these things, but can they learn if they are not taught, and then given a chance to try, to make mistakes and learn from them?
We see in local movies and commercials scenes where a young woman would call her mother on the phone to guide her through a meal she is preparing for her husband, and we just laugh it off when that should be a huge cause for concern because that is our reality.
A mum shared the following write up on social media and I thought to share:
Suitors Now Prefer Our Maids To Our Daughters For Marriage Why not?
Yes, it happens because we devote time in training the maids on how to cook well, how to clean the house and on good mannerisms while leaving our own daughters untrained.
We overwork the maids and they adjust with equanimity because they need us to survive.
The maids turn out to manage the indignation and insolence we and our children subject them to. All these make the maids better wives who can manage even the angriest of men.
Our precious daughters are pampered through nursery and primary schools. They speak the English we want and know all the cartoon slangs by heart. We beat the maids blue black if they ever ask our girls to help out in domestic duties. They see kitchen things as maids’ things.
The girls move from boarding schools to the university, do their NYSC, Masters and get a job. Of course, they are ripe for marriage and you wish that to happen soon.
From one relationship to another, the same story. The guys would parade and dump them. They are only good in outings and red carpet functions.
The boys de-commit when they notice that the possible wife cannot cook, arrange things and are very domestically untrained. The rich guys can manage as they would mitigate the handicap by hiring a domestic help. Not all guys can afford this for a start.
The upcoming and very sensitive guys who would make good husbands, fathers and leaders would not manage these parents’ inflicted shortcomings. They would settle for well trained ones. They know the value and the pride in hosting friends at home to delicious delicacies prepared by a wife.
Not all your maids would remain your servants forever. Some of them would finally do part-time studies and like a train, get to their God ordained destinations sooner or later.
Like a perfume, good guys perceive well trained wife materials from afar and dump the daughters of the bourgeois like hot iron. Long time happiness is at stake. No explanation is given. Sometimes, the sack message is made through a social medium.
Let your daughters learn what you teach your maids to make them compete for the few available good men if marriage is important to them. There are few guys who believe that marriage is for better for worse.
Don’t be deceived; love is an active verb. Yes it is. You love; you loved; and you used to love. You can also hate who you used to love. Therefore, some men are immune to pre-marital love blindness.
In practice, love can’t cover the stench of bad early formation of our daughters.
Right now, educated former maids are now cornering better men on offer because they possess the requisite or set skills the highly perceptible and ready husband materials need.
Mothers please take note.
Grace Essen is an author, speaker and host of Super Mum Makeover workshop. Check out Grace’s blog @Mum2MumAfrica.com You may reach Grace on 08061367203, or via email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on twitter @GraceEssen, find her on Facebook.
