I was one of those who would immediately turn up their noses whenever the expression ‘baby mama’ was used. Don’t blame me. I just couldn’t understand it. What exactly did it mean? Are there, perhaps, any babies without mamas? It is just like the common expression ‘love child’. Do we also have ‘hate child’? I didn’t think so. But I digress.
However, as more and more young and not so young women continue to wear the baby mama title like a fashion armlet, flaunting picture perfect looks of themselves and the ‘mama babies’ everywhere you go like MTN, I have been forced to confront my own self-inflicted ignorance and find for it a permanent cure. And yes, I am completely healed and have come to my senses. Thank you. Just think about it. Even in an economy where the rich is now also wailing, as a baby mama I am totally covered. You still don’t get it? Okay, just give me a minute while I break it down for you – in naira and kobo of course! The minimum remuneration package for this position goes thus: A basic monthly salary of N300k plus an all-paid for apartment in a choice area, plus a brand new car. Remember we haven’t factored in the other perks, including bonuses, night allowance, leave allowances and even our famous 13th month. I forgot to add that this juicy package is tax-free too. I am not done with the benefits.
For instance, being a baby mama does not require any commuting. Your office and tools are right there in your body at the initial stage of your career and then as you climb the ladder, your lap, back, arms or whatever it is you require to nurse and nurture a baby will always be with you too. So imagine being a baby mama in a city like Lagos where people have to spend three hours to get to work and another three back. Just picture what you could achieve in those wholesome six hours your deluded peers spend on the road daily in the name earning a legitimate living, whatever that means.Watch all the soapy soaps on Zee World back to back, scan through the Africa Magic channels every 35 minutes, and don’t forget your friends who left home at 5am in order to be at work in Victoria Island on time. Yes, call them for some worthless chitchat. After all, phone bill allowance also comes with the position, or how else will you reach your ‘baby daddy’ to inform him that your product, sorry, baby is due for a routine medical exam? And if your baby daddy is gentlemanly and generous enough to throw a nanny, live-in or otherwise, in the mix for you, then life becomes an endless vacation. You may also be entitled to yearly vacations in exotic locations. All you need to do is play your cards well.
Also imagine if you replicate this business model with say, two or three other baby daddies. Hmmm… life would be just too good. The possibilities here are endless. Tell me again why any girl with healthy ovaries and a serviceable womb would want to choose any other career. Move over banks and multinationals, the dream job for any fertile woman has finally been unveiled. I mean you work from morning until night, hunched over a computer, sometimes editing boko haram articles, left wondering which Nigerian language – never mind that you were told it’s English – the writer was writing in so you can get an appropriate translator.
At other times, you are almost bursting a vein, screaming like a fishwife at unteachablesubordinates who belong to an uncommon generation with a serious case of untreatable hard work phobia. It doesn’t matter how diligently you work, the baby mama’s consolidated monthly pay can accommodate your three-year salary and still have change (not APC’s brand o). Believe me, theirs is the life. But there is a caveat. If you, as a woman, with all the potential and treasures deposited in you at creation decide that your reproductive organs, garnished with a handful of cunning and coquetry, are the only attributes you require to afford and live a life of luxury, no one should lose sleep over it.But don’t you dare come back tomorrow shouting marginalisation, unless the occasion is an NGO roundtable on self-marginalisation. Some words like dignity and self-respect should, from that point on, become taboo for you. Be ready also to look your child in the eye someday and explain how you made him your meal ticket. I’m just saying… Now, where is my gynaecologist; I need her to ascertain that my fallopian tubes and other reproductive tools are still running at full steam. Living the good life should be every woman’s right, right? Wait; did she just say something about menopause? Sigh! Now you know the reason why the five fingers of a hand will never be equal. Time to go back to my computer and chase down overdue reports and unrepentant underperformers. The beat goes on…
