Whenever school was in session the girls suffered a lot more as they had to combine going to school with helping with the house chores. As soon as all the children returned from school, the boys changed their clothes and waited for their food to be served. The girls on the other hand barely had the time to remove their clothes before they entered the kitchen, helped with the chores and served the food for their siblings. As soon as they were done serving lunch they would have to wash the uniforms for themselves and the boys as they had only one uniform each, hang it out to dry, then go back to the kitchen to help with the dishes, run any necessary errands, help prepare dinner, serve it then do the dishes again. All this while, the parents recognizing the value of a good education insisted that the boys should read their books as soon as they had eaten lunch. After reading they watched television, waited for dinner to be served, ate it, bathed and slept. The girls managed to do some reading after clearing the evening dishes then bathed and slept. Most times the girls were very exhausted by bedtime. They usually slept a little later than the boys because they had to do their homework before going to bed. All this didn't deter Tolani from excelling in her studies though, she was very brilliant and always one of the top three in her class but that was because she was very interested in her studies and she read most nights till very late. I'm going to get so much education I'll be able to fight for a better life for women, she told herself as she read her books.
Tolani was a resentful girl growing up. It especially bothered her that she and her sisters were made to serve their brothers; both the older and younger ones. It irritated her that her brothers weren't required to do things as easy as pick up their plates of food on the kitchen table to serve themselves or to wash their own dishes after eating. Tolani and her sisters had to serve all the foods on the dining table. Sometimes the boys would be seated in the sitting room watching television when food was ready and the already tired girls would be required to serve them their foods where they were relaxing, laughing and having a good time. One day when her mother asked them to serve the boys in the sitting room Tolani refused,
"I will not mother!"
Her mother stopped dishing the food and looked at her in astonishment.
"What did you say?"
"I'm not serving them today! They can also come and pick up their food in the kitchen for once! Why do I have to go and serve them? Are they better than us because they are boys?!"
Tolani's mother slapped her hard and she fell to the kitchen floor. Her father and brothers rushed in to see what was going on. Her mother told them what Tolani had said. Her father was silent while her mother made Tolani serve all the food by herself. Later in the evening, Tolani's father called her outside and made her sit by his side on the bench in front of the house.
"Tolani, I've noticed your growing resentment to the roles being played by a girl as against that of a boy in the house but I need you to know that the best thing is to embrace the role society has assigned to you. It's not a punishment; it's just the way things are. As you can see, I go out to make money while your mother's work is mainly to maintain the home. It is the way most homes operate and we are training you now to prepare you for your future role as a wife and mother." He said.
"But I don't want to be a wife and mother father, I want to be a lawyer or a banker. Why do I have to learn to play roles I don't even want to be?"
Her father laughed. "Whatever else you try to be in life, as a girl you are still going to be somebody's wife, that is your ultimate role or you will end up a societal reject."
"So if the reason I work all day is because I am training to be a wife, how are the boys training to be husbands?"
Her father paused before answering her "Well, they partake in men's chores."
"What are the men's chores?"
"Well, like washing the car and following their fathers for business meetings."
Their father didn't have a car and he had no business meetings to attend so the Ige boys continued with their lazy lifestyle and Tolani and her sisters continued being tired and discontent. This was her childhood until the turning point when she met Ebun Clark.
YOU ARE READING
THE MAD MAMMOTH
General FictionTolani had been married to her husband Tunji for twenty-one years in a society that preached and encouraged male superiority and partiality. She took all the hurts and betrayals from him until the day she learnt he had been keeping a shocking secret...
