My husband's mother called me a bad wife for not cooking on a Wednesday

I got home around 7pm yesterday and the first thing my mother-in-law said when I walked in was, "So you cannot cook for your husband again?" Wallahi I just stood there. The woman had been in my house since Monday. She watched me leave for work at 6am and come back after 7pm every day. But the one day I asked my husband to buy suya on his way back, she said I have failed as a wife.

My husband looked at me and said nothing. That is what pained me more than her words. I have been married for six years. I cook. I clean. I carry my daughter to school before I go to the office. But the moment I say I am tired, it becomes a family meeting. From where I sit in Abuja, this is the same story with so many working mothers. The policy of marriage says we are partners, but the reality says the woman must still do everything.

I did not argue with her. I just went inside, bathed my daughter, and slept. But I kept thinking about it all night. When does it stop? When do we stop measuring a woman's worth by whether there is soup on the fire at 8pm?