Welcome
Are you in the habit of rushing to work and equally rushing home because there is so much to do both at home and at work? Ever went to bed tired ignoring so many things in the bedroom and kitchen needing your attention, only to be interrupted a few hours later by the sound from your alarm clock? Do you always leave the house with more chores needing your attention that you carry part of your makeup/shoes and scarves to the office to dress appropriately later? Do you sometimes wish you could be in two or three places all at once? Are you a mother that works? Because if you are, then you'll appreciate and understand why there is a need to talk about how hard each day is for this superwoman called the "working mom".
Working Moms Nigeria is an endeavors to help women strike a healthy balance between earning a living and maintaining a good home.
22 November 2011
OJA-ARA FAIR DEBUTS IN LAGOS
WHEN STRONG WOMEN LEAVE THEIR MEN - THE CASE OF KATE HENSHAW AND RODERICK NUTTAL
Kate and Roderick on her 40th Birthday Celebration. |
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Working Mothers
When you are working through university or in the early years of your career, your life can feel pressure packed and often a little overwhelming. Fast forward through maternity and you'll have a good idea of what "overwhelming" really feels like, as you try to balance motherhood with your career aspirations. Working mums face an unenviable challenge, as they have to strive for efficiencies in so many aspects of their daily lives. They have to be able to balance their career with what their clients, bosses and fellow workers expect of them along with the considerable challenge of raising a happy family. Little wonder that many working mums in this situation have to leverage their career for the family or vice versa.
There are certain traits that all highly effective working mums share. They have taken a step back and observed themselves with a "wide angle lens" to help them get a different perspective on their challenges and put a plan in place. Here are the seven habits that we've noticed that highly effective working mums practice. As a working mum, you can make use of services that provide professional coaching for women to take you from overwhelm to "whelm" and build a support and accountability structure.
Habit 1 - Learn and practice time management: There are only 24 hours in the day, but we need many more. Unless you know of any plan to change this soon, you're going to have to make do with the 24, like everybody else! We hear during professional coaching sessions, seminars and talk shows that, one of the main habits of highly effective people is good time management, and this is goal number one for the working mum. Sit down in a quiet room with several sheets of paper and analyze all your responsibilities. This means everything! Write down how long each task or role takes you, and when you have finished add it all up. Your next job is to realistically condense it all into a manageable timeframe, giving you adequate time for each. Once you have your time management plan in place, you must stick to it like glue.
Habit 2 - Set your routine: It's important to have some sort of routine. Some of us don't like to be structured in this way, but if you are to become a highly efficient working mum you must do so. If you take one step at a time, complex tasks often feel a lot easier and this is definitely the case here. Turn away from that feeling of being overwhelmed and put one foot in front of the other. Establish a routine, which may take a couple of weeks to do, but once you have done so, your day should be a whole lot easier.
Habit 3 – Focus: Know that procrastination can be the enemy of efficiency. You have to avoid distractions. Hopefully, as part of your time management plan, you will have allocated a small amount of time per day or per week for things that you could classify as "other." Don't expand this time unnecessarily and don't be tempted to run off for a quick lunch with a colleague/friend/ neighbour, unless it has already been built into your time management schedule, of course!
Habit 4 - Develop your productive space: Whilst you may be quite productive if you work away from home or at the office, if you are a work from home mum you had better ensure that your working space is very productive, comfortable and remote. Try your best to utilise a room which is not used for any other purpose, which can be closed off if needed, and try not to use your work computer for any leisure purposes. Work at home mums have to be even stricter about their time management, as there are so many other distractions around them.
Habit 5 - Don't forget your fitness: All the planning in the world is no good if you find that you're getting more and more "rundown", and you find that you don't have the energy necessary to undertake your daily life. When you're planning your time management, allow for daily exercise routines. Go for a walk or run, dance around the house or get your bicycle out and go for a ride; either way this time cannot be compromised. Look at it as "fuel" for all the rest of your day.
Habit 6 - Maintain a support group: While you may know who to turn to at work for help should you need it, sometimes you just need support and help in the act of life itself. If you know someone else who is in a similar position, then you can support each other. Gather together as many trusted friends and/or relatives as you can, and don't be afraid to lean on them during the times when it can all seem to get too much. Professional coaching may also provide the support you really need in this time of your life.
Habit 7 - Reward yourself: Remember that you need to look after yourself first, and while you're doing a great job of balancing your career with motherhood, there must be some time for yourself. What do you really love to do? Whatever it is, plan "good time" for yourself in your schedule. In this way, if things get particularly challenging for some reason, you will have something to look forward to. It is so important to acknowledge yourself - you're not an automaton - even working mums need a reward!
18 November 2011
WORKING MOM TITILAYO'S REMAINS LAID To REST
Twenty years ago, Titi’s mum had been buried in the same cemetery.
Titilayo, until her death, was an employee of Skye Bank, Marina, Lagos. Her corpse was discovered a day after she was murdered on her husband’s 30th birthday at their Isolo, Lagos, home
The officiating priest, Pastor Charles Ayo Binitie, the deceased’s family pastor, and a close friend to Titilayo’s father, had many people sobbing and dabbing at their eyes with handkerchieves as he spoke during the service.
Binitie said he was saddened by the fact that he presided over the funeral ceremonies of both the deceased and her late mother, Mrs. Helen Folake Oyakhire, who passed on 20 years ago.
The cleric wondered why fate was so cruel to Titilayo and her surviving daughter, Olamide, who were both denied their mother’s care in their childhood. Recalling that Titi was just nine when her own mother died, he said he was very sad when he was called upon again by his friend 20 years later, to perform the same burial rites for the slain banker.
Pastor Binitie of House of Reconciliation Ministry said watching the deceased grow from a child into a woman until she was snatched away by a violent death was traumatic. He informed Daily Sun that he actually collected the deceased’s dowry on her father’s behalf. “I have watched her grow and it is unfortunate that I had to organise her burial like I did for her mum 20 years ago,” he lamented.
The man of God said the only product of the union, Olamide Arowolo, was living more with her maternal grandfather and her mother’s family before her mum’s death. “She is very much at home there. She has been enrolled in a school and she doesn’t even know what is going on but she has been asking for her mum,” he said.
He also spoke on the relationship between the deceased’s family and the family of the accused.
“The family of the accused has made reconciliatory moves but the matter is still in court because there is a case to answer with the state government. It is a homicide case that has been established due to the autopsy results. The accused claimed the deceased stabbed him and killed herself but the result of the pathological test proved otherwise. The stab wounds on her head alone cannot be inflicted by the deceased herself and the accused was the last person to see her alive. The death certificate made available to the family revealed that she was stabbed repeatedly until she gave up the ghost.”
He also revealed that Akolade’s mother has made moves to apologise to the Oyakhires. “She has called upon the church to help plead on behalf of her family. She asked for reconciliation but it was made clear to her that the Oyakhires do not hate the Arowolos. The deceased’s family is just demanding that justice be done and the case is not abandoned. The Oyakhires love them as Christians but we are not ready for them to take the only child of that marriage. The child is safe and well taken care of by her maternal family. We are not even ready to consider it let alone discuss it because it is not possible.
“Up till this moment, the Lagos State Government has been co-operating with the Director for Public Prosecution (DPP), and the press has done a good job publicising this case and justice is taking its course. The police are still keeping behind some information but I know that we are working on that to make sure nothing is hidden from the public regarding Titi’s murder. It is possible that the accused family members are here today but I can’t really say this person is a member of his family. It was published in some national dailies that the deceased would be buried on Wednesday and they did not indicate interest that they would attend the burial, neither were they identified in church as present during the burial.
“I am happy at the way the Nigerian press took this case. They made so much noise about it that if anyone were passing through domestic violence, she would know what to do and how to go about it. It has gotten to the level where we as pastors should advise any woman being abused constantly by her husband to leave him for some time because it is better for a woman to live as a single woman than to die as a married woman. If it was possible for us to have told the deceased to leave her husband for some time until he changed, it would have been better than burying her at 29.”
Binitie also gave a brief insight into the person of the deceased.
“She was a gentle girl, who lost her mum at nine and became a mum to her siblings and a wife to her father. Her father remarried 10 years after he lost her mum and Titilayo was the one who encouraged the dad to get married again. She was instrumental to the upbringing of her siblings and took care of her family members. She was a loving person, who was brought up in the way of the Lord. It is unfortunate that in marriage, she made a mistake that claimed her life. It’s so sad.”
Also speaking, Rev. Sylvester Aigbirion, who runs Christ Passion for Souls Ministry, said violence in all forms would reduce if people had a strong relationship with God. “Christianity is not a religion but a relationship with God,” he asserted. “Anyone who professes to know God would not have been able to kill someone else in cold blood. If someone has a relationship with God truly, he won’t be able to harm his neighbour not to talk of his own flesh and the mother of his kid.”
Aigbirion, whose ministry trains pastors, evangelists and others, teaching God’s word, among other duties further noted: “We are praying that justice will be done in this case but you cannot predict what man will try to do to cover the truth. The Bible says that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. They can try to turn it around and hide the truth. If anyone tries that, God’s justice is greater than that of any man. You can escape the law but you cannot escape God’s judgement. He is a fair judge. We have seen it happen. People escape the law but before they die, they cannot escape God’s judgement. We hope that justice will be done in this case.”
The late Titi’s immediate younger sister, Aidehi Oyakhire, said though Titi had been buried, the family was still enveloped in sorrow.
Her words: “We had good memories together and that is what has been keeping me sane. The last time we saw, we were planning how we would mark her 30th birthday on April 9, next year. I didn’t know she would leave so soon. When the hymns were being sung at the graveside, a lot of things came to my mind. She was a caring mother who called us every day to speak to her daughter because she (the daughter) stays with us. Everyone that went to her place to take care of the baby while she went to work had problems with her husband so, we decided to take the little girl, Olamide, to stay with us,” she said.
Aidehi said the family was aware that she was in danger while living with her husband because of the extent of the abuse she suffered in his hands but she said no one expected what eventually happened. “We were aware that he was violent towards her but she kept telling us she was hoping for the better. We are surprised that our sister was killed on our younger sister’s birthday because the accused shares the same birthday with one of our sisters.”
The lady regretted that the police had not been too open to the family in their investigations. She said it was unfortunate that the family was not told when the pathologist’s result was released. She, nonetheless, expressed hope that justice would be done so that Titilayo would not have died in vain.
07 November 2011
Over 136 Dead in Yobe Boko Haram Attacks
BOKO HARAM: Church Bomb attack killing 100s and injuring many in Yobe, 92 Bodies spotted. PHOTO: Bodies of some of the dead. |
Mothers and children who have taking refuse to a police station. |
NEW BORN TWIN SISTERS PERFORM WONDERS IN HOSPITAL
Twin girls - Brielle and Kyrie - were born 12 weeks ahead of their due date. Needing intensive care, they were placed in separate incubators. Kyrie began to gain weight and her health stabilized. But Brielle had trouble breathing; heart problems and other complications. She was not expected to live.
Their nurse did everything she could to make Brielle’s health better, but nothing she did was helping her. With nothing else to do, she went against hospital policy and place both babies in the same incubator. She left the twin girls to sleep only to return and found a sight she could not believe. She called all the nurses and doctors and the picture above is what they saw.
As Brielle got closer to her sister, Kyrie put her small little arm around her, as if to hug and support her fragile sister. From that moment on, Brielle’s breathing and heart rate stabilized and her health became normal... What a wonderful twin!
Nigerian Nurse's Licence Withdrawn In UK For Calling on Jesus For Help
A 51 year old Nigerian-born UK resident nurse, Omolayo Abayomi, has had her Nurse's licence withdrawn by the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council for throwing her hands into the air and begging for Jesus to help, as a baby she was supposed to be taking care of suffered a heart attack. Omolayo Abayomi 'panicked' when the child, who suffered from a chronic lung disease, turned blue and stopped breathing in his cot at home. The nurse called for divine intervention more than 20 times before the vulnerable boy's mother told her to 'shut up'. Giving evidence, a tearful, the child's mother said Abayomi had effectively 'abandoned' her during the incident.
'The nurse was constantly saying "Jesus help him" and waving her arms around,' she said. 'She said it more than 20 times. I felt I had to do everything - at that point she was doing nothing to help my son. 'She never offered to take the lead at any point and at no point did she suggest calling 999.'I can't change what's happened to my son, I know I did the best for him but the nurse just completely abandoned her duty.'If I can save just one other person from having to go through what we have been through, then that's what I want to do.'
This is so pathetic, but I could tell that what this nurse has done is just a reflection of where she is coming from. I was in London last month and to my surprise, the way the Nigerians in London carry on with their religion also baffle me. They do not talk nor behave like people who live in a country where things are working. How can someone live in London and have electricity, water, and food as a prayer point? No! sister, your prayers will definitely be different from mine. I live in a country where we have all failed ourselves, so we are only left with God to come to our aid for almost everything. Government refused to be responsible, parents have refused to be parents as children just grow as they deem fit, our leaders are looting, Bank executives are busy, the common man is also busy, who will then save this land if not God? So that explains the increase in the number of churches, Churches becomes hospitals and a place for everything we need. No wonder our dear Omolayo Abayomi decided to be a Nigerian even though she lives and practices in the UK.
Moms Please let us be watchful when in the hospital especially in a time like this. One would have thought that the babies parents would have been the ones praying while our sister Omolayo gives her own as a nurse. While I sympathize with the parents of the dead child, I will also like to say that Omolayo did what she felt was necessary and could help in this situation. She cried to God for help because she believes in miracle. She may have reacted in an unprofessional manner but it was not in bad taste. I really wish she will get back her license.
My question to you, Dear readers, do you think that Nurse Omolayo Abayomi deserves what she got, Let me know your take on this.
Mary Ikoku
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Tara
Working Mom