Currently engaged, Can we talk next year?

I’ve just gotten off the phone with a close relative and they have been persuading me for the umpteenth time to get a job. A good job in a reputable organization that will make me look progressive on my CV.

When I was pregnant with my first child life was interesting. The company I was working for were downsizing so me and a couple of other pregnant young girls were shown the door… Which was fine then for me because in my naivety, I had started getting bored. I wanted to try something new, just the timing was off. For many other women however the reality is that once they get pregnant the workplace becomes that place you must tread carefully because your pregnancy makes you vulnerable and it’s easy to get the sack. This is because employers don’t want an employee who is clearly trying to compile all their leave days and merge it with the mandatory 3 months maternity leave, then push every sick leave possible to be away from the workplace with a full salary and not delivering on the job. Then when they have to hire a temp while still paying full salary.

Getting another job while pregnant proved futile so I accepted my fate. In time I got guts again and was  back in the workforce then baby 2 came in coinciding with some strange drama I still don’t fully understand but led to a mutual parting of ways between my then employer and I. Again looking for employment while pregnant… erm, it’s a nasty experience that can ruin any good persons self esteem. From the dubious looks to the snide comments (coming in for the maternity package eh?). Its not fun so I lay that to rest until baby 2 started solids. This time I haven’t been in a hurry to blindly get into the workforce again because the one thing I cannot bear is to be an absent parent, my stomach has refused, so I find myself politely declining really fun and exciting offers because its demands on my time are heavier than I am ready to bear.

This is the point people say ‘toughen up! This is life!’, or ‘women did not fight so hard to be accepted in the workplace to have you changing diapers in the prime of your life’ or ‘nobody will respect you if you don’t hold your own,’ to ‘nothing comes for free… I could go on. I feel like I’ve heard it all.

Do I want to work, make some money and build my career? YES! Do I want to miss the 7 year window I have to instill character and good values to those who will carry my legacy into a future beyond my current conception? YES! Can I do both? So far no. because it means sitting in traffic for at least 4 hours a day to give 8 hours of value time. This practically means leaving the house by 6 am to get to the office by 8 am work then leave work at 5pm to get home past 7 pm, the kids sleep latest 8:30 pm. In your exhausted and confused state what do you have to offer your child but a paycheck? What will your child do with your paycheck? Go to the best schools, wear the best clothes, have the best of everything except you.

There’s a story about a child who worked hard washing dishes, cutting grass for neighbors’ and saved up every penny till he had like say 5,000/-. He went to his daddy with that money in hand and asked ‘daddy, can I have an hour with you? I have enough money for an hour of your time.’

And thus my painful, choice.

Have a good day and if you can make your work place friendlier for mothers, please do, the choice they’ve made is just as painful.

#UPDATE:
the full anecdote is here should you be interested. (Thanks @rogerinc)

Carry the baby already!

‘Mimi siwezi beba mtoto kwa mgongo…’

Nashika mtoto, akilala ndo nitafanya…’

What madness is this? I’ve heard it so many times over the last 3 months that I really had to open my eyes and look at the common practice around going about your business in the house with a baby. At first I thought it was only lazy house-helps who use that excuse to sit and watch telly all day. Then I noticed that many young mothers do not strap their baby’s to their backs.

Early this year I had a rough day with my then house-help as I tried to make ‘working-at-home’ work. Since I could not do any serious work with the baby I wanted her to take baby and work as it I was away from work. so at 7:30 am she says, give me an hour, I’ll be ready for baby, so I give her the hour… cutting a long story short, at 11 am she finally finished the laundry and wanted to start cleaning the sitting room and thus was not ready for baby. I strapped baby to my back and cleaned the sitting room, cleaned the kitchen, made lunch, picked and sorted the dry laundry and then asked her what other work does she have that she cannot do with baby so that I can get on with my work. She was a mother of 2 and this was her first time in Nairobi. You can see why she had to go.

My current house-help says she finds it hard to work while carrying baby because she’s afraid baby will fall off as she carries on with her duties. But the reason she is still with me is that she has found a way of doing her chores while actively engaging baby so that baby is more company than a hindrance.

As I grew up, I was carried on the back as mum and the help went about their business, I saw my sister carried the same way and my brother. Laundry was done, shopping was done, cooking was done, hell even gardening and construction supervision. That is one of the most amazing and quintessential quality of African motherhood! My grandma told me, in their day they dug a hole in a nice spot in the shamba, lined it with hides and created a hedge/fence with dry sticks to keep away wild animals and when baby was sleepy or the work to be done was not friendly to baby carrying, baby would be put into this hole in the ground to sleep and play.

You can't deny how elemental this is!

Today baby carrying is fancy and even fashionable… I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. I see one too many young mothers frustrated that they can’t do anything with baby.

So while you try and ponder the weight of my sentiments just know  that bougie Tindi here is proud to say she once helped her mama cook for guests and arrange for the visit all with little baby strapped to her, suckling at his pleasure. Carrying baby while you work is inbuilt and natural. Try it.

This is a toto sling, I love it! loook at more here

Oh yeah, thats not me! I picked that off a sight that sells slings coz I dont know how to tie the traditional one. and also to show you there are other ways of carrying baby if you are like me and can't hack the lesso. So check out Toto Wraps. (Sijalipwa, ni ukweli tu)

Juggle for who?

I am a young mother, with 2 little children whom I love dearly. I’ve been a stay at home mum (of sorts) since the first one was born. The reason for this is pretty simple, the career I had started in media not friendly for my motherly ambitions. I had to make a choice between building a public media brand and making some money of my own and being an available and involved mother. I made the latter choice much to the disapproval of a good number of people around me.

See the script says that a successful woman is one who has a good job, has solid professional standing and can afford not only to take care of herself but to be in a position to take care of her family should her partner be incapacitated. Yet all through my fairly short adulthood, I see living breathing evidence of the huge role an available and involved parent plays in moulding solid human beings. Let’s face it, under the surface of this new and exciting world where more women are occupying the workspace in more definite ways, where the conversation in the board room is preparing for an all female corporatescape, there are children  in fncy suits, big cars living big dreams who always wonder whats missing in their lives. I have seen women in their 40’s at the top of their careers start slowly unraveling at the fact that they have everything but their own child, or they have everything but a solid life companion. I listen to people in their 60’s panic at the idea of retirement because, ‘what else is there? The children are grown and gone, I don’t know the person I sleep next to.’ I’ve also heard some one in their 70’s wonder out loud who they are leaving their lifes work to because he does not know the people he apparently raised and trusts no one around him to carry on what he built. The point? Family is legacy. Broken families create broken people who look greata on the inside but are quite damaged on the inside. How can we hope for a better tomorrow if the drtivers of tomorrow are more comfortable spending their afterwork hours getting drunk or laid indiscriminately just so that they can have a crazy story to share with the peers the next day?

I want to be around my sons until they are about 5 years old. I want to ground them in a strong value and belief system. I want to personally be the one to note their milestones, cheer when they score and discipline when they err. I want to be the one who teaches them to say please and thank you. Nairobi work life has no space for mum. Being in traffic for 6 hours (3 to and 3 from) to be a present and valuable employee for at least 6 hours means the average Nairobi woman with homely aspirations has 12 hours to take care of domestic affairs, catch up with the kids, organize meals be a wife, keep her friends and family close and somewhere in between take care of herself and get a good nights rest.

Is it no wonder then that the number of children being abused sexually and otherwise by domestic abuse is rising? Is it a wonder then than cases of rickets and other childhood conditions tht had faded away are making a strong comeback? Is it a wonder then that we have children committing sucide after scoring less than they expected of themselves in exams?

As the public conversation moves to the boychild… I want to scout the next conversation we will be having 10 years from today. Who is spending time, quality time raising our children. Is the system good enough to nurture human beings who can be trusted to ensure the ‘better tomorrow?’

Baby in my hand, hustle on my mind...

Meanwhile, I’ll go back to cracking how me and my non-existent business savvy self can remain relevant in my field, making enough money to take care of me and help the hubz ease some pressure but most importantly be an available and present mum for two young men whom I know will be game changers in their prime.

Culture Shock

So I am Kenyan married to a Kenyan… then I am Kamba ish married to a Kamba who’s more Kamba than me but less Kamba than me still. You’d think we wouldn’t have cultural shocks so often. I feel like I have a new cultural shock to deal with every other week! From small things to how I prefer to spend my before bed hours with the kids… that shock their daddy to big things like the ‘respectful’ distance around our family that I am told I should be thankful for but it makes me feel lonely and on the border of taking it as proof of high dislike, which gets complicated. See, in my mother’s house, we were physically, emotionally, mentally, socially and any other ‘-ally’ loved in very present, in-your-face, tangible way. There was never any space for doubt. From my mother and my aunties and their friends… I got married to a place where I think people like their space and there is pride in how good they are because of the space they give each other. I hate it. I try to get it, but I don’t really get it. The closest ‘getting it’ I get is that this is just what they know and that possibly my very present, tangible everyday attempts at building something might be seen as needy and nosey. Thank God for my University’s insistence on cultural studies for all undergrads! Who knew a day would come when Mrs Ng’ang’as lectures would ring so clearly in my ears.

Despite the ability to understand the dynamics at play. I do feel very lonely at times where what I know and expect is a very warm and bustl-ey presence. My littlest, whom we will call Ovals (look for my mother and ask her where that came from, I don’t know), was born when my mummy and the main mother-hen in my life. I was an emotional wreck alone, in an atmosphere where I got courteous love and I had no choice but to deal with it. Mummy was too far away to run to.

Now my mummy, half-way around the world picked up on this feeling and was huffing and puffing her indignation at her baby girl being treated less than she was used to. (In the time she was away a new respect for maternal intuition grew, woman read me like a book through less than 2 minutes on the phone!) Oh she was mad. See my mama in law is a rule stickler so she takes the in law part seriously and graciously (it would be nice to drop the in-law part but to each their own in love). My mother, where a relationship is concerned… rules are as foreign as pea-soup at the bottom of the sea on a sharks banqueting table. Can you see the potential for all out war?

Making love... 

So again I thank Daystar for forcing us all to go through INS because without that basic appreciation and understanding of different cultures from micro to macro levels. I think I’d be one of the women on facebook forever whining about horrible in-laws. Thanks to INS though, I’ve been able to step back and appreciate the differences. I can’t say I’ve figured out a way to graciously maneuver through them beyond keeping away when my anger and hurt blinds my rationality (there’s only one person who can handle THAT storm) to the point that my tongue bypasses the brain, but I just thank God for a patient husband who’s teaching me how to swim these strange waters.

Before I finish, I just have to say. I think this is why marriage is such a big deal to God. God wants us to learn to forever get over ourselves, as individuals, as families, as communities, as populations… to just get over ourselves and learn to constantly appreciate the differences that define us. When god finished with his work of creation he said, ‘It is good.’ We need to get to that level where we see Gods creation in totality, enough to say it is good.

Myths of womanhood

I’ve been falling apart over the last few weeks. Recently, at a place where I should have been engaged and serious, I started feeling my body parts floating away. I had to spend that whole meeting focusing on someone’s nose so that I can ‘force myself together long enough to get home. Why was I falling apart?

I think I tried to be superwoman. Fun wife, supportive daughter, sister, and friend; a fully hands on mum and house management. Well I think I managed it for a while, but I started falling apart. It started by losing sleep. Getting so tired that the body refuses to sleep, or forgets how to sleep. Then zoning out right left and center… then getting uber forgetful. In one day, I forgot to carry fare, was zoned out all through the days meetings, lost my precious cables (USB, Earphones, Computer charger), lost all the money I had withdrawn from MPESA, then to cap it off, took the wrong matatu home with barely enough fare to find the right matatu home.

Super woman is a myth. We love portraying ourselves in public spaces as women who have everything together. Then we pressure other women around us to be as together as we work so hard to portray. When one woman asks for help from another, its usually leads to some patronizing conversation about organization. IT’S A LIE! ALL OF IT. There is no way one woman, can cook, feed the little ones, make sure the husbands clothes are good enough for work, listen to or chat with the husband, keep the house clean or get a disorganized house-help to get the house clean attempt to make an extra buck to get home in time to pick little one from school, feed him while engaging baby for all the hours gone, make dinner, make sure the kids are clean and fed and still have energy to be a good wife. Yes, so some-how I managed to live in that whirlwind for about 3 months, but it all fell apart royally in the last few weeks. Now lazy help is gone, I unapologetically lock both kids out to give me space to be productive. I am also working on delegating all household duties apart from making dinner to an organized and driven house manager.

Maybe I can try find pieces of myself that floated away and put them back in place.

Dog Food and No Househelp

My son, he finally ate dog food today. I say finally because if I was totally honest with myself, it was only a matter of time before he discovered that the dog food is actually yummy in an off way. I know from experience. 

But how did Little Man aka The Rioter get to eating dog food in the first place? 

My house-help decided she must go today. She called me after I had just started my work in the office, 2 highways and a major road away, she had to leave by 1 pm today. Now this my current help has been the most annoying help I've had. She says she can't manage the housework because of the baby. This baby is 7 months old, sits up on his own and is comfortable with being carried on the back. Anyhoo, so she decides she has to go on leave today! So I say fine, she can go, after the baby sitter comes. Sometimes she has a lot of work to, so for the days where I know it really is a lot of work a sitter comes in for the baby and all things baby related. The sitter then decided to come in at 10 am and God knows what happened she too decided she cannot be left alone with the baby! So its just past 10 am and I’m getting calls from these two women to come take the baby they need to go.

A girl (me) has been a hands on mom and has been working sporadically from home for some time now. There are times I had no help with a baby barely 3 months old. I cleaned, washed and fed people. So when some-one comes and tells me that a 7 month-er is too much work, that floors cannot be cleaned and my living room dusted (she is not cooking, I cook in my house) or the laundry done… I do not understand her language.

So on the way back home from an aborted day at the office. I start calling agents I have used looking for a replacement. One agent says she has a girl ready to be interviewed. It’s on my way home so I go. The girl looks very shy, and looks like a hard worker. Then I ask her if she can manage a house with a 2 year old and a baby. She says she can manage the 2 year old but not the baby. So I ask her why, is she scared of handling a baby? Is it that she has never handled a child? Why is it hard to work with a baby? She says, the baby will take too much of her time and some babies don’t sleep enough to allow for housework.

Now when I was growing up I remember people used to tie baby on the back and work. What happened? Or is it that I am a country child and city people don’t tie babies on their back? The house-help who has ‘gone on leave’ refused to even try putting baby on her back! One I interviewed looked at me strangely for even suggesting it. What’s happening?

To cut a long story short, I am looking for a house-help who appreciates what work is. I think I’ve been hosting people in my house and they help with chores and get paid. No, I really need a worker.

Scar Tissue, Legacies and Sleep Crawling

This is for my mummy when I was a little girl, this is for my girlfriend whose struggle so mirror those of another woman 30 odd years ago in another Africa, Kenya, another town. This is for me on those nights I completely and absolutely hate my husband and the Saturday mornings when it’s all I can do to reign in my anger and not throw a stone or two at hubby dearest. This is for the deep hurt that women have carried because their men are just men.

I woke up extremely late and extremely tired. I had no energy to be apologetic or make the calls I needed to make to realign my day. Baby baby AKA Ovals is very active in his sleep in ways that are less than safe. He wants to crawl so bad that he actually crawls in his sleep! He crawls off the moses basket that’s his sleep space next to my side of the bed. Twice I dared to sleep and found the guy a second away from a face first drop to the floor. So yeah I haven’t slept at night in a while. We need to move him to a cot I know… but but but… many buts. I digress though. So I looked at this smiling sleeping lump of cuteness and I wondered how many hearts he will break. How many he will break intentionally, how many he will break that he never knew he had, how many he will break out of his manly foolishness… that he will break hearts among other things like glasses and doors is a given. He will as surely break a woman as he will break a glass. This is because breaking is what men do. Breaking their women, breaking their womens spirits, break the work of their womens hands… just breaking. But must men break?

I look at this little lump of lovely mooshness that is my baby boy and I realize that as his mother I have a responsibility to him and to his father to do my best and try limit the number of animate things he might break. I need to have the wisdom to know when to speak and when to feign ignorance to give this my boy boy the space he needs to grow and the knowledge that his parents have his back. I need to remind his daddy how important he is as a role model to his boys. In today’s world, men get lost in the rat race because that’s how the bills get paid, that’s how the kids go to school, that’s how he makes his name in the world. Many men forget that their legacy rests with these young ones that wait for him to come home and listen to their escapades for the day.

There are many broken children who are now becoming parents. Broken as their homes broke as they were growing up, broken as morals and values in the home were swept under the carpet to ensure they get premium education. We have broken children in designer suits driving shiny big cars living in big houses in the leafy burbs… who are now parents. They hide in the clubs ‘networking’. They hide their children in playschool with the nanny at 10 months and spend time in the spa ‘centering’. Behind these plausible lifestyle stories are kids, broken… trying not to break their progeny like they were broken.

This picture reminds me of my Rioter when he was a baby... my guns were on fire

My mother, my friend, me. We were broken for the scar tissue to toughen us up to be the parents we need to be to unbreak the world that was broken in our childhood. We hold the memory of brokenness to create a legacy of strength. Take heart when you want to kill him. Remember you are the healer and not the breaker. Make the choice that will be best for you and your legacy and if its worth it… his legacy too. Never forget however that you, woman, broken as you are, you are the only one who can heal your world.

When my Rioter (Little Man) and Ovals (baby baby) grow up to read this. I want them to know that their choices are the difference between leaving a legacy and leaving broken fragments of a dream.