Would you return a problematic adopted child?

What will you do if you adopt a problematic child?
Will u send the child back because you know you can? Or will you take it as your cross because if it were a child born by you, you will have no where to take the child?
A lot of families treat adopted children very well, that one who is not told will not realise the child was adopted. Also a lot of families treat adopted children badly

"Adoptive parents forced to send their children back into care have spoken of the emotional turmoil which led to their heartbreaking decisions.
Despite thousands of youngsters successfully being taken in by families there are some who are sent back into care by parents who feel they can't cope.
Social services warned one father that the boy he was adopting could be difficult but he wasn't prepared for the violent outbreaks.
Rob, not his real name, said the boy aged four or five was "violent towards my wife."
He added: "She got kicked and thumped. There was quite a lot of emotional abuse to her as well.
"My wife now shows the sort of symptoms of someone who's suffered domestic abuse."
Prof Selwyn said children who were older when they were placed with a new family were far more likely to suffer disruption.

If you find yourself in a situation, where you have your own biological children and decided to adopt a couple more children to help the society and those adopted children are violent and negatively influencing your children, what will you do?

Italicised part culled from mirror.co.uk

Who does the chores at home?

In Africa, its taken to be the wife's duty to cook, wash, clean, take care of the children and generally run the home, while the man provides the money for running the home.

Who made this rule? No one, it is just sort of a norm having been passed on from our parents and grand parents.

Times have changed and a lot of wives are not just stay at home mothers or "housewives" as its commonly called.
They work 8am-4pm and sometimes later than 4pm and some own their personal businesses.

Is it still expected for the woman to work/ run her business and also completely run the home?
In homes where there are helps, say a cook, 1/2 nannies, a driver, a gateman and all that to do chores and run errands, the husband can afford to just provide the money and not do anything else, but he will be providing a lot of money to pay these domestic servants and take care of fees, feeding, clothing all that his family needs.

Some men actually do not have the time. They are always away on trips and even when they r home based, they run around to make money and by the time they get home they are tired. Whereas when a woman is tired, she can still force herself to do somethings, i've noticed its not the same with a man.

Taking care of children is a full time job, we pick up after them, keep an eye on them always so they don't get hurt, prepare their meals, assist with homework, listen to them when they want to talk and a host of other little things.

So, how do we balance taking care of the home and working, in a scenario where there is no house help?
The easiest way in my opinion is for the husband to help, no matter how little.
While the wife is cooking, he can assist with home work. When she is bathing the children and getting them ready for school/church/outings, he can iron their clothes and set the table.
There are a lot of ways balance can be achieved and it involves everyone working together to keep the home.

Children should also be taught early to pick up after themselves and keep themselves busy in a good way when their parents are busy. It can be by drawing or coloring or doing something safe they enjoy.

The life of a woman

I AM A WOMAN!!! -
So what?
I get into an argument with a man, he slaps me, I feel the pain, yet they tell me I provoked him. I should have been quiet, I should have been patient. I should apologize to him.
I get into an argument with a man, I slap him, they tell me I have no respect, no home training. I should have been quiet, I should have been patient. I should apologize to him.

Because I am a woman, I don't have a right to be angry. So, the degree of my innocence is directly proportional to the degree of my silence in the face of oppression and brutality.....

Because I am a woman, my husband cheats on me, I am told to tolerate it to save my marriage. The barbaric and stupid excuse is that ''it is in their nature to cheat, I should slim down, dress better, cook better, pray harder and be more pleasant to him"

I cheat, and I am called a whore, I have committed an abomination, I have no right to look elsewhere for the love and emotional support I lack at home, I am an irresponsible mother.
So I am sent packing, from the home we both built, with all my earthly possessions stuffed into a tiny box on my head. I am henceforth forbidden from seeing my two older children, I'm lucky to be allowed to go with my little one still suckling on my left breast. Three years later, the little one is tagged a bastard. Now, my new name is "after-three", because I am a woman.

He is 28 and runs a company. He's tagged wonderful, hardworking, focused, career oriented, successful at a very young age.

I am 28 and I run a company " Hmmmm, she is not even married, unserious, can not order her priorities right, a hustler, loves money, let her go and get a husband oh"
And I wonder if being successful has anything to do with a person's gender.
Because I am a woman,

I am not allowed to have wits or be a prodigy, I cannot be financially buoyant, professionally successful or be treated with respect without a man beside me.
Then I am tagged a generous leg opener, "a runs girl". They never see the possibility that I actually had to go through ups and downs to get to where I am.
Because I am a woman.

A man looses his wife to death and remarries a year after, he did the right thing, he's being praised and congratulated for moving on, after all life is for the living.

A woman looses her husband to death and remarries after 4yrs, "ahhh! so early? Are u sure she wasn't sleeping with that man even when her husband was alive? That was why she killed her husband. She's a witch! " Because she's a woman.

Because I am a woman, this post will be considered controversial, and everyone will try to correct me.
But don't forget, that I am a woman and it does not make me less human!!!
God bless every woman for the tolerance.
Dedicated to EVERY WOMAN❤
#COPIED

A little laugh

I was just in the kitchen cooking when my 3yr old came to tell me his older siblings said he's an old man.
Obviously he wasn't happy that they called him an old man, so I said he's a man but he's not yet old so he he'll be an old man when he's old.

He thought for a while and said "mummy am I new?" Hahahaha
Laughing, I answered him yes you are new for now.

What is the "ideal" number of children

What is the ideal number of children for a family?
Personally I think there's nothing like an ideal number of children for a family.

A lot of things determine how many children a couple should have, and its entirely up to the husband and wife to decide how many children they want and work towards it.
Factors like income and personal desires are major deciding factors to how many children one wants to have.

Taking good care of our children is a major goal and as such we should have the number of children we can comfortably take care of, financially, emotionally and even physically.
Where one doesn't want to keep house helps, cooking, bathing the children, assisting with home work, running errands and other relevant duties should be put into consideration.
Feeding, clothes, school fees and other extras like vacations, should also be considered in the financial angle of child upbringing.

Before I got married I wanted to have 5 children. After I got married and had my 1st child, I reduced the number to 4 children. By the time i had my 2nd child I had further reduced it to 3 children and was considering having just the 2 God had already given me. I just made a last minute decision to have one more because if I left it any longer, I'm sure I would have stopped at just 2. All these while my husband would have been OK with just 1, he said as much when we met. For him, 2 was stretching it. And here we are with 3 wonderful children.

1st hand, I know its not easy, financially, emotionally, spiritually and all round but having children and the number to have is a decision to be planned by the parents, considering the above factors.

Some have more children than they planned because they have all children the same gender and are looking for a male or a female child.

But otherwise we all have an idea of how many children we want from the word go.

The bane of Nigeria

Why is Nigeria, a country so blessed, so backwards?
This question has been so used, it has become a cliché but the answer is as elusive as ever.

Nigeria is blessed with a lot of good things, raw material, fertile soul, intellectuals, you name it she has it.

Nigerians excel wherever they are and in whatever they do- in the medical field, engineering, trade and commerce, banking, even scam.

So why are we still where we are today?
In my opinion, the problem of Nigeria is Nigerians. Rather than look within, see and develop the good in us, we look for acceptance from others. We do this as a nation and as individuals, as leaders and as masses.

It starts with us, given what is due to who it is due.

We should give jobs to those who merit it rather than "who know man", we shouldn't increase the prices of Nigerian products because their foreign alternatives are far more expensive.
Let's encourage " made in Nigerian products ", there are some very good ones, we can start from there.

Cattle rearers now engage police officers in shoot outs. How is this even happening?

Police officers should stop looking for bribes and actually put their backs into their jobs which is " to protect lives and properties " because they seem to have forgotten that part. Their motto is now "guilty until you pay".

Until importation of refined crude oil products can be stopped, the prices should be regulated(I don't mean a group of people pocketing money). Attention should be paid to getting the refineries working.

Agberos (transport touts) should be swept off our roads. In fact I don't want to get started with this set of people, God help us here.

Civil servants who once behind their desks fancy themselves mini-deities, carry on their personal businesses to the detriment of the jobs they are paid for(in recent times though- jobs they are hardly paid for).

It is from one story of a nigerian customer being asked to stand up in a banking hall for a white customer to sit, to whites bashing a car and going scot free while the owners of the car that was bashed are detained, to black employees being outrightly bullied and underpayed by their white employers in Nigeria.

Don't get me wrong, I am not racist and I'm not trying to be but fair play matters in all things. We should demand fairness to ourselves and foreign visitors and expect it. Until we start acting in ways deserving of respect ourselves, we cannot get the respect due us.

I could go on and on but I believe everyone needs to look at themselves and appreciate who and what we are, to help Nigeria be a better place.

Phcn wahala, officials beaten

This country's power situation is nothing to write home about.
There's been no power where I live this year. In fact we didn't enter into this year with electricity from PHCN.

A couple of days after Christmas, 3 "NEPA"(we still prefer calling them NEPA) officials came with ladder asking for payment receipt. There was none to give them because we just moved to the house and its a new building and no meter. They insisted on us paying #7,000. I laughed because I knew that ain't happening and I told them as much.
OK, what was the 7k for? They claimed it was 2k for reconnection(for wire they had not disconnected) and 5k for loss of revenue for a month.

We had not stayed for up to a month and I told them as much. They said I must still pay the 5k. At this point I had called my husband because I'm not really good at these sorts of things.
I had to keep them busy and stop them from cutting our wire till husband comes back.

Somehow I was able to convince them to leave our wire. They had already cut the wire of the building opposite ours that was connected to us and took the wire.
I told them I was definitely not paying up to 5k, let's be waiting though. They carried their ladder and moved on, insisting on me collecting their number because they will come back to cut the light if they don't hear from us.

Hmmm!!! Finally oga came and sorted them. We decided to go the route of paying the loss of revenue in a bank and upon enquiry, we found out it's #3,000 as opposed to the #5,000 they told me, imagine that!

We had power supply for about 2days after that incident and poof!!! No more.
On asking around to find out what happened, we were told some PHCN officials were beaten up and in annoyance our line was disconnected pending when the people who beat them are brought forward.

Even when all the areas around us are shinning brightly with NEPA, we are burning off fuel to charge phones and perform other necessities. Its wasteful and tiring
Nigeria, which way???

I think card meters should be compulsory for all buildings and this cutting light mess stopped immediately. It has become very annoying.

Good morning people

Its a beautiful and cool Tuesday morning.
It has refused to rain though the signs are  all over. How's your day starting already.

What are your plans for today? What did you have for breakfast?

A number of us already have a plan and "to dos " for the day. How do we ensure we complete set tasks and on time too?
Come and share how you plan on completing you tasks for the day and if you actually did.

Tonto Dike Churchill and motherhood

Tonto Dike has been on the news a lot these past couple of weeks. And for nothing other than being a mother and a wife.

Its been one rumour of her husband having an affair with his PA to a true story  of her apologies to Mercy Johnson for something she said to Mercy regarding her(Mercy's) child when she(Tonto) wasn't married.

I was really impressed with the way she publicly apologized to Mercy Johnson. It takes a great woman to acknowledge her faults and an even greater woman to come out years after to put things right. That there is a mother putting her child before herself.

 
Although I think Tonto Dike put herself and her marital affairs out there too much right after she got married, I don't think it's anyone's business what goes on in her home. Everyone is entitled to their methods of expressing happiness. Marriage is a beautiful experience when one is in it with the right person and under the right circumstances.

That she chose to express her joy by gushing about her husband and his gifts to her, doesn't mean rumors about their standing in the marriage should be peddled unfeelingly.

She is a mother now and a lot of things will change, abruptly and gradually. Let's cut her some slacks. She can't go every where with her #kingkong as in the days of old.

She has even gone as far as running tests and making the result public to prove to all "nosy bodies" that she's clean and can breastfeed her child without issues.

Let's please give her a rest from the constant poke nosing and let her be.

Its a brand new day

Good morning people,
Waking up early, preparing breakfast, bathing the children , ensuring they eat quickly and off to school. That's my usual morning routine and it's no different today.

How do we as parents cope with our children? I know its not easy. But then, cope, we must.
Some families have some form of help, live in nannies or those helps  who come in the morning and leave at the close of the days work, there are also those who come in to work for a number of days in the week. These assistance eases the stress of house chores, errands and some energy and time sapping duties.

But in cases where there are no helps, how do the parents cope? Some families have both parents pitching in and helping out. The father helping children with home work while the mother makes dinner and similar things.

There was a time I used to sweep and tidy my home at night when my children are sleeping. In the morning when they are off to school, I run all errands that need attention and then I get back home, make lunch and dinner before they close from school. Its not easy but then, what works for me right?

So tell me, what works for you as a parent?
For the working mother/father, how do you work around things?

The quadrant

I am sure you can't guess what I'm going to write about from the title.
Well its about four people in the nigerian entertainment industry- Gideon okeke, chiwetalu agu, Chioma chukwuka-akpotha and Tony one week.

I'm sure we've all heard about the call outs and fall outs. But for those of us who may not know what this is about, here's a brief summary:
Gideon Okeke a nollywood  actor, said  Chiwetalu Agu's habit of using some vulgar words repeatedly in his movies, is no longer ideal as children watch these movies.
Chioma Akpotha replied by calling Gideon disrespectful and new generation actors generally lacking of morals.
Chiwetalu Agu said he doesn't even know who Gideon Okeke is. (Funny)
Tony one week, took sides with Gideon Okeke and claimed to be shocked at Chioma's reply. Especially with Chioma being a mother.

And I say for the sake of our children, who can be exposed to these films, vulgar words should not be used in Nollywood films rated for general viewing.

Imagine watching a movie rated G with kids and then an actor uses an Igbo vulgar word. The child would want to know what the word means, especially when it's repeated a lot throughout the movie. How does one begin to explain that?

Mind you we are only talking about this because of how it affects our children not for trending gossips sake.

Cartoons and our children (3). What to do

How do we balance the rate at which our children watch cartoons and TV in general? Getting the benefits while ensuring there are no negative effects on our little ones.
While still learning to balance with my children, this is what the pros have(research has) to say.

We have to ensure we don't get carried away by the peace we get, when they are occupied watching TV. So we have to put them first by cutting short our "me time" and getting them involved in other healthy activities.

Let's try to set TV time limits from day 1.
Instead of a child watching long stretches at a go, say 2 hours straight, try to break up the length of time, to 30-45minutes with 5-10minutes intervals.

We should try to watch the programmes our children ate watching, so we can get a feel of them. I try to do this and on occasions when my children view a newly introduced cartoon and can't stop talking about it, I try to watch with them. I've stopped them from watching a cartoon I don't like after watching with them once. They complained but finally we all agreed and they now change the channel when I'm not with them and that program is to be aired.

We can buy DVD's or record cartoons and programs with good content for them, so we are sure of what they are watching. This also solves the problem of their exposure to adverts that encourage them to eat junk food. Win-win.

If we can, (I know this one will be hard though) we should keep our children from TV till they are 18months (1year and 6 months) old. And then they can have some minutes a day of supervised viewing from 18months till they are 2 years old..

As a mother, I know it's not easy but we can try.

Cartoons and our children (2). The good

  Still on our discussion about the effect of cartoons on our young ones.
  Let's talk about the positive effects because believe it or not, there are numerous advantages to our children watching cartoons.
  There are times my children are telling me something and I'm lost. Let's take an example of an incident that happened yesterday. My daughter was talking about a blow fish(between you and I, I don't know what it is) so I asked her what a blow fish is. She then explained that its a fish that puffs up and looks like a balloon with spikes on it.
   I went further to ask her where she learnt about it and she said in a cartoon. My husband and I looked at each other because he knows the fish but I didn't and I was impressed. I googled it later and read up on the puffer fish/blow fish.
   So our children watching cartoons, indirectly teaches us and spurs us to learn more for their sakes. That's a good thing right?
   Quality children's programme can teach our children good manners, how to interact with people, world history and cultures, basic science (take Nina and the neurons for example), how to help those in need and a lot of other positives.
   On the plus side for us the parents too we need some time to ourselves without their disturbances. Times to breathe, to hurriedly or leisurely cook that meal you've been longing to cook in a while, to take a nap or to surf the internet, to read some chapters of that book you've been reading for months and all such catch ups. But generally, there are times we need space. At such times, cartoons to the rescue.
   So why too much cartoons can be bad for our children, a little is definitely good for them and for us.

Cartoons and our children

   How do we handle our children and the length of time they spend in front of the TV.
  Most of us send our children off to watch cartoons, just so they can get off our necks and give us some space to do house chores, run some errands or just to have some "me time".
   Is it a good idea? How long is ideal for them to spend in front of the TV. What should they watch? These are questions I have been asking myself.
   While them watching TV can't be so bad, are all cartons good for our children. There are some educational children programmes but somehow a lot of children get bored by them easily and prefer the likes of doc mcstuffins, Sofia the first, miles from tomorrow, Jake and the Neverland pirates and a host of others like PJ masks(which I don't like).
  
Research has shown that:

* children under 2years old do not really understand cartoons they watch

*modern cartoons portray a lot of violence and children's exposure to these kinds may make them violent or make them feel the world is a scary place

*parents gradually begin to use cartoon as the easy way out to get their children off their hair. This can get the children addicted to tv

*children who watch too much cartoon (more than 4hours per day consistently) at an early age are at risk of obesity

This is why its imperative for us to monitor our children's screen time so they don't spend too much time watching TV and become couch potatoes.

There'll be subsequent posts on this topic. Watch out.
Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment

Meet me

I'm a wife and a mother.
Sometimes I feel like talking to someone and pouring out my emotions and hearing other people's ideas and experiences on life, on marriage, on how we raise our children, on our coping mechanisms regarding the affairs of our country and the world at large.
I just don't want to drop trending stories and gossips. I want "us" to discuss how these stories affect our everyday lives and the best way to move forward despite these obstacles/difficulties,_for ourselves our husbands and our children.
I want to be part of a story of triumph. Our story of victory.

Its welcome then

Phew!! Finally,
Its been year after year trying to find a means to express my thoughts, put down my ideas and experiences, have a personal place to say what I feel and hear your thoughts too.... Yes YOU.
So let's call it "home4reel" our little space for sharing thoughts and ideas.