Ladies, you define how a man treats you

Cynthia Otieno a relationship expert at Lamead Woman believes that women define how a man treats them.

“Women hold the key to how men should treat them. People will treat you the way you allow them to treat you. What are you doing as a woman? If a woman is able to hold herself with esteem we need to redefine relationships. If sex is the only reason people come together then something is totally wrong,” she said.

Cynthia advocates for mentorship and inspiration from fathers who she says should start doing it immediately after birth.

“Boys pick a lot from the men around them. If his father treated his mother like a princess, then that is what he will do to the women in his life. If his father was mean then expect nothing less.”

Fixing Sissies

Wandia Maina, a counselling psychiatrist at Phoenix Training Solutions Limited in Nairobi, said that some of these traits can be picked from how a child grows up.

“Children need good role models from both sexes. They learn a lot by copying and imitating. Let’s not raise half-baked boys and girls,” she said. The counsellor asked single mothers to regularly expose their boys to father figures with desired qualities of good and responsible men.

“Let your boy grow up knowing what is expected of him. Let him observe how his uncles, grandfather or mummy’s friend behave and talk to him,” Wandia advised, adding: “It is not entirely about single parents.

In marriages, absenteeism by either of the parents, especially the father, is totally unacceptable. If a boy grows up in a nuclear family but with an absentee father, chances of him growing up into a weak man are very high.”