I Am Mother
Gender equality is unnatural in our home. My uncle ones told my mother, "you are a woman, with all your education, you will still end up in the kitchen".
Our tradition teaches that husbands are lord over wives. In our home, my mother's right is the one allowed by my father, her hus
My mother was raised by her parents to be a 'good house wife', so the kids can be well raised and her husband can be properly attended to. My father constantly reminds my mother that she became his possession the day he paid her marriage bride price. Mother cares for everyone including my father. Our culture and society demands that she continues to give herself even when there’s nothing else to give. She must find a way to make things work, and she never gives up. Society expect it of her.
Marriage to my mother is a school that no one graduates from. One moment she is happy, another moment she is sad. My mother's happy moments are many, sad moments are many too. I have seen her happy like the day she gave birth to a male child, my only brother, and sad when my father refused to eat her food and when my father sent her packing to her father's house for questioning his authority which happened often.
The union between my father and mother is centered around my father. As a girl, I am continually reminded by everyone that I must learn all household chores to prepare me to meet the needs of my husband to be. The woman is prepared all her life to be everything a man wants, she is taught how to cook, clean, bring up kids, how to take care of her husband, and how to please him in some ways which my mum told me I was too young to know.