The only thing that must stand the test of time is truth and not some generalizations. I would however want to sound here that I am not promoting rebellion, but just for us to understand that what every family needs is food to survive, so who cooks the food is not as important as the food being ready. And that takes me to the next generalization which is:
1. The office of a woman is the kitchen – To start with, this statement is wrong. Unfortunately, this has defined how we train our girls and people even teach this culture as scripture during wedding ceremonies. How did the kitchen become the office of a woman when some women have got the capacity to run a conglomerate?
I guess the statement mistook women for wives, but I dare say that the kitchen is not even the office of a wife and that is why every house comes with a kitchen to prove to us that a kitchen is where human beings cook. If the kitchen was meant for a wife, then the builders would have needed to construct a house without a kitchen and would have needed to add the kitchen to every man’s house at the point of marriage.
The moment we can internalize a family as a team, then it wouldn’t matter any longer who does what because I have seen men who have leveraged on this generalization and ensured the potentials of a lot of women ended in a kitchen.
If your wife has to travel for 2years, who will cook your meals? Or how will you cope if your wife is the German chancellor?
Some things that worked in the stone age may not work in the knowledge age. This should not bring rebellion, instead it should engender a mutual respect, afterall who cooks what was never a problem when you were both just falling in love with each other. So, at what point did the syllabus change such that this is now a big deal?
2. If any man can’t provide for his family, he is worse than infidel – I am sure you have heard this generalization preached on so many exulted altars? However what most of the people who teach this seem to have overlooked is that there is no translation of the Bible that talks about ‘If any MAN’.
Paul of Tarsus said ‘IF ANY’, and any can be either male or female. Unfortunately, we have also zoned that into the jurisdiction of men and have grown to a level where some women say things like ‘His money is our money, but my money is my money’.
It takes a team to build a family and in family engineering systems; we don’t promote ‘my money’. What we promote is ‘family economy’ where what everyone brings in is regarded as part of the family oil that is meant to secure the future of the family, by creating enough passive income that can take care of our living expenses.
This is not meant to promote laziness or endorse slothful men. This is meant to foster a family’s togetherness where we can both work together to create the most desirable home.
I honour you.
– To attend our next session of 21st Century Parents Hub in Lagos, which runs all through the month, every Saturday & Sunday, kindly call Tolu – 08028592284, 07054917776 or send a mail to [email protected] (You can either join the May, June, July or the August stream).