This is one of those nights I feel stretched to my limit. The children are being very tiresome, tussling over every little thing. And my baby daughter, famous for her shrill cries, is warming up for one, and I’m trying desperately to calm her down before she gets completely out of gear.

At times like this I wonder how anybody could have ever described me as jobless. Jobless? With all the work I do in this house?

It’s sad that more than a few acquaintances of mine refer to me as “not working” just because I don’t rush out of the house early in the morning and crash back at night exhausted and run down.

I am worried. I see myself as a professional mother and wife. I read books that will help me get better and I’ve even been involved in consultancy (counselling) albeit without pay but I seem to be in a profession that rates low in the people’s value judgement.

The society believes that only the uneducated end up as housewives. For example, my neighbour couldn’t mask her amazement when she discovered that I was a University graduate since 1992.
Although I must confess, that it hit me below the belt. Did she think I was an illiterate? Well…

Is it that I am uninformed or when did this ageless job of a full-time housewife become unattractive to today’s woman? Could this be linked to the fact that our society has grown more materialistic and as such lost value for anything that doesn’t generate immediate cash? Or could it be the harsh economic climate that has made it impossible for most families to survive on the stipend of the father alone?

Anyhow, for now I enjoy what I am doing. I’m content with the adoring love of a devote husband as my salary and the privilege of watching my lovely children grow up in the fear of the Lord. Some women might not derive joy from this but they need to see the long-term dividend in it, an opportunity to build a solid home and mould future leaders.

The other day my 7-year-old son got a Muslim teacher that was trying to convert his class - the children that Jesus was not the son of God and all that trash. My son was smart enough to know that he had an alien for a teacher, and that was the first thing he told me after school. But what if I wasn’t there when he needed somebody to talk to about it? He would have ended up very confused because children are noted for believing everything their parents say, and everything their teachers say.

May be you will call me plain old-fashioned or you think my husband is wealthy. I believe he will soon be but we are not there yet.

My point is this; let’s give honour to whom honour is due. The housewives are doing a great job. They are as exhausted at tehe end of the day as other women with jobs outside the home. Theirs is like five jobs rolled into one – mother, wife, nanny, laundry-man, and lesson-teacher and of course business partner and special adviser to their husband. She does this round-the-clock. And sometimes she has a little cottage business to boot.

Actually, we think a housewife should earn a salary in the range of the earnings of a senator in the House of Assembly.

N/B: If you have been blessed and challenged by this article, I want to hear from you. Send me your reactions and testimonies.

By : Pastor (Mrs) Esther Abam

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