If you were not a parent or a spouse, you’d still pay rent and buy food.
Most partners think that them having chosen you to have kids with exempts them from parental duties. They assume the virtue of paying rent and buying bread exempts them from checking the school diary and waking the boys up for school at 6am.
The Real Cost of Marriage Is the Invisible Labor a Wife Carries Alone Daily, and It’s Time You Take Note.
Mara Mingi, Kenyan Wababas and husbands think that paying rent and other bills like school fees and bacon is enough to expect worship the minute they walk through the door at 10 p.m.
While their wife, who has been home all day with two toddlers (because the other two are in school), is dismissed as having “done nothing all day”. The “kushinda home sio kazi” narrative.
What men often fail to get is the mental workload that comes with being a responsible mother and an accountable wife. There’s a lot of unseen labor in this title; and when it’s not acknowledged, it creates irreparable resentment.
As long as a man finds a clean house, hot meals, clean, well-dressed children, ironed clothes, planned events, trips, and new clothes, he rarely stops to think about the work behind it and how heavily it weighs on one person.
The Overload in Women Is More than Just Cooking, Taking Notes on Everyone’s Symptoms, and Writing a Shopping List.
It’s:
• Planning everyone’s doctors’ appointments and attending them.
• Nagging the spouse to go see a doctor for that persistent headache.
• Planning and reminding a spouse about upcoming school meetings.
• Coordinating family meetings, cookouts, and family chamas.
• Managing everyone’s emotions in the household.
• Maintaining cordial relationships with in-laws.
• Keeping husbands in good standing with their own relatives.
• Planning and booking vacations and trips.
• Ensuring snacks are always stocked for all travel events.
• Remembering that a broken sink or a spoilt showerhead needs repair and scheduling it.
• Mediating when relatives fight in that WhatsApp group.
• Noticing when the LPG gas runs out and calling the gas guys.
•If there’s a house-help, the stress of searching, hiring, training, monitoring, and firing.
• Managing the husband’s village farm over the phone and through visits, which is exhausting.
This robotic “good wife” duty never ends. That’s why women fall sick more often because of the constant stress of staying in control of things.
Scientific studies have confirmed this to cause chronic and autoimmune ailments in women.
Some wives juggle an office job, leaving home at 6 a.m. and returning at 6 p.m., only to stress about “what’s for supper” because the husband “can’t eat food made by the house help.”
It is common to see a husband and wife with similar office jobs and work stress. After work, the husband may go out with friends or relax on the couch, scrolling through social media. Meanwhile, the woman continues working at home.
In Most Kenyan Homes, the Good Wife Becomes the Default Parent. She Has To:
• Keep up with children’s and their teenagers’ friendships.
• Check and assist in homework and sign school diaries.
• Keep up with everyone’s hobbies and attend sports days.
• Monitor their manners (because mtoto akiwa mannerless ni wa mama).
• Remember birthdays, plan parties, and buy gifts.
Kazi ya bwana inakua ni ku exist tu yani when it comes to parenting.
Most husbands barely know their kids’ hobbies, discipline levels, or struggles; as long as he paid for pizza five Saturdays ago. This is a common husband behavior, especially in middle-class and lower-class family units. (si watu hutuambia online vile baba yao ata hajui nani ako class 2)
Yet society still frames this labor as “women’s natural job” Because there’s no visible chart tracking the endless planning, scheduling, execution, stress and outcomes, and with that, a woman’s work is dismissed as ordinary and “kazi ya wanawake”.
Still, in our African contexts, a woman is deemed “wife material” only when she looks exhausted and suffering.
You will find a whole adult man acting immaturely, like another child in the house, leaving messes behind, while his wife still pays most or half of the bills, these events naturally lead to resentment.
That’s why some wives will quietly plan to leave such men the minute the kids finish school, choosing to grow old alone without an adult “man-child” to care for them.
This is an unending labour women carry, all unseen, unheard, unappreciated.
👉🏾 Husbands, take note. Participate. Assign yourself several household duties that you won’t need the wife to remind you about.
It is not a small job to raise kids, run a household, and keep everyone clothed, clean, and fed.
It leads to burnout, unfairness, and that lonely state is what many women describe as being “Single Whilst Married.”
And husbands, learn to separate what you do for her from what you do for your children or your home. Ask yourself, what have you actually done just for her? Have you ever made her a fresh cup of tea, or is your entire romance in that marriage just waiting to be served? 😨
And if you think it’s simple to be home and ensure things run smoothly, give your wife a vacation, stay home with the kids (no house help) for like 7 days, tukutambue! 😒
Have a great day, let it be a Happy Mother’s Day!