People have read all the Quranic verses, hadiths and seerah that emphasise on the importance of the girl child. Now we all want to be ummu banaat and abu banaat. We now ask for baby girls as a prayer point, forgetting that having a girl comes with lots of struggles and challenges. Least among the challenges is that of dressing.
I mean, you can simply do “rub and shine” for a boy, let him wear buba and ṣòkòtò, pour some oil on his hairless scalp and you’re good to go! For the girls? Na lie. You’ll spend hours thinking of what to wear, making sure that the colour of her shoes matches that of her ribbons. When she reaches the age of discernment, she will begin to compete with you in terms of dressing. Anything you wear, you must buy her own version of it. Phew!
On a more serious note, we need to start dressing up the boys too. Get them nice clothes other than t-shirts. Let a good tailor help them sew nice African styles with rich embroideries; meticulously ironed to bring out prominent creases. Polish their shoes and comb their hair. There’s no ironclad rule that says that they must go wild and get dirty just because they are boys. Teach them how to groom themselves from day one. Your future daughter-in-law will thank you later.
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