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Does motherhood requires a super woman?

By Maria Famakinwa

It is indeed not an easy task for today’s women to combine motherhood with their careers. This is because motherhood on its own is time consuming and energy sapping.
Often times, women who combine working with care of the children and home always find it difficult and stressful to juggle both successfully. All over the world, it is fast becoming the trend for women to earn their own livelihood by engaging in secular jobs and at the same time performing their traditional role as wives and mothers.
Many reasons abound as to why women engage in one activity or the other to earn their daily income, the major one is to augment the family income.
Some women who spoke to The Hope revealed that motherhood is more tasking now compared to the days of our fore-fathers when the economy was buoyant and children obeyed and respected their parents.
A mother of three, Mrs Lanke Olotu, explained that the rigours of bringing up successful children and enjoying a peaceful home is becoming herculean task for most parents due to the fact that children of this generation have a lot of distractions to contend with.
Her words,” Parenting is more difficult now because of the technological development which expose our dear children to both the good and the bad. This exposure makes our children to think that they are well-informed, mature and can take decisions on their own without minding the repercussion of their actions on the long run. All these factors pose serious challenge to motherhood, especially when it is generally believed that good children are for the fathers while the bad ones are for mothers.”
Sharing a similar sentiment, a civil servant, Mrs Debola Oluyemi, said that motherhood takes a super woman to accomplish because most mothers according to her now work under unfavourable condition to ensure that the family survives. She said,” The harsh economic reality is compounding the challenges of mothers to train up their children the best way they feel. Many children are joining bad gangs today because their parents cannot provide them with the basic needs of life.
”Some teenagers who should respect and support their mothers to ease the task of motherhood have been taken over by the get-rich-quick syndrome. They join yahoo syndicates for quick financial breakthroughs. Some of them belong to different cults without the knowledge of their parents. All these pose a serious threat to the success of motherhood.
As mothers are struggling to give their best at homes, those with girl-children have additional task of guiding them jealously from randy men who might want to prey on their vulnerability, as rape and sexual molestations are becoming rampant today. Mothers whose girl-child is raped, is considered a failure who lacks motherly roles. Sincerely, it takes a super woman to scale through motherhood’s hurdle in our present society,’’ she added.
In her submission, a 75-year-old farmer, Mrs Iyaduni, blamed most mothers for not living a life worthy of emulation, which she observed contributed to the tasks of impacting morals in children’s upbringing. The septuagenarian who went down memory lane revealed that when she was training her children in the 70s and 80s, motherhood was easy because mothers upheld the norms and values of the society that children emulated, which cannot be said of today.
Her words:” Motherhood is facing a serious challenge today because mothers are not living up to expectations. How will mothers who are bleaching control their wayward children? Do you think that fathers who smoke can correct their children against such act? This is the reason for increase in rape, robbery, rituals and other social vices confronting us as a country today. Remember that it is only when you train a woman that you train a nation. “But it is a pity that mothers now run after money at the expense of their children who can only sustain the money they gather if only they are well-trained. Nothing is heard of some rich Nigerians who died years back because their children were not trained to sustained the wealth.
Mothers should understand that children are like white paper, it is what they write on it that will be read and it must start from when they are babies.”
Arguing differently, an educationist and a mother of seven in her late 70s blamed today’s mothers for not prioritising the welfare of their children, which she claimed was responsible for motherhood challenges. She wondered why these days mothers who were not having many children like mothers in the 70s and 80s still lament about the challenges they were facing in training three or four children.
Her words:” There is a general belief that it is harder to be a mother today than it was 20 or 30 years ago. I do not support this assertion because mothers now have lesser children compared to 20 years back, only that they fail to plan and are easily distracted. Though motherhood can be overwhelming, but today’s mothers fail to deal with external influences of the society, which makes motherhood difficult for them.
”I have seven grown-up children who are also married with children. Anytime they complain to me about the problems they are facing in training their children, I disagree with them and point out their own faults as mothers which they are neglecting. The challenges of balancing work, family and also spending time with their children are bigger issues for mothers. How can a mother who is always on the road have time to train her children and bond with them? That is why more teenagers are turning to crime and other nefarious activities because mothers are not doing the needful. Your children are your image, and whatever they become should be a reflection of the home they are from. Mothers, instead of complaining, should bridge the gap between their work and family for easy motherhood and peaceful future.”

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