THE FULL TIME HOUSE WIFE: HER MERITS AND DEMERITS (PART 1)

One of the constant issues that has often plagued marriages has been that of whether the family is better off with the wife as a full time house wife or as a working/ career wife? Sadly, a lot of women have had to sacrifice their jobs, careers, businesses, talents, just to succumb to the husband's wishes of having them stay at home as a full time house wife, taking care of the house and the children. Indeed, for the wealthy class of men, this is strictly a no-go area of discussion. Their wives simply won't work. It is almost an ego thing, they ask their wives how much is the money they're hoping to make as salary working for another that they cannot pay her? So, they arrange and agree with their wives to be paid a certain amount of money every month as salary they would've earned outside if they were working. For some women, this takes care of the problem, as they can now claim to have their own money and have access to it whenever they want instead of turning to their husband for every single thing they need. But for some others, it still doesn't entirely solve the problem. Its not just about the money, its also about her self esteem, knowing she goes out there, engages herself both mentally and physically to earn her own money is what she desires. 

Now, we must must also mention that

some men have not been entirely sincere about the real reason they don't want their wife to work, apart from the fact they feel they can afford to pay her any amount as salary and see it as a slight on their ego that their wife has to go out and work to earn money. Truth is, most of these men are terribly insecure, they are scared their wives may be exposed to some really smooth and fun- to -be -with kind of guy who could sweep her off her feet like they have also been sweeping a lot of other women off their feet with their money. Anyway, that is a story for another day. So, now, which school of thought do you belong to, should wives remain full time house wives or be allowed to follow their dreams and fulfill their aspirations? The following, by our own reckoning, are some of the merits and demerits of the situation, check them out.

MERITS

1.  The kids and the house are well taken care of. She spends sufficient time with the kids and monitors their academic, social and physical growth. The mother sees to it that they eat the right food and are properly trained on domestic chores and behaviour, as against leaving your kids in the care of a domestic house help who have absolutely no idea how to offer any significant support in that direction. .  

2. Taking care of the house and kids is not exactly an easy task. It requires that the woman must be extremely skilled at multitasking. She is usually the first to wake up in the house, prepare the kids for school, possibly drop them off, and in same breath offer her husband the right mental and emotional state to prepare him for the day's work by providing him with his desired breakfast and sweet words of encouragement. By so doing, this has transformed many women into fantastic multitask masters. Mentally and physically, a lot of men cannot even match these women, which is why it is generally believed that women are by far better than men at multitasking.  

3. Bond between mother and child can only be stronger when the mother has time to spend with the kids. A lot of people may not realize it now, but being separated too much from your kids does reduce and weaken the bond between both of you. Sometimes, because you and their father have to rush off to work very early every morning, you don't even notice your kids are growing up and are probably picking up the wrong influences from outside. Sometimes we don't even know the sort of friends they keep. Now, the full time house wife can deal with all of these because she's at home all day with them. The bond is great. They cook together, eat together, do home woks together and play together. The children tells her everything that happens to them. Her teenage daughters can confide in her when they have issues bothering them. 

4. The kids are protected from negative influences from within the house. By this we mean, for instance, if you have domestic staff who could negatively influence your kids or even put them in harm's way, the fact that you are often around reduces the possibility of them succeeding in imparting negative values into your kids. Normally, they could only achieve this if they get to spend a great deal of time alone with the kids in the house consistently which could require months to achieve. And its not always about the domestic staff all the time, sometimes it could be negative vices from neighbours that we need to protect our children from. A lot of our neigbours are not exactly the sort of people our kids should spending too much time with and we need to pay attention to their relationship with such people. For instance, if you have a young and single female neighbour who is constantly visited by men of various shades, you should be wary of your teenage daughter spending too much time alone with such neighbour, nothing good can come of it.

(TO be continued soon...)