 Let your boys cook, it could save their lives. I agree appearing of families that their male children are forbidden from being in the kitchen when their mothers or sisters are cooking. I suspect this is a result of certain domestic chores being considered feminine. Boys must not cook. This narrative of course favors patriarchy. Often it is hidden under the cloak of culture and tradition. But wait, this is 2021, the information driven age. Men within certain socio-economic brackets are finding that the women within their romance circles have so much exposure that they will not be tied to the kitchen. These women crave relationships as partnerships with responsibilities shared not by gender but ability and equity. Suddenly the boy who was trained to be a man-lord is lost and cannot afford successful romantic relationships with the women who are his peers. The focus of this talk is really not about cooking. It is to alert parents that the values they equip their children with in their formative years are becoming even more important than ever. In this dynamic world, children must be brought up to be able to embrace change. It is no longer practical to bring up a young man without basic life skills that enable him to grow and take care of himself. This impacts his ability to take care of others. You might say all he has to be is financially successful. However, what is required from a man in the family is surprisingly becoming more than mere provision. Participation and action are what more women require within some socio-economic bracket. You wonder why? In the 70s and 80s, many people grew up in homes where the man was a major provider. The woman was expected to be a stay-at-home mother or do petty trading around the home. The most sophisticated ones would be teachers who could be home when the children come back from school. The children probably school where she works. This worked for that generation. The focus of the woman was usually her children. You had many women stay in abusive, loveless marriages with the excuse of staying for their children. The girls today are exposed to the world with its negativity and positivity. They can dare to dream and to achieve. Some are doing a great job of shattering glass ceilings. Men who have been brought up to be the Lord of the Manor suddenly find that their prospective partners are at par or even a step ahead of them. The economic advantage of the male is being gradually decimated and he has to come back to the drawing board. He has to participate in his relationship with his woman. His father might never have been to his schools but he has to go to PTA meetings and open days. He is expected to change diapers, cook and do laundry. He even has to bring a breakfast in bed. When all he saw his mother do was to serve his father food on her knees, if the new generation guy raises his aunt to eat his woman, the repercussion could be as severe as fatal injury. Times have changed. One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to equip them for their time with our words and even better by our examples. Times have changed. Let me start with that breakfast in bed. Go on. It's normal for you to bring your wife breakfast in bed because you want to give her the ring you knelt down. And as you prove that times have changed, cooking to, yes, depending on the schedule of the man, you could do breakfast in bed. But however and the most serious note, you said something in your earlier piece that there's no one size fits all. I think it's how you marry, who you marry, who you are that determines all these things. But most importantly, in a marriage, the man should understand that the man was not created by God to provide money for the home. The man was created by God to provide leadership for the home and everything that comes with leadership. And when you're a leader, you participate in the actions and the activities that happen in the home. That's why Bible God tells us that the man-woman submits to your husband. He never said women submit to men. So you are a part, you are equal. But when it comes to the home, like Bible says that it speaks to the man, it means that in normal business terms, the man is the CEO, the woman is the CEO. You see the CEO-woman in the office doing all the running around and blah, blah, blah, blah. The CEO might even be at home or go for one or two meetings, but he is still the CEO, no matter what you do. So I think first of all, that ceiling needs to be capped there without breaking that. You shouldn't be a glass ceiling so that it won't be broken. Now, the role of a woman is one that we should not renegade to the kitchen alone. Although in the home, I believe that there are two things that happen in the home. The woman is responsible for the kitchen, the man is responsible for the security. And I tell people that if you're in the home with your wife, your kids and everything, and you hear movement outside your house, it's not the woman that will go. The man must go protect the family. So the man cannot say, I'm busy, I've come home, I'm tired. And I hear movement, wife go and check it. No, he has to stand up, no matter how tired he is. Even the wife will not go and check and he will go there to check. However, when business takes him away from home and there's a challenge, even when something happens, the wife will most likely call him. I can hear movement outside. Then he will arrange for neighbors or somebody to come check on the home. So I think the same thing happens to the wife. You are in charge of the kitchen, the tummy, the well-being of the house. No matter how busy you are, a call. You have just basically told the woman what she should do. No. And that is not your place. No, it's not wrong. Whether it's about the standard. You have just put out your position for yourself. So that is your opinion. You can't come out and say a wife's role should be. No. In every situation, I believe that the wife is the person. Wife, you are here. What is your role? What do you think you can do for us? She has to be able to determine what she can do and to the extent to which she can do it. By the time we now begin to say she is supposed to be responsible for the kitchen, that is the character of the woman. It is. Let's do it this way. Everybody plays a role in the home. Playing that role in the home doesn't mean you cannot do your job outside. And that's why I say whether you are home or not. Even in the 90s, when all this started changing, the wife is called to find out. She is called to be a security keeper. That is the husband that does the cooking. Right from day one. That is what he is saying also. When it comes to security, can we she take the role of protecting him? Why would she do that? That is my head. I have set out their own kind of arguments in their house. But if she is a stronger person, what if she is a stronger person? But really, in writing this piece, one of the things I was thinking of is there. How we how you teach your son to visualize a woman is going to determine to a large extent even the way he is going to interact with you or you because you are a woman. So I am talking about when we are not talking about just when the woman is your wife. It is general. There is a mind set. I know you must have had this thing a few times. A man is again with you and he tells you when you are in this, I have thought like you are. I have thought like you are. And she is the man I do. Even if she is not my wife. You know, that statement is an insult on the person he has at home for her to be making a comparison with anybody at all. So, this thing is a mind set thing. Times have changed. And as long as we don't bring up men to respect women, it is going to be a bit even hard for the man to respect his spouse because generally he still he has a condescending attitude towards women. So I think this article also brings up the death in the bringing up of the male. So for centuries I guess I will put it like that. Let me exaggerate it. Women have been the focus of morals, values, entrepreneurship, how she should behave, what she should do and become. And as you said, the man, the boy, child was left to be the the woman. And so, why you have raised a generation of strong, powerful, independent I mean, how slim women can do anything. The boy grows up and he's lost. Because as you said, here is this woman all the way here. He who should have even had at least some of these is way down here. So there is going to be a whole there's going to be a disconnect for this generation because the men are emasculated as it is. The women are out there driven, literally do not need a man except for procreation as it is because he's going to come and be an ability for her. As you rightly said, which they can pay for. Thank you my brother. But then that's not how a society progress. Because this generation is supposed to equip the next generation so that the circle of life continues. So if we are coming from a situation where all the women are empowered and the men are confused and don't know what to do and are waiting to be dictated to and all that, then I'm sorry for their own children. Well for me, I want to see the cooking stove as a metaphor for good values of parenting. So to that extent, I'm going to flip it on both genders, male child and female child. Over time the quality of parenting has degenerated. It is not how some of us were brought up that contemporary parents are breaking up their children, of course because of the changing wave of times. But be that as it may, I always see for a balancing act between the past because I don't want to travel the past completely because the past has a lot. We have to pick the good aspect of the past and also try to accommodate the new ones and so we can achieve a parity sort of. So it comes down to the issue of parenting. How boys should be brought up and also how girls should be brought up. The boys should be brought up to respect the girls. They should be brought up to be close to the kitchen and the girls too should be brought up along how they ought to be. How they should relate with the male counterparts. So that when they grow they take it into the family system so that they can be able to build a family and also build up children who have similar values. I think like you said both of them just see themselves as people who are developing the next generation and that is the most important thing because individually each one can stand on its own on his or her own. But when you come together you are coming to forge because what about women who are not married and men who are not married they don't die suddenly. But when you come together it's for a purpose and that purpose that's what I keep saying like buying to what you said about not one size fits all. Like you rightly said that man says I have a friend who is a cook and when he cooks the children enjoy his food more than the wife. So they always ask daddy cook for us so at times he comes back home he's tired but he has to cook. You get it there's peace at home but I think we have to defecise cook no no I'm just so we're just tired we have to defecise I cook fantastically and for me I see cooking as fun. I think so too but many people can't eat my food break their heads over cooking it's a fantastic food but people can't eat his food and I wonder why do we give so much emphasis on cooking because we want to cook it can take more than an hour but try to make it three times a day make it five times a day when you have children yes I think also it's because it's been five times a day for five years I think it's one of the things that you're talking about from our past that now has to be balanced so let's make it one which will be next is actually go to the kitchen and go and cook you know time is never our friend on this program well time is never our friend on this program however the advocacy continues on our social media platform on facebook plus tv africa hashtag the advocate ng on twitter and instagram at plus tv africa hashtag the advocate ng to catch up with previous broadcast go to plustvafrica.com forward slash the advocate ng don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel plus tv africa till next week same time on this station let's keep advocating for a better society bye