Long Post Alert - Women & Our Amazing Threshold for Bullshit

I woke up yesterday morning for the first time in a very long while with absolutely nothing to do and no idea what task to engage in. For someone who practically works Mondays to Sundays, it felt somewhat nourishing to be able to laze in bed (Currently on leave and just discovered how much I enjoy sleeping and doing nothing). I mean, I am always busy doing one official thing or the other on normal days and being on leave simply means not going to work yet I am usually still engaged in several official tasks but yesterday happened to be the only day I had rebelliously refused to turn on my laptop and just decided to laze and snore my way around our bed. (Hubby mentioned he had never seen anyone so susceptible to so much sleep and if he had known I loved sleeping this much, he would have kept his ring).

Hian! Me that I can sleep for Africa and other neighboring continents at no cost. Just give me a soft pillow, the cooling unit on 16 degrees with a Binatone fan and the sound of a moving train will hold nothing to my snores!

To while away the time before I thought of what to have for breakfast, I decided to go through the BBM Channel update on my Blackberry Passport (Green Eyed Jealousy has never paid anyone!) and what immediately caught my attention was the growing trend of baby mamas which is fast becoming a borrowed western fad. The BBM Channel had an update urging us to open a particular link to view the 15 celebrities with Baby Mamas and their cute babies. And because I had suddenly developed a deep interest in aprokoism, I clicked and was taken to the world of celebrities with cute babies and baby mamas. And what ran through them all were the beautiful baby mamas who actually posed for the camera smiling gleefully with their cute babies. And something also ran through most of them, out of the 15 celebrities with baby mamas, over 5 of them were very clear about having no intention of marrying their respective baby mamas.

Choi, I miss my grandmother and was even tempted to report them to my mum and aunties. They would have done justice to the insults and as one of my friend’s mum would say, “won ready but won redi” (ask your Yoruba friends about this one). The idea of now having a child outside the institution of marriage is fast becoming an accepted fad in Africa even though it mocks the very existence of our religious beliefs. I honestly don’t even know who I am to be more pissed off with. Whether it’s the little boys sacred of commitment but wanting to be able to fuck womanize freely  (because this idea of deliberately getting a woman pregnant without the hope of getting married to her just surfaced and was not this rampant years ago) who do this and brag about it, thereby objectifying their women into baby making factories and being very cool about it or the ladies who agree and go into this kind of arrangement with high gullibility & happily sharing pictures of their kids especially if fathered by a celebrity and not worried but limiting their future choices as the average man from a well-balanced home still have deep reservations about marrying an “after one”.

As a woman, I have tried to get into the heads of these women to know what the problem could possibly be because I have seen the pictures of these baby mamas and as a woman, I have to say that they are very beautiful. I believe this is an imported trend and I stand to be corrected, that is if we are to follow the likes of Amber Rose & Ciara who have made the whole baby mama business look so Chanel cool. And in our usual “follow the western band wagon” fashion, have decided to emulate them. Or could it be that our Nigerian ladies have this all-time low esteem that has made them feel that they can’t get someone to marry them? (Even Beyonce & Kerry sef got married before having a baby. That alone is something)

Because frankly speaking, I am a bit lost on the excitement of baby-mamas because according to how I was raised, having a child by a man who has chosen not to marry me or consider me marriageable before and throughout the 9 months of the pregnancy stage is not something to be happy or proud of. Gone are those days when women hide their pregnancy if they dared to get pregnant before the wedding.

Maybe I am old school sha o. Or maybe I was simply raised to understand that the institution of marriage comes before babies if we are to follow the biblical and Quranic history. Except all the baby mamas are atheists and the biblical rules do not apply to them!

What is even more worrisome is the ricochet effect this would have on these kids because most often than not, most of these men never get married to their baby mamas. Ever! I mean, as a mother, I know I will not only be furious but maybe even organize a kind of serious beating if my daughter comes home to tell me she is pregnant but she and the father do not intend to get married but have this beautiful child together.

For me and the way I was raised and the level of confidence and self-esteem I have gained over the years, I will consider it the highest form of insult for a man to consider me good enough for a romp in the hay and father some seeds for him but not good enough to marry and even coming publicly to say that he has no intention of marrying me. And because of the age of most of these baby mamas, it is highly impossible that they have ruled out marriage. So why agree to have unprotected sex with a man that has no plans of putting a ring on it anytime soon? 

And you discover that men who rant about not ready to get married but already have baby mamas fall under the age of 18 and 33, still mentally childish to understand that there is usually a woman out there that will rid them of that nonsense thought and capture their heart. And by the time they now decide to get married, they choose a fresh blood and not any of the baby mamas that have been so gullible to believe the rhymes they dished out before getting between their legs without protection.

Now understand that a baby mama differs from a single mother. A single mother may be a divorcee, a widow or just a woman (not a girl) who was supposed to be married to a man and have probably done an introduction or even engagement but something happened that may have hurt them both and they are no longer in good terms and are no longer really on talking terms to even think about getting married. In the early 90’s- early 2000, many successful but older ladies sought out men to give them children as they no longer wanted to get married due to their age and usually these women are always above 30 years up till age 40.

A baby mama on the other hand most often than not is already slightly aware about her status from the onset and that this would most likely be what she would be as the man had clearly stated marriage was not in his books anytime in this generation. And right now, many of our rampant baby mamas fall between the ages of 18 and 25.

I am not going to focus too much on the men but the women because I am a woman and this brings me to the second amazing threshold for bullshit I have also recently noticed among ladies. I somewhat addressed this issue on my blog. You can catch up here. This however does not even have to do with domestic violence but how in the apparent face of nonsense a woman still decides to stay in a relationship that is obviously not working all in the name of remaining a Mrs or to be able to have someone to cuddle up to on Val’s day or New Year’s Eve.

My anger stemmed from this story of a woman seeking public opinion as she recently discovered her husband had been sleeping with her two sisters under her roof and though one of the sisters was later chased out of the house as she couldn't control her, the second one was still living with her but ran out of the house after writing a suicide note to her parents that if they refused to come and get her out of her sister’s home, she’d commit suicide. It was this situation that made their parents call the wife of the house and informed her of the situation. Her husband didn't deny the situation as she also confirmed the information the girl shared was true. Her first step was to go and report to her pastor who later begged her to forgive her husband and move on because of the children. (I would “comment” my “reserve” on why women run to their pastors when their men cheat or commit some atrocities for another day because I am almost 99% sure men do not and have never run to their pastors when their women cheat or commit some major atrocities. Most times, men already know what decision to take.)

It was at this point she was requesting for public opinion as she was confused and not ready to break her matrimonial home.

Her sisters were 19 and 15 years old respectively as at the time the sexual activities began. And after reading the article, my blood boiled and I could literally feel my heart rate rise to 200 per minute and I had to ask myself one question, where did we get it all wrong? Has our desperation to stay and remain married affected our sense of reasoning or is it a complex problem? Why has the education we have struggled so hard to get not been able to impact on our ways of thinking? Why has the option of not seeking a psychiatric evaluation for a man who can sleep with your two sisters come up or even the lady seeking personal evaluation for even trying to rationalize the abominable atrocity her spouse had caused to her family? A much saner community that does not ridicule women standing up to spouses with wandering manhood would be asking- what is she still doing in that marriage or better still why not consider a separation pending the time she sought out both her spouse’s issues and her family issues? 

Because in my opinion, it is absolute madness when a man chooses to litter his spouse’s family with his generous manhood and there still lies the woman, seemingly confused about what to do. While I am not trying to encourage divorce, I believe the rate of bulls**t thrown women’s way by their spouses will reduce drastically when certain actions are met with inevitable consequences.

I mean, realistically, how many unfaithful women are still in their marital homes after being caught by their husbands? I am fairly certain the percentage is not up to 20%. And that’s adding women from all around the world as I’m sure in Nigeria, it’s less than 2%. This knowledge that no man would tolerate infidelity has curbed adultery among many married women because the consequences are non-negotiable as the husband including his family will be quick to boot the cheating wife and have her replaced almost immediately.

So if men are not willing to compromise their women’s fidelity, why should a supposedly educated woman come out to ask the public what she should do so her home does not get broken after her hubby slept with her two younger sisters?

While we are fast entering a very dynamic millennial that allows us to express ourselves how best we know even though most are unpleasant and many may regret many years down the line, bringing up babies outside marriage is not what procreation is intended for neither is accepting bulls**t from spouses all in the name of maintaining the Mrs. A man whose wife sleeps with his two younger brothers would not be running to the pastor for advice and as women, your relationship must have a clear goal and threshold of what is acceptable and what’s not. When you have that in place from the get-go, certain limitations would either cease to exist or wouldn't come up at all.

Having a spouse sleeping with his spouse’s relatives and the booming Baby Mama Fad may not be hurting anyone( or so you seem to think now) however for the baby mama, understand that if he is not getting married to you, in a few years from now, he will be ready to settle down and chances abound that he may not be choosing you. It will be a case of “why buy the cow when the milk is already free”?

What is wrong is wrong and no matter how much we try to cover it in whatever shade would never change the fact that it is.

I am aware this post will attract direct mails lashing out and whether I am encouraging divorce and trying to make baby mamas feel bad. (Well, if it would make them pick their self-respect and dignity from the floor and reduce the rate of children looking from outside into the windows of their father’s matrimonial home with his legal wife and children on Festive seasons, so be it)

I will be waiting though. It'd be great to read different opinions on how women justify several bullshits thrown their way.