When it came to breastfeeding my babies, I had all the lessons I needed with my older kids since my mum walked with me through it. However, my first and second born children were not as lucky as their younger siblings because at the time they were being born -in the early 2000’s, the labour laws were not good. I had to go back to work when my first born was only five weeks old and with my second child, I resumed duty when she was eight weeks old. Nowadays the laws and policies regarding maternity leave and new motherhood are more favorable, which is great progress for our country.
Also Read: Maternity Leave in Kenya: Is it 90 Working Days or 90 Calendar Days?
When my second born was three years old, I resigned from my job. I wanted to give my kids attention and not have them suffer from my absence due to a very demanding career. That’s why I decided to work as a consultant and since then I have never looked back. All my other kids have exclusively breastfed for six months.
I still do travel a lot and can get very busy. But in the first six months I travel with my babies, whether it is in a neighbouring district or out of the country. My husband has been very supportive in regards to this, sometimes dropping everything to come watch over the kids (more like have fun with the kids) while I work.
Many people are amazed at how am able to juggle between being a wife, a mother of six and a busy career coupled with other engagements. I made a deliberate decision to work from the house. We drop and pick the kids from school and when they are home, I try not to do any work unless I am under too much pressure to meet a deadline. I only leave the house when I have to go for a meeting. I have put my work and all other activities around my family.
Ours is a typical traditional African home. The older kids take care of the younger ones whenever they are home. We have gone for months during summer holidays without any help. The girls love each other very much and taking the older ones to boarding school was a decision that took years to make. They pray for each other every night and literally do everything together.
We love to have fun as a family. When the older kids were younger we loved singing and dancing around the house. We would either put on music or my husband would play the guitar. Now that they have grown into teenagers, they are not always in ‘the mood’ so we don’t do much of that. We also love travelling whenever we can afford and our family dream is to have a road trip to South Africa with our own Recreational Vehicle (RV).
The best motherhood advice I have ever received is every child has a language, and you need to understand what your baby is saying to you. Doctors and science may say stuff, but you need to listen to your baby because only you and he or she understands each other.”-END
*Photos Courtesy: Caroline Nkirote
And that’s Caroline’s story. Quite and interesting one 🙂 . Thanks for sharing Caroline and thanks Sylvia for bringing us her story.
You may also like to see Martha’s interesting story below. She has had the same house girl for 13 years. How has she managed to do so? What has she been doing right? She shares it all below.
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