The title of this piece is a copyright from Aisha
Falode and her team of co-presenters of
“Amazons”, a magazine programme on African
Independent Television. The phrase was the topic
of the episode aired on Friday, August 28, 2015. I
watched the fascinating edition and therefore
decided to share my perspective on the issue with
a wider audience. In the episode, Nigerian
designer wives was the ascription given to
married career ladies who are trendy,
sophisticated, and cosmopolitan but deficient in
culinary prowess. They are women who are well-
read but lack the ability to manage the home
front. They rely heavily on house-helps to clean
and cook thereby outsourcing crucial matrimonial
duties.
Ace actress, Funke Akindele, in one of the recent
episodes of her highly entertaining TV drama
entitled “Jennifer’s Diary” featured a character
that best describe Aisha Falode’s Nigerian
designer wife. The lady couldn’t cook nor do any
household chore and only tried to do them when
she was about losing her fiancé to another
woman.
Is it not shocking that this country now has a
sizable number of married women who cannot
cook anything beyond noodle? There are even
some of them who cannot boil water let alone
egg. They have been so pampered that they do
not know the way to the market and if they do,
they don’t know the recipe for soup making; how
to identify good fish or meat; which yam is good
for pounded yam and which one is good for
porridge; how to bargain, etcetera.
There are many ladies in today’s Nigeria that hire
people to go to market for them. Thereafter, they
go for their cookery book for guidance on how to
go about preparing their meals. Some who
couldn’t cook order large quantum of prepared
food and soups from restaurants which they take
home to refrigerate and microwave when they
want to eat or entertain visitors. Some don’t even
bother themselves going through all that stress,
they simply eat out.
These designer wives do not know how to sweep,
wash plates and clothes, mop the floor, dust the
furniture, iron clothes, arrange the home and tidy
up their environment. While some of them make
heavy investment in purchasing washing
machines for their laundry; some others hire
people to do their home cleaning. Some do most
of their laundry at the dry cleaners. All these are
done at great financial and social costs.
What then do these designer wives know how to
do? Oh, a lot! They are fashionistas and are
specialist in the use of information and
communications technology. They are connected
to all the social media and can ping and chat
from morning till evening except when they are
busy at work. They regularly upload their latest
pictures on their social media accounts such as
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. They also are
good at watching the latest movies and films on
satellite television. They have favourite soap
operas they cannot afford to miss on terrestrial
TV. They know all the major characters in
Mexican soaps, Nollywood and Hollywood. They
like to gossip and as such spend quality time on
phones chatting up friends, colleagues and
relations. They also love cars, customised, posh
wonders-on-wheel, with which they cruise town.
Above all, they like to party. In order to outshine
their peers and friends at social functions, they
spend fortunes acquiring the latest designer
dress, perfumes, jewelries, wristwatches, hats,
headgears, sun-shades, cosmetics and so on.
They are generally power dressers! They adorn
themselves with artificial eyelashes and nails as
well as padded brassiere (if they are not well
endowed with mammary-gland).
They are the typical women who pay attention to
their looks and spare no expense to look good.
They are the ones who go for tummy tuck, breast
enlargement and plastic surgeries just to look
elegant. Some of the designer wives also spend
time exercising and keeping fit. They diet a lot.
Because they do not want their breast to sag,
they often don’t spend more than a month
breastfeeding their children. In short, designer
wives want to be complimented as being sexy
and gorgeous.
The sad thing is that these designer wives hardly
have successful marriages. Though they may
have elaborate, talk-of-the-town weddings, their
marriages easily crumble like pack of cards as
their husbands face the reality of marrying wives
without proper home training. They often engage
in shouting matches with their husbands as they
bicker and nag over improper home management.
Even where the husbands are accommodating
and tolerant of their wives deficient domestic
skills, their family and friends often kick over the
mistreatment meted out to them when they visit.
How can a wife who cannot cook offer her
husband’s family or friends’ food when they come
visiting? Well, except someone offers to do it on
her behalf or she goes buying it. Some of these
wives, who depend heavily on hired female house
helps to assist with cooking and cleaning, have
had their husbands snatched from them. After all,
it is said that the way to a man’s heart is
through his stomach.
The worst part of this sad saga is that women
who do not know how to do house chores cannot
impart such skills on their children and wards.
Thus, we are gradually raising multiple
generations of women who though are bookish
and are accomplished professionals, lack good
moral and cultural education to create happy
homes. What a pity!
Incidentally, as there are designer wives, we have
designer husbands. These are husbands, who love
the good things of life, are trendy, classy, power
dressers, cannot do a single house chore nor help
out in child rearing and parenting. There is
nothing wrong in a man being highly
domesticated. Thanks to my mum. She thought
me how to cook, wash and do all domestic
chores. I recall that in those days, while growing
up in the ancient city of Ibadan, mother insisted
that we, all her children, should learn how to use
the grinding stone to grind pepper for vegetable
soup and porridge beans. I and my sisters took
turns to do that. My home management skills
came handy in my undergraduate and post
graduate years as well as during my bachelorhood
as I was able to do my house chores by myself
including cooking my meals. There should
therefore be no gender discrimination when it
comes to domestic duties.
For the designer wives, especially those of them
who wish to learn, the good news is that some
women who saw the knowledge gap have decided
to do something to help their fellow women. One
of such is Mrs. Ope Tejuosho, who has set up a
school in Lagos to educate women on home
management, cooking, etiquette and so on.
According to her, while featuring on the “Amazon”,
some mothers and husbands have been enrolling
their daughters and wives respectively in her
school. Apart from catering schools, there are
also television programmes where women and
men alike can learn culinary skills. In closing, our
parenting responsibility is incomplete if we do not
give our children life skills in home management.
All mothers and indeed fathers need to do
something about this before their daughters get
thrown out of their matrimonial homes.

www.punchng.com/opinion/nigerian-designer-wives/

As long as d husband isn't complainin then no wrong in that... But I opine dat such women should at least try and learn ...

They are many here

passionate88:
They are many here

how do you know ?

Didn't read...too long

Rukkydelta:
how do you know ?

I know

passionate88:
I know

examples are