Bless

One thing I would like to see more of is women being vocal about their contributions to the family. Not in a condescending or disrespectful way, but simply making sure their contributions are acknowledged. When you contribute to building a family, you or your husband should make it known. This culture of protecting a husband’s dignity by keeping a wife’s contributions quiet is part of why people come online and act as though women contribute absolutely nothing to their families. While he was putting most of his income into building a house, you were paying the children’s school fees, sending money to his family or yours, and keeping the household running. While he was saving up to buy a car, you were making sure the house was stocked with food. You were both building that family, just in different ways. But because people only see the husband’s visible investments, they conveniently ignore the wife’s sacrifices. And when something happens to him, suddenly, everything is described as the product of his sweat, as though his wife was merely a spectator in the life they built together. This is how society reduces women’s value to childbearing while overlooking their financial and non-financial contributions. It is also why widows and widowers are often treated so differently. Women need to stop allowing their contributions to become invisible in the name of protecting their husbands’ image. A family is built by a team, and both people’s sacrifices deserve to be acknowledged