Dear Agatha,
I’m 22 years of age and in my final year at the university. From as long as I can remember, my mother has always been very strict with me. Though comfortable enough to employ house-helps, she insists I do most of the housework like washing of the plates and cleaning the house.
One of my compulsory chores in the house is washing the toilets. My father who is very fond of me has tried severally to persuade my mother following complains by me, to assign some of the house chores to the paid help. He gave up trying to get my mother to soften her attitude towards me, when my mother refused to listen to him. She told my father not to meddle.
She reminded my dad in my presence; that the reason he married her was because he found something worth marrying in her. She reminded him that he had several options, but picked her out of all the women he dated, due to that special quality he found in her.
Even though my father submitted to her argument, I didn’t think it right of her to make me do things the house-help gets paid to do.
What I find really offensive is that, she doesn’t extend the big stick to my younger ones. According to her, being her first born, I have to set the example for my younger ones to follow in the family. She said, if I failed to show good leadership by example; my younger ones too will turn out to be lazy and errant.
Despite being in my final year, my mother’s attitude towards me hasn’t changed one bit. She still expects me to do house chores when I come home. She has even added washing of her clothes and cleaning of her room to the things I do. Though my younger sister now washes the plates, but I think it wrong of her to limit her house-help to sweeping the compound and attending to her shop alone.
At my age, I should be out having the fun of my life because when I get married, I won’t have the opportunity to party and have fun generally.
But with a mother like mine, who puts a latch on me, who sees me more as her house-help than a daughter, how can I enjoy my youth?
Lore.
Dear Lore,
Your mother reminds me of my own mother who insisted on engraining enduring values in me. Like you, I failed to understand why she would employ a paid help and insist on me doing most of the house chores including cooking and helping her with her baking business.
Believe me I didn’t find the aspect of being woken up as early as 5 a.m. to clean the house before helping her with her business of baking. One day, I was so angry and demanded to be taken to my true mother since I reasoned that no mother could be so cruel to her daughter.
She didn’t bother to dignify my outburst with an answer. The only response I got was an order to continue with what I was doing.
But I started appreciating her when I got married and found the house chores very easy. Unlike some of my friends back then, who couldn’t manage motherhood, caring for their homes with their career; it was very easy for me. It wasn’t such a big deal as I could effectively appropriate my time in such a way that made things very easy for me. Without a paid help, my home was neat and welcoming. Even if I wanted a paid help back then, we couldn’t afford it because of other expenses.
It was then I understood fully and thanked my mother for the kind of training she made me go through. I never stopped thanking her in my own way until she died. Trust me, one day you will come to appreciate your mother for her inestimable training.
This is something most women have neglected to teach their daughters, the reason more and more young women are lacking in home training these days. There is no course in the university that teaches a girl-child how to be responsible and look after her home. This is what your mother is giving you on a platter of gold.
She is impacting the timeless lessons of wisdom, time-management, patience, selflessness and peace into you. When a woman is drunk on the right virtues of sustaining her home, she has little to worry about because those qualities will always speak for her no matter the situation she finds herself.
When a woman knows how to depend on herself, she will survive the worst kind of crisis because she has such a huge inner strength which nobody can break.
Your mother in preparing you for the marriage institution because she knows, from her experiences that it is one institution that is most difficult to manage because a lot of women go into, with the least preparations.
Every generation produces young girls with ideologies painfully lacking in the essentials. With the society becoming more morally bankrupt than the days of your mother, she knows that the only advantage you will have over millions of girls who also aspire to get married someday are the enduring values she is teaching you now.
Yes, they may appear harsh, unreasonable and even unpleasant, but be thankful she is allowing you go through this grueling experiences because in the end those are what would make you stand out among the pack of girls out there.
One salient fact is this: a woman’s life begins only at marriage. You may come from a rich home but if love takes a woman to a poor home, she must have what it takes to abide peacefully and progressively in that home else she ends up unhappy and completely disillusioned.
Beauty, sex and wealth play very limited roles in making a marriage work. The essential is what your mother is teaching you. Whether you like it or not, when a man wants to settle down, he isn’t after looks or sex but that something extra that will make him happy and stay with a woman.
Always remember this: for a man, there is always a prettier, sexier, richer and better educated woman to settle down with but the one, who will give him the most fulfillments, is a rare find.
This is the gift your mother is bequeathing; the quality of being a very rare breed. If your husband is happy with you, you will never run dry of fun moments. You will always create wonderful memories together. After all, the total essence of marriage is to have unlimited fun with that one special person in the whole world.
Good luck.
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