In this age, and time, where women are becoming unstoppable with the constant adrenaline rush to dress up, go out, push boundaries, earn a living, be financially independent and matter in all stages, there are still women who choose to become homemakers and housewives.
They dreamed it, chose it, and made it a career path that later defined a generation of well brought up children raised by strong, tough mothers who selflessly dared to give it all up for posterity that wouldn’t have the need to question yesterday’s upbringing.
While professional career women walk in heels, heading to break the glass ceilings that is ‘traditionally’ said to restrict females from reaching the sky as the male counterparts, inherently do, the homemakers or housewives as they are popularly called do not merely stay put in the comfort/discomfort of the four walls of their homes but do so without the sophistication that comes with wearing heels to raise and nurture children.
Some call it insanity, in a porous economy as Nigeria’s where every hands need to be on deck to earn a living and survive, a woman choosing to be a care-matron to her family might strain the husband financially, still, she chose it not for lack of the ability to earn money but the need to provide adequate nurturing for a family that expands into not just a society but a sane one that curbs the menace of streets urchins, vagabonds, crime and social misfits.
Thus, the 2026 International Women’s Day (IWD) with the theme ‘Give To Gain’ campaign comes to play in a louder more intense perspective beyond women stretching out their hands to forge gender equality through abundant giving.
Give To Gain A Generation Of Success Stories
BEYOND the clamour for gender equality, this year’s IWD ‘Give To Gain’ campaign should also speak to women to take up their inherent mantle of life givers, stepping farther from the competition to be equals with men in the boardrooms and global stages as the core definition of gender equality, but rather rise above these odds by way of not limiting themselves to gender equals but life givers, builders and destiny shapers.
Reacting to this, 65-year-old Mrs Amadi Obidike said: “Why compete to be on the same level with the people you give life to? – a woman gives birth to a man, gives him existence and considers him worthy of competition?
“Isn’t that the actual definition of losing yourself and giving up your birthright just to be equals? Men and women are not equals. One is a creator and the other is a product of that creator’s creation.
“The one who gives birth is the creator, the other is the product. When women start to see the ideology behind gender as this, perhaps, they will understand that there is no comparison whatsoever between the two gender – and until we realise this and allow ourselves to wear this honour bestowed on us by God gracefully, we will continue fighting for handouts from people who are supposed to adore us.
“A woman was created by God to run the human race, otherwise, all we would have had is one man who would have long expired with no trace of existence or history of life. God needed to create this world and on the realisation that the man he first created was incapable of procreation, He created a super human being, ‘a woman’ who has the capacity to be everything in one body to fill and multiply the earth. Every single man on earth was born by a woman, yet women have this weird desperation to measure up to their subjects rather than invest in making these subjects a beneficial, useful and successful production.”
The elderly woman said: “Countless benefits and successful achievements is what the housewife who knows the power of her being when she gives it all to raising and nurturing the children she bore, who eventually grows up to owe every height of success to her – celebrating her for the rest of time.” Obidike said.
The Glass Ceilings Worth Crashing
EVERY woman talks about breaking glass ceilings but the question is, who installed the barriers? Who says men don’t also have to break ceilings to soar? Yet we don’t hear them calling their huddles and setbacks ceilings. Why? This is because they understand their role and responsibilities and they play it without tagging it dramatically.
Juliana Adeniran stated as she continued: “Women seem to constantly forget who they really are and their roles in a world where they were handed everything on a platter of gold by God – okay maybe except the process of childbearing.
“They dwell more on the challenges and constantly lament rather than taking charge of the people they created. What happens? The men see this flaw, capitalise on it and use it against them by treating them as weak, fragile, and not fit.”
Adeniran added, “the role play changes into a world where a man who originally couldn’t survive existence without the woman now sustaining her existence. So, instead of women raising boys to men and having them answer to them, they are busy climbing ladders in heels to reach ceilings that shouldn’t be there in the first place if they had stayed on the cause of building and nurturing.
“For everything that goes wrong with a woman, they cry foul. For every challenge, they see a barrier – they believe the other gender created these barriers just to stop them, but who really stops a creator?
“The only person that can stop a creator is a creator. Only a woman can stop another woman. There is no man born out of a woman that can stop a woman from attaining a desired height in life. What this means is that more often than not, these glass ceilings that women talk about are created by them.
“All these competitions here and there are far from the campaign for gender equality or balancing as it is called, they are mere attempts to be like the woman next door or stop her altogether, still they blame men for that charade.
“Women are busy witch-haunting themselves calling it glass ceilings when they should be intentionally focused on creating a better world by raising properly brought up children who will make the society livable.”
Housewife As A Career Path
Growing up as a little girl, I always wanted to be a wife before I knew anything about choosing a career. Forty five-year-old Mrs Tolani Olowolayefe narrated. She said: “I remember when I was seven-year-old, my teacher asked each child in the class what we wanted to become in the future. I heard a number of other children say lawyer, doctors, bankers, teacher etc., but when it got to my turn, I said I wanted to become a wife married to a rich man.
“My teacher laughed. I didn’t know why she laughed at the time but I remember her asking me if I didn’t want to be a doctor? She then said housewife is not a career but I told her it is a career, because I hear my mother tell everyone who cares to listen that she is ‘a-full-house-wife’.
“My mother, late now, was a beautiful and proud housewife. She was very educated. She studied Mathematics and Statistics but she never worked. She gave birth to four of us, three boys and I was the only girl child and the last born.
“My late dad was never home, there was always one business trip or another but he loved, adored, cherished and respected my mother in a way that made me desire to marry a man like him in the future but more importantly I wanted to be like my mother.
“She was a force that everyone, friends and family reckoned with because she had a solution to everyone’s problem. People came to our house just to run situations through her and she had the answers to everyone’s problem including her children’s academic challenges.”
She added, “my mum had a timetable for our home and everyone knew what to do and when to do it, including time to read, do chores, play, pray and eat. My dad called her ‘Gem’, sometimes, he called her ‘My World’ other times he called her ‘Mummy’.
“My mother didn’t joke with us, taking care of us including disciplining us was everything she lived for. She came to our school regularly to monitor our behaviour and performance, she knew our friends, invited them home and got to know each of their families.
“When I was in secondary school, I was involved in a fight with a classmate and injured her and my mother was summoned. She asked what happened and I was too scared to tell her because I knew I was wrong to have hit the girl first.
“She never allowed hitting in the house so I didn’t know what came over me. My teacher explained what happened to her and she flogged me right there in the presence of my classmates, asked me to apologise to the girl who later became my best friend.
“I got home that day, and my mother taught me the power of communicating my displeasure without violence. She made me fill up an exercise book by writing ‘Violence is never a solution’ for two days. My brothers grew up treating every woman in their life as they treated my mother, as my father treated my mother, a gem. I got married to a great man but I didn’t become a full-house-wife, as I had to practice my profession as a medical doctor, but trust me, when I say there are times when I see my children struggle with norms and values despite how I try to create time to teach them regardless of my busy schedules that I wonder if I won’t quit my career to pay attention to my three children who are all teenagers now.”
She said, “there is always this fear of missing out on something that might mar their future. I keep remembering how my mother did well with my siblings and it scares me to think I am selfish by being away most of the time. Do I want to leave my job? No, I love being a doctor but I also love being a wife to my wonderful husband and children. So, what I do is try to strike a balance. I installed CCTV in the house. Employed a help whose core job mostly is just be an adult figure in the house to monitor the children when they return from school because as my mum did, I ensure that they did all the chores in the house. The house help supervises and reports back to me. As soon as either of us the parent returns, the house help closes for the day.
“I know the importance and benefits of being a fulltime present mother in the children’s lives and I try my best to minimise the duration of times I am absent. I complete my shift for each day and nothing keeps me back in the hospital except it’s an emergency and I ensure to communicate that to my children assuring them I will be home as soon as possible.”
The Housewife That Keeps Her Home And Marriage Together
Anabel is a 30-year-old housewife by choice and mother of two. Although she plans to start a business when her children grow up and get admission into the university, until then, she is determined to be readily available for both her husband and children’s needs.
She said: “If I go out to work every day, who will help me take care of these children? A house help? There is no way I can afford to leave the destiny of children in the hands of a stranger. Growing up when I thought of a perfect future, it came with being a mother and raising properly groomed children who wouldn’t create the kind of chaos my brother did in my family. Both of my parents was ever home. They left home early and came back late. Most times, we would have gone to bed. My parents didn’t have enough money to cater for four of us despite the fact they were both working, so, of course they couldn’t afford to pay anyone to take care of us – we did that ourselves and that didn’t turn out well especially with my elder brother who ended up mixing up with hoodlums who introduced him to hard drugs.
“My elder sister got pregnant at 16 and was compelled to live with a man who still hasn’t married her properly after all these years. She has four children now and her husband is a plumber who can barely provide two square meals a day. I can go on and on with the challenges my siblings and I encountered because there was no adult figure present to take care of us when we were growing up. I got lucky. I made one good friend whose mother allowed me to spend time in their home. So, as she forged ahead in life, I strive to follow suit too. I loved her family; her mother was always home to take care of her children. We gained admission into the same university.
“I met my husband in university; he graduated two years before I did and we got married immediately after my NYSC. I worked briefly in the bank where I served, but as soon as I gave birth to my first child, I resigned.
“My husband advised against it actually, but I did what I believe was best for my family, I didn’t want a repeat of history, not with me. I will stay home, deprive myself of all the luxury and lifestyle my fellow women who work have, but I will raise my children as a present mother who is always on ground to tend to them, even if I have to look shabby doing it.”
A Working Class Or Stay-Home Mother?
Chinenye Ojukwu, a pharmacist, who is a single mother, thinks profitability is a question of effort. She said: “I am not married; I have never been married but I am a mother of two. The father of my two children is married to another woman who has three other children for him but I have no interest to address that right now. I work and I raise my children alone. I do it by asking for help here and there.
Please help me pick them up when picking your children from school. I will be closing late today. Can they just stay with you briefly? There is nobody I wouldn’t ask for help when it comes to the welfare of my children even if sometimes it can be belittling, I do it, what choice do I have? I have to work and provide for them. I also need to ensure that they stay alive and well while I am at it. Whatever time I have away from work is a treasure that I never hesitate to bequeath to my children, and that for me is the effort, which I believe has to count for something in their future. They have to turn out well. Why wouldn’t they? They have eyes to see my efforts. They see how their father barely takes their calls or sends in feeding allowance let alone footing their academic bills and others.
“I pay rent, provide food, pay school fees, welfare, healthcare etc. They know I have to work to meet up these responsibilities.
“I tell them that the only appreciation they owe me is turning out well in life to make me proud. They hear me and they will turn out great. So even if I were married, if I want to navigate being a working-class person while raising responsible children, I can still do it. There is nothing a proper woman cannot get done if she puts her mind to it.”
