I remember a vivid memory from when I was 10 years old. My best friend at the time, who was also 10, cooked her first meal. It’s a vivid memory for me because growing up as a young girl, I felt there was an unspoken rule that said I had to learn to start cooking when I turned double-digits and somehow my friend had cracked the code and I was so happy for her. As the years went by, I ebbed and flowed through the kitchen but never gained true mastery and confidence till my late teenage years/early 20s. I say confidence because among many girl circles that I grew up in, cooking was seen as a rite of passage. Didn’t know how to cook different soups from across the country? Are you sure you are a woman? It used to bother me, this seemingly lapse in my ‘womanness’. I remember getting so angry when someone asked me once if I was the one who had cooked a meal I had referenced eating. I was angry because, no, I didn’t cook it and I felt all shades of incompetent for not being Hilda Baci.
This is something I’m sure in many ways is peculiar to Nigeria and maybe African societies. It’s not a global standard to know how to cook as a woman but for that 10 year old growing up in Kogi State, it was one gateway to womanhood. As I have grown in both age and cooking abilities, I have become more confident in myself beyond abilities. Today, nobody can shame me. ‘Wow, you mean you don’t know how to prepare xxx?’ Yes, Chef Chi, I don’t, anything else? Reminds me of a time I was in the market trying to buy Ugu leaves and the vendor had to do something else while she asked me to begin plucking the leaves. I responded that I didn’t know how to. Her and another customer looked at me with serious bewilderment. “Don’t ever say that outside again!” The other (older female) customer remarked. “Is that what you will say in your husband’s house?” Ah, alas, the famed “husband’s house” that has been used to caution numerous girls across the country.
I don’t know how to cook everything but I know how to cook many things and I am a quick learner. But what I am saying is I do not ever want my value as a woman to be reduced to the mere ability to cook. Anyone that doesn’t agree is entitled to their opinion. This leads me to the bigger issue of recent trends.
Many women I know these days are passionately chasing their career goals and it feels like there is this narrative that if they choose motherhood and being a wife, they will forfeit their career. This is leading to women choosing to postpone that life to focus on building careers and I understand. We’re part of a generation that sees the previous generation as women who sacrificed everything for family. This generation doesn’t want that and it’s legitimate. I can’t even tell you the number of friends that are considering foregoing children all together because of the narrative that you would give up everything if you decide to be a mother. Solomon Buchi’s viral post a couple of weeks ago did not help matters.
But what about people like me? I intend to be a present mother but why does society tell me that would mean sacrificing my children on the altar of career success? When the evidence is in favour of women working to boost the economy? Why is society telling me that I can’t have both?
I’ve seen the trend and personally, I’m taking a stand. I refuse to buy into the lie that if I want a career, I shouldn’t start a family and I should rethink becoming a mother. I refuse the narrative that I will be a bad mother if I continue building my career. I recognise that it will be difficult, maybe more difficult than anything that I have ever done but it’s not impossible. I have so many positive models and models can be replicated.
I vehemently resist the wind blowing at the modern woman. Spewing condemnation at whichever choice she makes. Saying one is better than the other. In Nigerian parlance ‘that’s everybody’s business.’ This woman is choosing her own path, tailor-made for her by God. So, if you judge me for my lax and ‘not woman enough’ cooking skills or for my desire to want children when all the career experts are singing different songs, then, that’s fine. I have never fit into any one box and as I grow older, the desire to do so has waned. I am just finding me and insisting on who I know God has called me to be. What about you? Who’s shaping your desires and decisions? Society or God? The world or His word?
You know, I’m genuinely curious. Do our male counterparts have to deal with any of these worries or expectations? I mean specifically tailored to work and family. I don’t think I’m aware of any but I will be really happy to learn. So please drop a comment or send me an email sharing your perspective.
Yours in finding freedom,
Favour
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