CHUKWUNETA OBY FROM PUNCH
I use this story to point out an important reality to women.
According to a sister, her husband came back from work one day and handed over a letter to her.
The letter was addressed to him by the daughter of their gateman.
According to him, the teenage girl waited at the gate to give him the letter as he was driving out.
The sister said that what she could make out of the badly written letter was an appeal for help. She wants to go to school.
When I asked how she felt about the girl’s ‘audacity’, she told me that she felt both admiration and guilt.
Yes (according to her), it should have occurred to her that the young girl who is mostly found sitting by her mother’s side (making people’s hair) needs to be given a better life.
She said that she only encouraged the girl to start coming to her (and not her husband) for her needs.
But most importantly, she became more conscious of how the girl can benefit too when doing certain things for her children.
Recently, a lady reached out for a project she wanted us to work on. According to her, the menace of ‘hook-up’ amongst our young girls worries her and we decided to focus our social and material intervention on secondary school girls, so that ‘hook-up’ is not an option for a young girl who doesn’t want to go that route.
After watching the video of the Lagos married woman, who received a tipoff that a particular young lady was sleeping with her husband in his office and how she showed up at the lovers’ rendezvous with her friend, beat the young lady blue and black and tore her clothes.
This is what I have to say to every woman…
The same woman posted a video of her clubbing and ‘doing life with hubby’ some days later, by the way!
As long as there’s an army of young girls battling to keep their heads above the waters of hardship/poverty. No marriage is ‘temptation proof’.
Put yourself in the shoes of the average struggling young lady. Won’t you face squarely wherever your next meal can come from?
Sometimes, protecting your marital territory is not in being a tigress against younger women, giving him every sex style, dressing half your age and praying your lungs out at every prayer gathering.
You can also protect your territory by the effort you make to help redirect the path of young girls.
Don’t forget that these are also people that your children have the chance to meet in the real world.
Sowing a seed to God isn’t only when you have given money to the church.
Begin to sow a seed in the lives of young girls that cross paths with you.
Mentor them. Counsel them. Empower them. Train them. Protect them.
