I have always hated the idea of having housekeepers. Why should a family have to employ a housekeeper? What does a housekeeper do? I can think of a good number of responsibilities. In the modern African society, a housekeeper sweeps the floor, cooks the food, tidies the kitchen, washes clothes, and looks after the children and so on. I could go on and on. Yes these housekeepers save the family a lot of stress but I thought these duties were meant for the wife. I remember clearly from my Primary Social Studies textbooks that these duties were allocated to the mother and wife and of course the children were expected to assist. I hated that part anyway. The African wife today has since graduated from the traditional housewife who does all these duties into a modernized woman who also goes to work and contributes her quota to the running of the family. As some like to put it, she ‘supports’ her husband. Hence, we have the husband as the breadwinner and the wife as the assistant/deputy/vice breadwinner of the home. I guess Social Studies textbooks need to include this new title for wives henceforth.
My grudge is not at all borne out of any ill will or insensitivity towards women or their right to work and earn a living but my bone of contention is the new wave that is fast sweeping our society today. Housekeepers are fast graduating into substitute mothers and substitute wives in some cases. In Lagos, our nation’s commercial center, an average family is one where the husband and his wife wake up as early as 5 a.m or in certain times, at a much earlier time to prepare for work. They are out of the house as early as 6 a.m, most times even before the kids are out of bed. Why do they have to leave this early? Traffic! God help that man or woman who leaves home much later than six a.m, especially in a location like Lekki, Lagos where the traffic situation tends to get worse by the day. Their children are left at the mercy of these housekeepers. In some homes, the children do not see their parents except on weekends due to the fact that the parents leave home early and return late and at both time ends, the kids are fast asleep. Sadly, the children, especially when they are of infant age begin to see a mother-figure in the housekeeper.
It is also said that the best way to a man’s heart is through food, but what happens when a wife hardly has the time to cook her husband’s meals because of her job and as such the responsibility is passed to the housekeeper. The poor man soon finds himself becoming used to the housekeeper’s meals and God help him if he happens to be a man without the best moral values as far as chastity of marriage is concerned or the housekeeper happens to be a beautiful woman with rather licentious intentions. There are numerous other problems that are induced by the virtue of a housekeeper taking the place of a mother and a wife to mention but a few. Everyday, homes are literarily broken because the main purpose of the home has been defeated. I do not insist that women should not have jobs but if at all a woman is to work, it should be an employment that affords her ample time to look after her children and her husband. This would indeed go a long way to solve the domestic problems and curb the spate of housekeeper-related problems in our society today.
