“Madam move! Move your car!”
Those were the voices of other motorists yelling at Tola Obatunde to move her car parked in the middle of the road. She was held up in traffic with her newborn baby and four-year-old daughter, IgbereTV reports.
Tola was actually breastfeeding right in the middle of Lagos traffic. Her baby was hungry and cranky. All efforts to pacify the baby were not working; she had to pull over in the middle of the road and breastfeed.
Earlier in the morning, she had pumped some breast milk for the baby using a breast pump, but he had finished it at the crèche. But, obviously, that wasn’t enough to get the baby through the evening traffic.
Many people believe children are pure blessings that come into our lives bringing so much joy and changing our lives forever, but raising them can be a struggle.
Tola, for example, is a 28-year-old who works as a scriptwriter with an advertising agency in Lagos. She wakes up as early as 4 am daily, to prepare her kids for school and get to her office in the heart of Lagos, as early as possible. When her daily routine – which includes picking the kids from school extremely late – started to take a toll, she recruited a help, an elderly woman who comes early in the morning and in the evening to assist her. This wasn’t helpful still.
“Most times, I am done with the whole work before the woman comes pleading and explaining why she came late. So, to me, it really wasn’t that helpful. So, I had to stop it,” she said.
Theresa Iginla is two years older than Tola. She is a graduate of psychology and a banker married to another banker. They have two boys aged two and three.
Theresa describes the experience as extremely tough. She has to wake up very early, get the kids ready and ensure she puts the kids in a crèche close to her office. She also has to prepare for morning meetings and presentations in the office, most of which she gets to looking tired and exhausted.
“‘Madam, calm down,’ one of my bosses told me one day that I got to our 9 am meetings looking shabby and tried,” Theresa said.
“The pressure at work and caring for your little one can’t be balanced. I do lose myself during those times. Both physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual life was affected. The morning was always the rush hour for us since we couldn’t find a maid although I was not cool with the idea of getting one. Creche couldn’t help me because the ones close to my office closed early.
“Bonding with the kids and my spouse wasn’t easy due to stress from the day. In a nutshell, the struggle was there but we thank God for sending helpers at the most crucial times we needed them.
