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NEW TELEGRAPH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2015
Mom&Parenting Being a mother for more than 30 years, what has the experience been like? It’s been quite interesting. Most of my marriage life has been in the US and it exposed me to different experiences. It’s a little bit different form how it is seen here in Nigeria, so I had to adapt to the two environments, and the marriage has brought me five beautiful children who have continued to amaze me with their achievement. I also have two grandchildren, so it has been quite interesting. It has been worthwhile and I am blessed with the best husband I can ever ask for. I have two boys and three girls. What were the challenges of bringing them up, from childhood to adulthood? As a mother, I want the best for my children so I always watch out for their educational part. I ensure that they get the best education, by getting them in the right school. I have always worked with people to get references and I have been lucky to get my children into the right schools, which also helped them to complete their education properly. As a result, they got into the right jobs. In this type of environment you have to watch out for who takes care of your children which is one of the challenges I had as a working mother. You also have to get people to take care of the children while you are at work to ensure that there is no problem, so I have had to manage that very closely and at times I have to send people from the office to watch what the domestic help was to my children, to ensure that there was no problem that could damage them. I have good family support especially when I came back to Nigeria. Balancing work and being a parent and ensuring that I give the best to my children weren’t easy. Although, it eventually paid off because I am happy that the results turned out well. Though, they might have suffered a little bit, because as a working mother, I wasn’t always there, that might have affected them to some extent but I am happy that I was able to balance it. Are you saying you single handedly brought up your children? No I couldn’t have done that alone, my husband was there. Naturally, men are normally busy.
Mom&Parenting
Oluwatosin Omoniyi City Editor
© Daily Telegraph Publishing Company Limited
Motherhood: Sweet, sour task To Victoria Ekhomu, a mother of five and managing director of a security outfit, Trans World Security System, motherhood is a life time project. She speaks to Shalewa Pedro on the importance of managing the home alongside work
Mrs. Ekhomu
He was there except the time that I was over there with the first two children while he was here most of the time. He was more of here than the US. It was not easy for me balancing it on that side because I was doing my masters while bringing them up and my other family members were in Nigeria. But when I came back here, I had full family support. My parents were here, my mother and siblings were here, not that they were living with us but they visit often. What was the driving force for nurturing your children to success? My parents did the best they
could for us, that is, my siblings and I. As a result, all my siblings had their first degrees and my parents said they were ready to give us our masters if we were ready. Even before my mum died, they made sure that all of us were graduate, and some of us who wanted to have masters had masters and were married and were all settled in our homes. So, they inculcated those right values in me and then they also inculcated into me the values of having and sustaining a good name, ensuring that you don’t disgrace it, so that kept me on the right path of life. As a mother, I also had to do the same for my children. I ensure that they got the right education and what I am trying to prepare them for
next is to get married. I have not been as successful as I want to but I am still praying that they settle down properly so that I can also be proud of that. As a busy mother, how did you create time for your children? You have to know things that are important, having time for your children is very important. I believe that we are working for them to be able to take care of them. Luckily, we have weekends, and when you close from work, you have to create time for the children. You are all together on the dining table and then you play together. In the evening, tell stories and everything. I also urge parents to use weekends
and vacation period to bond with their children. Child molestation is very rampant, what factors do you think are responsible for this? I think part of the things responsible for this is that these days, we have homes with both parents working and when they are both working, children are left to the mercy of domestic helps. For instance, my grandson is here, he could be at home with the helpers. He might be disturbing me but he is here just to ensure that there is no abuse, there is no molestation. At times they beat up these children, at times, abandon them. They just do all sorts of things. Relations also abuse or molest their children. They feel comfortable with relations and then the relation will turn out to molest them. I made sure my children feel very close to me, open up to me at all times. And that actually worked for one of my children. There was a guy that comes round to my house. Though, he was not a relation but he was more like a relation because the father of the boy is someone like a pastor to my husband’s family. Whenever he comes around, the children feel free to play with him. One day one of my daughters raised the alarm that the guy was trying to touch her in sensitive part of the body. I told my husband and that was the last day that guy was allowed into our home. Some men molest their children too. My advice is that mothers shouldn’t look away, they should be watchful. They should at least just check from time to time to be sure that something like that is not going on. It has also been observed that parents, teachers and religious leaders engage in molesting children, what do you think could be the problem? These people you just mentioned: Religious leaders, parents and teachers; to the children, they are relatives, they feel close to them, they trust them, there’s that trust and they do not understand what’s going on except they have been told what should not happen. That is where sex education becomes necessary. So, they should feel free to come out and say something and you will know how to handle it without endangering the child but those people we tend to trust are the ones that at times molest and even damage the child’s life which might affect them all their lives. CONTINUED ON PAGE 34