“What A Man Can Do, A Woman…” 

‘’Whatever a man can do, a woman can do it better’’, so said the popular saying. This saying has made so many women struggle much harder to prove it right. In many homes , a lot of women are breadwinners while the men become mere helpers even dependents.

In the olden days, women were treated as subordinates, ‘’oriaku’’, doing minor work in the family, including the Almighty assignment, which is childbearing.

Today, women have opened their eyes so wide due to civilization or better still women’s liberation. They have started to prove that ‘’women’s education does not end in the kitchen.’’

Every woman in her home is a worker or a trader. Trust the women, no woman will like to be addressed as ‘’housewife’’. Nobody wants to be associated with failure and laziness. In the morning, everybody both husband and wife, including the children are out. The husband and the wife either go to work or market and come back late in the evening.

Then comes the question: who takes care of the children? For the simple fact that the woman who is supposed to be very close to the children is not around, the children are left in the care of the maid. The man who is the head of the family hardly comes home early.

The maid does the whole domestic work in the family, including taking care of the children and the school run. They prepare food and serve it to the family, including the man. Sometimes, if the maid turns out to be a good cook to the taste of the man, she takes the place of the madam in the home. Most of the time, if this is discovered, the maid is severely maltreated by the madam. Often, this attitude leads to divorce or constant misunderstanding between the husband and wife.

Also, in a situation where the woman does not have a chance to cook or take proper care of the family, either because she does not come back from work early or the maid continues to make a mess of the food, the man turns around to eat in the restaurant every day.

This is obtainable, especially when the man discovers a sport where good food is cooked to his tastes. Such attitude from the man creates opportunities for womanizing and drunkenness in the beer parlor. Subsequently, the hard-earned money that could have been saved for some other useful things in the family is being misused.

On the part of the children, because they are not closely monitored, guided, or taken adequate care of, some of them develop criminal behaviors and become robbers and rascals in society.

One may begin to wonder why a couple who never looked at people’s belongings or had traces of stealing in their lineage will have hardened criminals and rascals as children. This is simple, it is because the woman never had close observation of the children when they were growing up. Proper upbringing of children plays a major role in ensuring family progress.

The fact that the economy is hard will not be an excuse for neglecting our roles as mothers. It should not be allowed to rob women of their duty in the family. Remember, it is said that if a child is good, the child becomes the father’s child, but when the child is bad, the child becomes the mother’s child. The household chore is numerous, but, let us not allow the maid to do everything. They should act as helpers in the domestic work.

Working-class mothers must make time to look after their children. This is very necessary because the men hardly have time for that. They provide money for feeding and other exigent matters such as school fees, Medicare, rent, etc. This is one of the reasons why most men go out in the morning and come back late in the evening. Most men in fact, hardly find time to chat with their children. It is the wife who tells them about the welfare of the children and requests money if it is something that requires money.

If this vital aspect is neglected in the family, a big vacuum is created which may result in problems in the future.

Fellow women, both married and unmarried, it is time we stay together and count the gains and losses we have made in the family since we started accepting that whatever a man can do we can do it better. This is because most men do not want to work hard anymore. They believe that at the end of the month, their wives must have something to contribute to the family.

If in the process of trying to make both ends meet the children get rotten, the man and the society will blame it on the woman. If the family breaks in the process, the man marries a much younger girl, the sweet sixteen. Yes, men are like that. He may go about telling people that you are a flirt. He may even poison the mind of the children and before you know it, it is already late. You cannot do everything. Even if you go to court, the court will not force him to marry you. This is a fact!

In the socio-political development of a nation, women are proving their capability.  Their hard work has earned them a place in history. In the family, a lot needs to be done. If women can look inward into their families or rather marital homes, the high incidents of marital problems will be minimized.

Therefore, to avoid becoming a laughing stock by men, we must all scrutinize our actions towards that saying, ‘’Whatever a man can do, women can do, it even better”