Mums winning family politics

 Mums winning family politics (Photo: iStock)

Politics shapes our daily lives. Politics births policies that govern our day-to-day lives. To a large extent, it is a way of life and each society ends up developing some sort of structure of governance.

Every day people wake up to politics; from the family to the office. Domestic politics can be as intense as corporate politics and with social ramifications far more dire than elective politics.

It is interesting how two grownups who meet in adulthood just cannot achieve a perfect seamless union without crevices of conflict, either caused by variation in beliefs or other factors that shape up a family. Considering that humans are a uniquely complex species who opted to craft a set-up called marriage, the two individuals from absolutely different backgrounds have to try to achieve a common ground on everything that life entails. It is an uphill task.

When one person with 32 teeth meets another one with a complete dental structure, they form a complex blend that can never achieve perfect harmony even where compromise is positively embraced. Once children are born they automatically join the playground and become the target audience to be wooed by both parents, each party seeking to be seen as the better. It is a competition that starts with imbalanced odds with the woman favoured by a large margin.

You see, the time spent together during gestation and nursing forms a unique bond between a mother and her child. Come to think of it, how does a man whose relationship with the child ended at the point of manufacture stand a chance of competing with someone who carried the pregnancy for nine months? During the pregnancy, the mother and child bonded for life.

Then, there are the formative years when a mother nurses her child. During paternity, the man spends time running around solely to source for everything to bring home yet loses key points in terms of bonding with the new born. Intrinsically, the child can feel the presence of the woman in their spaces and notice the absence of the man in tasks such as changing diapers, bathing, and cleaning.

All this while, the seed of loyalty is planted as the man is left behind by fate and design. The government itself gives maternity leave of 90 days to the woman but only a maximum of ten days to the man.

I am trying to underscore the fact that to be able to command as much loyalty as a woman, a man has to work nearly thrice as hard. It is therefore understandable that the children automatically lean heavily to protect the mother in the event of domestic differences. Among animals, so many generations are found revolving around the matriarch in the grazing fields. Maybe, it is natural that all animals are unaware of who their true fathers are and therefore the assumed father, even if living under the same roof as in the case of humans, starts from a point of disadvantage.

The position of disadvantage is exacerbated by the fact that, traditionally, men come with masculine parenting which entails less pampering and tough love to the offspring. Men do not kiss their children good night or tuck them into bed.

In fact, they are generally unavailable emotionally. They should by all means avoid political games with the wives because it is a matter of whoever owns the mammary glands that fed us at our weakest state owns us and defines policies that govern our lives.

Men should be comfortable in their position as ceremonial CEO and they should try and influence things from the bedroom by always keeping the woman on his end because she is the all-time chief of operations.