He who fears to be hurt, should never love

“He who fears the thorns should never crave the rose,”

Love is beautiful, it feels so nice to love and be loved. A soul that is loved and pampered is everyone’s envy. The glow on her face supersedes even the annoying daily schedules. The thought of him brightens her day and her eyes are blinded, she can’t even see the fault that others see in him.

However, to some people, love is just a sweet dream, a bedtime story and nothing more. When you wake up, you feel the thorns, your heart sinks and your appetite dies.
This is what we call real life. Before you choose to step in the ocean, keep your other foot at the shore.

Life is a ‘bed of roses’ beautiful, lovely but once you lay on it, you can never escape the thorns. When you choose to love get ready to be hurt, to share and to spend some nights awake.
At a certain age, we stop searching and just settle with what we have. As you grow, you realise that not all dreams come true, you smile at your childhood fantasies but appreciate and work towards reality. If you fail, you are bound to marry every year and have four children from four wives.

“He who fears the thorns should never crave the rose,” goes the old adage. Relationships and marriage are for strong people. People who don’t threaten to divorce every moment something goes wrong. An Adult who doesn’t run to his/her parents or senga every time they are starved. Or a bold woman who doesn’t call her ex every time kameeza money is not enough.
When you choose to move in with him or her, we believe that you are ready for whatever comes with that decision. Of course, it will not be as soft as you expected but who says you are supposed to rush out of the examination room because the exam is tougher than you expected.

When you choose to love get ready to be hurt, to share and all the package that comes with commitment

As we sent off a friend for marriage, his aunt shared an old story of a dog on a bridge.
Sometime back, a dog crossed the bridge to search for food. It was rushing that it didn’t pay attention as it passed the bridge. After getting its prey, it started to walk back home but as it stepped on the bridge, it noticed another dog below it with a much bigger prey.

It tried so much to ignore but eventually greed caught up with it, it wanted to get the bigger animal the below the bridge had. How could it keep its meat and still get the other?
It had to make a choice, either to just go with the meat in its mouth or drop it in the water, dive in and get the other meat from the ‘other dog’. It gave in to the latter.
Little did this dog know that ‘the other dog’ in the water was actually its shadow and not reality. In the end, it lost out on both targets.

That’s life, if you are not satisfied with what you have, in an effort to get more, you might end up losing even what you have.
Husbands, treasure the wives you have, she might not look as good as your neighbour’s wife but she belongs to you.

Regardless of the hurt and challenges the two of you go through, nothing is permanent and if you shift your eyes from what is around you and concentrate on what you have you will realise that – a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Christine Nakalungi

 

Is there a ‘stepmother’ who is good enough?

 

A step child is delicate, emotionally and if you are not willing to be his/her mother-its better you don;t get involved.

I grew up watching my aunt raise another woman’s child. She treated all of us equally but to her husband and his relatives, she was always lacking in some way. We always did chores in turns but neighbours and relatives paid more attention when it was the other child’s turn and not mine. I watched them drain my aunt emotionally. And no matter how hard she tried, they never looked convinced.

Dating a man with a child may be ok but marrying them, think more than thrice. For starters, by signing that marriage certificate, you are not only bound to that man and his family but to a child (by this I mean his/her mother and family too). If a child is young, they are innocent but once the neighbours, agemates, in-laws get to know the real relationship…he or she will be corrupted. He/she will eventually begin to pay more attention to how you talk to them, the way you treat your biological children. And it’s even worse if his/her mother is alive and not happy in her marriage (that’s if she ever got one).

She will claim she has dreams about you strangling her child, feeding her with dirty stuff or even denying her child the life they deserve. You will give 70 per cent (I am not sure you can ever love that child 100 per cent) of your energy to raise this child but in times of sickness, they will instead let the other woman in the ward with claims that she is the one on the birth certificate.
Why do men have to sneak around and ask their children fishy questions like, did you eat well? Were you given meat or they just gave you soup? Because deep down he will never trust that you will raise his child perfectly.
When you are strict they will blame you for being hard on the child and when you are lenient and choose to spare the rod… everyone will blame you for destroying the child’s life. It’s so hard to know what to do, when or where when it comes to his child.

No matter the energy a stepmother will put into raising a child, the society might or will never appreciate it

The world has branded ‘step mothers’ as evil and NollyWood hasn’t helped the situation with Patience Ozokwor proving that you trust your child with a stepmother at your own risk. Most men will claim that the easiest path to his heart is through ‘his child’ well, you might win him over but you might lose yourself in the process.

Have you ever wondered why the ‘bad’ stepmother can raise her nieces and nephews and no one ever complains? Well, maybe it’s because every time she sees your child, she imagines you (man) and the mother’s child in bed. But I believe it’s because no one expects her to be cruel to her ‘blood’ but the society is corrupted to believe the worst.

Accepting to raise his child means signing up for a life of trying to prove to him, his relatives and the entire society that you are actually a good person. Now, in our African culture full of witchcraft, it’s even worse. If a child falls sick, performs poorly at school, they will blame you for being responsible and God forbid if the child dies…you can even be banned from burial since no one will believe that African step children can also face misfortunes.

Every child deserves to grow up in love, but it’s more than accepting the responsibility. A friend of mine once said, I can raise a child as long as his/her mother is dead so that she does not have to raise the child with fear of criticism and ingratitude. The in-laws are a headache already; you don’t need to add another family to your issues (the child’s family). And then the baby mama baggage! Who can sign up for that?

By Christine Nakalungi