Learn the life skill, but hire the help

“When push comes to shove, I can wash clothes, clean the house and prepare a meal. I just choose not to do it. And if you must know, my mother – a career secretary – did not really do much housework, either, when we were growing up,” she says.

Modern era

Since the 1960s when women were allowed to go and make money outside the home, we have notched up a number of successes on the traditional wall. So, why are we even having a conversation about who does house chores, and who does not, in this day and age?

Last week, a video made rounds on social media and got us talking. In the video, Angella Katatumba, a socialite and musician who was being interviewed on Bukedde TV’s Omuntu W’Abantu programme, says she does not know how to do house chores. She adds that her parents always hired chefs, maids, cleaners. Her father taught her to work hard, get money and hire people to do the house chores.

Although a number of people have condemned Katatumba for trying to lead a Western lifestyle in a deeply traditional African setting, she still has supporters.

Different parenting styles

Linda Kibombo, a journalist and mother of two adult sons, says the way people raise their children is their business. “That is how Katatumba’s parents raised her. Other people’s parents raise them to wake up at 6am to sweep the compound and wash the baby. Others raise their children to wake up and study, or go to work with their father in the shop. Other people were trained to wake up and hustle. I don’t know why people are making a fuss about it on social media,” she says. However, Ellon Kiwumulo, a counseling psychologist with Family Comfort Foundation, believes a grown woman who cannot do house chores does not fit in traditional African society.

“As a society, we haven’t yet gotten to that level (where not doing house chores is normal) and that is why we are making noise. Does she hire people to wash her knickers and lay her bed? There is no way you can groom a child to work in the corporate world so that other people can do her personal chores for her. It is not logical. That happens in the Western world, not here,” she says.

Is housework a life skill?

So, what place in society do children who wake up early to go to work have? On Sunday, this week, as I left my home at 6.30am to go for a routine five mile walk, I met a young boy of about seven years carrying six bundles of tomatoes. Each bundle contained five ripe small sized tomatoes tied in a transparent kaveera. A girl, who I assumed to be his older sister, was walking behind him, carrying a similar bundle.

These children were just beginning their daily door-to-door trade and presumably, they would return home in the evening. In this ruthless world, where a seven-year-old has to go out at 6am to make a living, is learning to do housework really important? Kibombo thinks so.

Teach children chores

“I taught my sons to do housework and now I am teaching my nieces and nephews. It’s a struggle, they have to learn how to do house chores. They know that after waking up, they clean around, follow the duty roster, and then do whatever they want. But, I will be honest with you, it’s different for every home,” she says.

Much like Osire, Kibombo also rarely does housework. “Many people live alone or can afford hired help. I have to beat the traffic jam and be at my work station by 8am. At what time am I going to wake up to do house chores? 4am? Even when I go back home in the evening and I want to cook, I cook because I want to, not because it is a duty,” she says.

Save the skill for a rainy day

Faridah Nakazibwe, a television presenter and anchor, agrees that house chores are life skills that everyone must have. “Learn the basics. Personally, I can do house chores, but I only do them when I want to. On a weekend, I may clean the bathroom and arrange things in the living room and kitchen, but that is about two times in a month.

However, I draw the line at washing clothes because my fingers are fragile. In any case, I have a washing machine,” she says.

Nakazibwe applauds hustlers such as Katatumba, saying she cannot leave her workplace, get stressed in the traffic jam, and then reach home and begin cooking.

“If I do that, what will the lady I hire to help me do? Katatumba’s only problem is that, unlike other working women, she did not bother to learn the basic life skills, such as cooking. Learn how to cook, but save the skill for a rainy day, when your househelp is not around or when you cannot afford to hire one. If you cannot afford to hire a cook, will you be able to afford two meals in a restaurant every day?”

Before you are tempted to climb atop the feminist horse, life skills are not a preserve of women alone. Collins Hinamundi, a bachelor, a father of one son can cook, wash clothes and clean the house.

He says these basic skills do not necessary put any woman down.

“No one is saying you should cook for your husband every day. Just learn how to do domestic chores for yourself,” he says.

When asked if he would marry a woman who cannot perform house chores, Hinamundi says, “Culture and tradition evolves with every generation. So it depends on the understanding we have prior to getting married. If I can cook and clean, she will have to have – and be good – at other skills.”

If you hustle, pay the bills

Call it feminism effect if you like or an evil of emancipation, but everyone wants to live a free from suffering. Otherwise, why do we go out every morning, if it is not to earn enough money to hire people to do the house chores while we concentrate on increasing the stash in the bank?

But now that women are beginning to own their hustles, are women ready to contribute equally in the home?

“You are assuming that they haven’t been contributing. In some families, each spouse contributes an equal amount of money to run the home, while in others they have a different arrangements,” Hinamundi says. Nakazibwe says as hustlers, women should contribute to the family’s financial pool.

Domestic househelp

“Not the same amount of money as the men, of course. But, if you are working and you don’t contribute to your own home, why are you working in the first place?”

A whole industry of domestic househelp has grown considering that many working women do not have the time to do house chores or cook for their families. If every working woman first does housework before going to work, aren’t we literally taking the bread out of the mouths of our househelps?

Social media reactions

So if one is rich and can manage to hire someone to cook, clean the house and wash knickers, where do Ugandans find loss that Angella Katatumba doesn’t do ten dollar jobs? We have a poverty mentality coupled with inherited ignorance that a woman must do this and that to quality as a wife.

- Kakwenza Rukirabashaija

Did I cook this healthy meal? No. Did I have it for my lunch? Yes. Do I know how to cook? Maybe. I rarely use that skill. Is my father Katatumba? No, but my father also taught me how to hustle. Some of us cook only when we must.

- Ann Natukunda

I think it’s important that however rich you may be or may have grown up, whatever hustle you may be undertaking, both men and women should have the basic life skill of knowing how to cook a meal. It doesn’t have to be fancy or complex.

- Daniel Tumwine

“Parent your children with love and logic. I believe in parents looking at their children as a product on the market. Would you as a parent employ the child you are grooming?  Once you look at your child as a product, you need to learn to instill in them the ingredients that are functional, a sense of responsibility, organisation, time management and neatness.

“Parenting should be hands-on, not artificial, and you cannot do that unless you are in the child’s life. Parents think they are planning for their children but in actual sense they do not understand the children they are planning for. Look at your children and compare their behaviour and skills with those of the children of other people that you admire,” Ellon Kiwumulo, counsellor.