Archive for October 2014
Working From Home: I’m Doing It For Our Son – Well, Not Really, To Be Absolutely Fucking Honest
When I returned from UK, I thought to myself that I would get that
dream job ASAP, at the very most it would take me six months tops. I kind of
have a history of getting jobs, so I’m never really worried whenever I leave
one. I just know, given time, another one would come. It hasn’t worked out as
well as I hoped. This is the tenth month since our return. And I am still
basically not employed full-time. I am not idle, mind you. It is not in my
constitution to do nothing. I have had short term projects here and there,
while still waiting for that biggie that would pay be a great salary (the money
I spent getting a masters can’t be for nothing oh) with mouth-watering
allowance/benefit package. As it is, I mostly work from home unless when I have
to leave the house for a second. Now, I’m not the most disciplined person when
it comes to time-management. But give me a target and a deadline. While one day
I might spend a whole of five minutes on the project, come day 2, I would start
firing by 5am and won’t leave my work station till 13 hours later. I can be an
adrenaline junkie like that, thus a part of me quite enjoys working in this
way. A greater part of me, though, craves the unlimited internet access I would
get if I was working in an office. The way I’m burning through SwiftNG data
gives hubby heart palpitations. With my erratic and sometimes non-existent income,
he has had to bear the financial burden, which a major negative.
One thing though we both agree is that period has been good for is
childcare. I have a help, by the way. Someone who comes in the morning to clean
the house and run errands. Money might be tight, but the most effective and
guaranteed way to get me in a perpetual bitch mood is to make me responsible
for the tidiness of the house. With the chores outsourced, I am able to get
down to the business of raising bomboy. MM and I had decided earlier in the day
that childcare is something we would endeavour to do by ourselves. We bath
bomboy ourselves – on weekends, he is encouraged to wash himself under
supervision, preparing him to completely take over the job of bathing himself
by the time he is 6. We dress him – again, on weekend he dresses himself for
the most part. We aid him with his homework, etc. MM works as an engineer in a bank, in Lagos.
That means, he leaves pretty early and sometimes comes home late. AND HE WORKS
WEEKENDS AND MOST PUBLIC HOLIDAYS!!!! So
basically, if I too was employed outside the home, it would mean that bomboy
would for the most time be without either parent. Especially during the
long/summer holiday, which coupled with the #Ebola wahala saw him staying
nearly three months without school. The 9 hours he would have otherwise been in
school or transitioning to and fro it (thank you, Lagos traffic) would have
been spent at home, with the housekeeper. I don’t know about other mothers, but
I get jittery about leaving my child with a unsupervised staff for long stretch
of time. Save MM and I, the only adults I trust with my child is those at his
school. We took a lot of care picking his school, and paying quite a pretty sum
for that, for the relative peace of mind of knowing the establishment has a
reputation to maintain and would thus arrange themselves. A lone housekeeper
unfortunately doesn’t inspire that such confidence in me. I just don’t have
much faith in human beings, to be honest.
I may not be voluntarily working from home, but I am very conscious
of the advantage it has for my son. Even when I’m sweating it out on my
keyboard, furious to meet deadlines, my attention is on what bomboy is up to
with the housekeeper. I may ask for him to be kept from me for the time being,
but I take mini-breaks to go inspect what he and the woman are doing. I know
what he is being given to eat. What sort of conversation he is having, what
poor grammar he is picking from godknowswhere.
It is still me raising him. Over the long holiday, I decided to get much more hands-on
with his academics. I would go on the internet and print out worksheets for
higher classes for him. I taught him how to tell the time (the o’clock,
half-past, quarter-past, quarter-to, and the 5 minutes hands). We did a lot of
reading exercises and I am proud he is said to read much better than his
classmates. We did loads of writing exercises, and this has reflected in his
handwriting skills. We did addition and subtraction, focusing on the double
digits. Now he can add 18 to 20 to get 38, and take away 17 from 30 to get 13.
He was writing in 5’s long before his peers. And writing from 1 to 500.
Everyday during the holiday he had homework he cried, groaned, grumbled,
sulked, and threw tantrums over, but did nonetheless. I was far from being the
favourite parent. That is some hard shit, let me tell you now. The feeling that
your child doesn’t like you. MM would come home and get shrieks of “Daddy!!!”
and hugs. My departures were welcomed and even sent forth with wails if I left
instructions that TV was banned in my absence till homework was done. My
returns were barely noticed, except for the occasional, “Mummy, I finished my
homework. Can I watch now?” I was the wicked denier of all things fun.
It appears to have paid off. Last year, bomboy was the second best
student in his class although he was had just returned from UK and trying to
acclimatize with the Nigerian system (his school isn’t running a strict British
curriculum, which I quite welcome tbh). He has a competition going with the
girl who took the top position, another UK returnee. Now, all his teachers
enthuse how brilliant he is. How ahead of his peers he has come. I hear these
things and I am filled with pride. I went out and bought more worksheets.
Printing off the internet is a harder work than you know, looking for the right
materials. It can take half the day seeking to gather a good mix of exercises,
so he can fully engage his brain. I got some really good books, including one
on non-verbal reasoning which is basically junior aptitude test if you ask me.
Every day, bomboy and I sit down with the books. I make him read the
instructions out loud, teach him unfamiliar words, and have him talk me through
his understanding of what is expected of him. it’s been less dramatic than it
used to be. He is less reactive to my rule that homework must be completed
before any TV watching or going outside to ride his bicycle/scooter. Since his
teacher suggested I step up on our spelling exercise, he’s been asking me to
teach him how to spell just about everything. We have made it fun. I got this app
where I can record myself spelling words and making sentences with the word.
Bomboy loves it! And once he gets a spelling – and gets high-fived for it (he
absolutely loves getting those) – he doesn’t forget it.
I’m still not his favourite parent. It is his daddy he plays video
games with when the poor tired man returns from work. It is still daddy he
prefers reading him to sleep – although now, he is using more of the story book
apps in his tablet, you know the kind that reads to you. We still fight when I
say he’s watched far too much TV than is good for him. But, I am raising my
child. I am educating him. I am seeing him blossoming. Watching his abilities
increase and seeing the intelligent person he is growing up to be. I am not out
to make him into some kind of first-class material or anything like that.
Academic brilliance would be nice, but it is not my main motivation. I just
want a child his innate abilities I am able to harness. Who I’m not limiting
his skills just because I am not paying some things in his upbringing the
little bit of attention it requires. I am extremely proud of myself for the
time I have put into him these past ten months. His successes I consider my
successes, evidence of my superior mothering abilities J. MM said the
other day that I was doing splendid work with our son, and that’s high praise.
Cause him and I clash all the time due to the difference in our parenting
styles. I feel, finally I’m doing something right. Sometimes lasting. I am
setting this little boy on his way to a good future. It is a fantastic feeling.
That does not, however, mean that this period of working from home
has not been hard for me. It isn’t something I want. If I get a good job offer
this very minute, I would snap it right up. I need it for my own mental health
being. I can’t bear the insecurity of knowing I don’t have much money of my own
making. That if I need to splurge on a little more than for making my hair or
buying myself a few things (am quite low maintenance, so I don’t spend a lot on
myself – except for that iPhone 6 Plus I totally intend to buy!), I would need
to ask hubby for it. It is immaterial that he would give me the money. It is
the asking part I abhor. There is a confidence in feeling, “I fucking earned
this money; I can fucking spend it the way I fucking want!” I don’t have that
now. I desperately need it. Yet I want to be the sort of mother who spend
quality time with her son. I wonder, is it possible to have both? Oh well …
Ciao!
Madam - A Short Story
To explain what happened this day, Agatha thought as she set the tray of food where her Obiora was hunched on a low stool, was to rehash the events of the past three months. She would think past her first week at work and the rather talkative madam she thought she had in her hands. But focus more on the second week, and the aloof Madam it brought with it reappeared. Agatha preferred this version and the routine they fell into. It was in thinking that your madam was your friend that you refuse to see the dagger coming for your throat. Agatha had learnt that the hard way, hadn’t she. With Madam Temi. Three nights in Police cell and an employment terminated so coldly she could have thrown herself over Third Mainland Bridge and it would not have conveyed the full extent of her despair.
There was something this madam did that Agatha rather enjoyed
witnessing, if she could only admit it to herself. How Madam would reappear
three hours after she had gone to drop her daughter at school, the girl
strapped into her own tiny seat that had been attached to her mother’s utility
bicycle like an afterthought. She would be drenched, panting and rasping,
“oooooh, that was good. That was soooo good.” It would not be in commendation
of how spotless her home now was, and that was the bit Agatha zoomed in on—she paused when she saw that her
Obiora was giving her a queer look. His face scrunched up in pensive
expression.
“Where is the meat in this soup?” he asked, foraging for the lump
of beef with all five fingers.
“You ate the last one yesterday,” Agatha threw back at him.
“So? Has it finished in the market?” retorted her Obiora, moulding
his fufu into a ball.
“The groundnut money you give for the month has bought all the
meat it can manage. Your longer-throat will have to wait until next month. And
if you doubt me, you can start going to market yourself,” she grumbled under
her breath.
“Eh? What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Agatha lied, stalking out of the clammy room. She could
not afford to antagonise her Obiora, not after the hard-won battle to get him
to start dipping into his pockets. He might roar that she was impossible to
please and swear that as long as he lived she would not see another shishi from him.
Unless, of course—but Agatha brushed aside the thought as quickly as it came. But it
came back, in the form of that oddly shaped pink thing she had thought nothing
of the first time she saw it. It had been under Madam bed. Presumably, it had
rolled over after someone dropped on the floor. The missus was sprawled before
the television, an empty plate by her side and in it last remnants of her
lunch. When she handed the item to her, Madam had murmured a thank you and
dumped it right next to the china. Agatha did not give any more thought to the
pink thing, even thought she came upon it twice more. Once, it was on the bed,
and on Madam’s reading desk the other time. Then, she saw the black one.
But of course, all those times she had walked by Madam’s bedroom
and dismissed moans she heard coming from there, she had somehow known. The
long hours Madam stayed locked in her bedroom, she had to have been doing more
than writing. Agatha knew something about what girls did in privacy, from her
days as the vacuous adolescent who had been forbidden from being within a
smelling distance of boys and their penises. The girl whose fantasies Mills and
Boon primed and whose dreams were quickened with longing. And when she became
too embarrassed to touch herself, she rode the pillow or a mould of dirty
clothes. But, that was fifteen long years past. Was not the essence of marriage
so you did not have to do it to yourself? She supposed it would, if one had
their husband around. And that could not say so of Madam’s husband.
Agatha was familiar with homes like this. Madam Ose, she had had a
husband who liked other women more than he did his own wife. Agatha could not
say if that was the same with Madam and her own. Madam herself spoke very
little of the man, except when relaying a complaint. The few evidences of his
existence were in the snippets he left behind each day, his clothes he wanted
laundered and his books she was never to touch. In the living room hung two
wedding photos, with a fleshier Madam looking happier than a clam. She must be
lonely, Agatha thought. At least Madam Ose had a battalion of children to take
her mind off the foolish idiot but how much comfort could one child bring? Of
course, Madam must want another one. Perhaps that was why she did what she did
with her pink and black things. It was to keep alive her interest in sex. If
that was what it was, then okay. Although, if you asked her, Agatha would tell
you life had an ungrateful way of rewarding just causes. Look at her, enduring
her Obiora’s nightly exercise of tugging at her underwear.
All for what, Agatha thought as she peeped through the curtain.
Seeing her Obiora was woofing down the food was unpleasing. The frayed fabric
provided all the privacy she and her Obiora got from peering eyes, when the
neighbourhood had quietened and the heat no longer suffocated the cool breeze
from the Atlantic. Agatha promised herself that she would one day burn that
thing and get some rest. What jabbed at her was not his gauntness which years
had not altered. But the ungainly globe that sat where there had once been a
flat belle. She could taste her resentment, and it was foul. She turned away
and thought about this morning.
It was a different Agatha had left Madam’s bedroom. Engrossed in
Mr. Ibu’s antics, she had not even known what was in store. She had been in the
visitor’s room, its television permanently tuned to Nollywood channel. Once she
was done with the daily cleaning, she waited in the room until Madam needed
her. She had said Agatha was free would lose herself to the screen so long as
she kept her ears sharp to her calls. But Agatha did not always quick to pick
up the sound of her name coming from upstairs. Plus the comedian was
particularly clownish that morning, and her guffawing quite raucous. She had
been in the middle of roaring with laughter and throwing her legs in the air
when she thought she had heard Madam’s voice. She trotted up to Madam’s bedroom
door and listened before she knocked. A muffled invitation to enter encouraged
her to advance. But she was not in there.
“Come to the bathroom,” a distressed voice called, intermitted by
groans.
She was on the floor, her right leg twisted under her left and her
right arm squashed under the weight of her body. The groan was louder and Madam’s
contorted, teary face showed the agony she felt. Agatha rushed to her, but Madam’s
lithe body heavier that it looked. By the time she got her on her bed, Agatha
was panting and her back felt like a vein or two had ruptured. But she also exhilarated
by the effort, and that was perhaps why it had taken a minute for she
registered what was happened. She had been carrying her employer, her naked
employer. She had touched her breasts, buttocks, and stomach. Her hand had been
a tip away from Madam’s hairy mould. And Madam had not even seemed to care. All
she did was moan for Agatha to find some Chinese balm, and that she hurt too
much. Maybe she would have carried on not caring if she had known that every
moan made Agatha burn.
All her life, Agatha had held to the belief that sex came from
men. Even when she found she did not enjoy it as much as she had thought she
would, she refused to shake from it. But it was not a man making her dance to
this unknown tune. The wetness between her legs, the tingling, they were not in
response to a man. She wondered what madam saw when she looked at her. Madam
was so willowy, would it matter that the days when she herself had looked like
that were long gone. People still told her she is pretty, and that her weight
gain sat well on her. Would madam agree with them? Would she look at her
breasts and think them firm and round like she did hers. Would they invite her
tongue on them as hers did?
As she swatted the mosquito lullabying her ears, Agatha thought
perhaps she should receive her Obiora’s favours tonight. And when he snored
away in his contentment, she would dip her fingers in there like she used to
and think only of Madam.
***
My last
post, well, it left me feeling exposed. It was too personal, and I shared
things I hadn't even privately told many of my closest and dearest. And my
gosh, did the post get traffic. I wasn’t prepared for that attention. I wasn’t.
And I didn't like it. I contemplated not blogging anymore. So, anyway,
until I come to grips about how much of myself I am willing to share on this
blog, I’m thinking of going back to my ‘roots’. I once ran this series, How
Many Frogs Shall A Princess Kiss. Loads of readers seemed to love it. I want to
try that again with a new story, Madam. I don’t know where it’d going, to be
honest. But I hope you all would ride it out with me. Perhaps, I might get a
novel out of it. Or not.