{"id":3236,"date":"2015-03-11T21:14:05","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T21:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:47:13","slug":"domestic-diva-career-detours-and-rewriting-the-chore-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/?p=3236","title":{"rendered":"Domestic Diva: Career Detours and Rewriting the Chore Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Is the simpler life a better one? Photo by Hillshire Farm on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\r\n

From Career Queen to Domestic Diva: Rewriting the Chore Story<\/h1>\r\n

March 2015. The washing machine broke down. So, there I was\u2014sleeves rolled up, hands deep in soapy water. I hadn\u2019t washed clothes by hand in years, except maybe the occasional lingerie. My \u201cold school\u201d laundry moment felt like stepping into a time capsule. I remembered the Washman who used to pick up and drop off my clothes each week. I remembered dry-cleaning nearly everything else. And then my mother\u2019s voice came to me.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cA woman needs to know how to do housework. Even if you can afford help, what happens the day they don\u2019t show up?\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n

At the time, I thought: You wait until they resume. What else?<\/em> But here I was, years later, confronting the very thing I had been avoiding all my adult life.<\/p>\r\n

A Life Lived Everywhere But the Kitchen<\/h2>\r\n

I\u2019ve done it all\u2014career girl, global traveller, aid worker, government liaison, missionary, student in a foreign land. I\u2019ve moved through boardrooms and briefing rooms with ease. But I had never fully immersed myself in one role: homemaker. Before marriage, I lived the dream. A Washman for laundry. A house help for everything else. I didn\u2019t cook. I didn\u2019t mop. I didn\u2019t market. Even after marriage, I remained somewhat insulated\u2014until pregnancy made it clear that help was a necessity, not a luxury. We hired a Nanny-Housekeeper, and she became part of the furniture for 13 years. And I? I stayed focused on my career.<\/p>\r\n

Leaving It All\u2014Then Coming Back<\/h2>\r\n

When I retired early to focus on family, I imagined leisure: gym mornings, poolside lunches, weekly massages. It was blissful\u2014for about six months. Then boredom hit hard. So I chased another dream\u2014a doctorate abroad. But visa challenges brought me back home. To fill the void, I launched a website and began writing. Two years later, the thought returned:<\/p>\r\n

Why do you keep running from your home?<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n

I argued with myself. I did<\/em> take care of my home\u2014by managing people who did the actual work. Did I have to scrub floors or haggle in the market to prove anything?<\/p>\r\n

The Fear Behind the Mop<\/h2>\r\n

It wasn\u2019t laziness. I knew how<\/em> to clean, cook, and shop. What I feared was what it represented: a loss of identity, the beginning of decline into the type of woman I never wanted to become. I once told my fianc\u00e9 (now husband):<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI will never be the woman who drags through Mile 12 in muddy boots to save \u20a6200. If that\u2019s your idea of a good wife, tell me now.\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n

Bless him, he stayed. And so began our life\u2014with help. The one thing I never did? Go to the market. That was a non-negotiable.<\/p>\r\n

Thinking Out Loud: The Diva Awakens<\/h2>\r\n

The day I told a friend I wanted to become a domestic diva, I surprised myself. I didn\u2019t have a plan. Just a burning desire to face the one thing that scared me: housework<\/em>. Not because I couldn\u2019t do it, but because it echoed my mother\u2019s teachings. Her relentless emphasis on chores. Her belief that womanhood was proven with a broom, a pot, and a spotless home. Maybe I avoided it all these years for one reason:<\/p>\r\n

I didn\u2019t want her to be right.<\/em><\/blockquote>\r\n

So now, I\u2019m learning. Slowly. Rewriting what domesticity means for me. Not as a fallback. Not as failure. But as power reclaimed. I\u2019m learning to see the home not as a prison, but as a canvas. A space where I can bring intention, beauty, and purpose. I\u2019m not trading ambition for apron strings. I\u2019m expanding the meaning of womanhood on my own terms. I am becoming a domestic diva\u2014and I\u2019m proud of it. Read more Domestic Diva<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Ovie Farraday is a wife and mother of five (including 2 teenagers and a pre-teen) living in a sub-Saharan West African suburb.\u00a0 She is married to an Architect and entrepreneur. Ovie Farraday is a pen-name.<\/sup><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Career Queen to Domestic Diva: Rewriting the Chore Story March 2015. The washing machine broke down. So, there I was\u2014sleeves rolled up, hands deep in soapy water. I hadn\u2019t washed clothes by hand in years, except maybe the occasional lingerie. My \u201cold school\u201d laundry moment felt like stepping into a time capsule. I remembered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[268,370,433,441,802,849,924,1201],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-misc-and-opinions","tag-chores","tag-domestic","tag-family","tag-feel","tag-mother","tag-nubiaa","tag-purpose","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4331,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/4331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feelnubia.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}