Mothers are wonderful beings. We are capable of doing things that the average ‘man’ cannot do. We, women are called the weaker sex, but in so many ways, we are the stronger one. As women, we have this ability to multi-task, , and it is even more sharpened when we become mothers. We can handle several different tasks at the same time, and perfectly too. Men don’t, can’t do that. They have a one tracked mind that has to focus on one task at a time, especially when it comes to house chores. For mothers, though, it’s almost like second nature. Especially, when you live abroad and have to handle most of your duties and chores alone.
You know, no matter how you imagine things, you never really understand them until you experience it. That saying ‘experience is the best teacher’ is so on point. Of course we all knew that there would be no help when you’re living abroad. Not that you can’t get help, they just cost so much that most times, it doesn’t make any sense. You’d have to do everything yourself. 
Everything as in everything (well, almost everything especially if you’re a stay-at-home mom as DH won’t be there all the time). It’s not just the big things like cooking, laundry, bathing and feeding the kids, vacuuming etc, it’s also the little things. There is no diaper changed that isn’t done by you (unless DH is around to help). If something is on the floor, well , you might as well pick it up because nobody else is going to do it. Sometimes, it can be so overwhelming just thinking about all the things one has to do, and you’ll find out that if you have to focus on one task at a time, then 24hours won’t be enough to do all you have to do.
There’s nothing strange about cooking, doing laundry, vacuuming and playing with the baby all at the same time. Seriously. This afternoon, I was at the stove cooking and playing ball with my toddler while the laundry was in the machine at the same time. She wanted to go wake her sister who was taking a nap so I needed to distract her from her mission, and since she had wanted to play ball earlier, I figured I’d finally play the ball with her even though I was cooking. (I remember one of the house rules back at home in Nigeria was no ball-playing in the house. If you wanted to play ball, you had to go outside). I guess that rule just doesn’t apply here, especially in the winter!
The silver lining in this dark cloud though is that you have some help in the form of appliances to make your work easier. Starting from electricity, the refrigerator, to washing machines, microwaves etc, you can plan and organize yourself to make things easier for you. You can actually do all your serious cooking once a week and store in the refrigerator. I shudder just thinking of what life here would have been like if these things were not like necessities. It’ll be worse than not having help in Nigeria because at least in Nigeria, you’ll have one jobless friend or relative that can come around once in a while to help out or keep you company.
A friend of mine always said she’d ask her husband to go back home to Nigeria and pay more dowry on her because he just paid the dowry for a wife and mother, but he’s got a nanny, housekeeper, driver added to that. It cracks me up whenever I remember that because that really, is the fate of every woman with a family abroad.
