Navigating work and household responsibilities

Creating balance is not a day job to me, because there are things that might come up along the line while we are trying to create balance with everything happening in our lives.

I love multitasking, but then I still have some lapses in some aspects because I am only a human and there is no how I can be perfect with creating balance with everything.

When I was still with my sister, I had a routine so there was nothing to balance with other than doing whatever I wanted to do in the house and then go to shop.

That has been my daily routine for some years, and I was able to maintain the balance between house chores and work. But then I got married and everything changed.

I never knew marriage can be so demanding like this because as a woman you are expected to be here and there in the house even though you are still going to work for the day.

Image captured and edited on canva by me

My husband is the kind of person that loves to do house chores but then I can't let him be doing everything because even if he doesn't complain about it people would talk about it, you all know we are in Nigeria and once neighbors noticed that husband is the one doing the cooking, laundry, and house cleaning, they will begin to say negative things about the woman without knowing what was happening.

So creating a balance between work and house chores is what I have been trying to figure out because I was used to waking up, washing plates if there is any and then cooking if I am hungry before going to work.

But now that I am married all that if there is a need is not relevant again because there would be a need to cook for my husband before leaving the house and of course do cleaning before leaving since it is my home and I wouldn't want to leave it unkept.

Meanwhile, while I was with my sister, she could do it for me even if I didn't do it. Now the difference is much because washing plates is now a must, cleaning the house is a must and laundry is also a must, unlike before when I will pile up my clothes till weekend.

Now I have extra clothes so I wouldn't want everything to pile up if not the weekend would be laundry all through.

What am trying to say is that I am still trying to balance my work and being a wife together so this is what I do.

The image is mine

I wake up as early as 6am to clean and wash my plate, and by the time it's 7am I will cook and the cooking will determine the time I would bath.

I usually leave home by 9-10am to work depending on how long the cooking takes, anytime I get to work by 10am that means I do a little laundry in the morning. I close at work by 6pm if there is no customer in the shop so that I can cook dinner, but then anytime I didn't close by 6pm my husband would have to be the one cooking dinner.

This sounds simple to balance with but it is not easy to get done because sometimes I might feel too tired to get up early in the morning and sometimes I do feel too lazy to cook even when I get home early so I am only trying to create balance between the two responsibilities.