Plain Truth: The questions we should stop asking already during this period

It's that time of the year again when we all congregate with our families. It's the grand homecoming. For the women who have not yet scaled the society's prescribed rites of passage, it can be a terrifying time.

You know, the married women who out of choice or circumstance is not yet a mother or the singles on the other side of 30 without a man in sight. It could be the woman who walked out of a toxic marriage and left what to the onlookers seemed like a perfect life. In short, it's that time of the year when everybody is looking to poke their nose into everybody else's business.

Let's be different this year. Let's do better. I hear you, 2020 has been one hell of a year. You are your sister's, cousin's, or auntie's keeper and you want to know that they have been able to keep their feet on the ground. Still, you do not need to get into their personal business to do this.

There are many questions that we need to stop asking other women. Top of the list is, when are you going to have children? The obvious reason is that this woman could actually be trying unsuccessfully to grow her family and your questions could be just rubbing salt into her wounds. The other less obvious reason, the one we do never stop to think about when is that it is reinforcing the assumptions that women are not complete without a brood in toe.

When you are ignoring the strides your cousin has made in her social life or in her career and instead keep grilling her on why she does not have children or why there is no man in her bed, your younger sister or cousin will be watching. She will learn that no matter what else a woman has done in her life, no matter her achievements, they do not count until there is a man in the picture, or until she has a child. Motherhood and long term relationships can be fulfilling, but they are not mandatory. If the women in your life decide to not pursue either of those things, let them be.

If your cousin or that childhood friend walked out of a relationship this year, resist the temptation to tell them that you are sorry. Congratulate them instead for gathering up their courage and walking away from a situation that wasn't serving them. Most women who walk away from long term relationships will have tried to make it work. And no, this is not the appropriate time to tell her about your perfect man or your functioning relationship. Instead of focusing on that one aspect of her life, you think will give her happiness, ask the women in your life what they have been up to.

Should you find yourself at the receiving end of a question that makes you uncomfortable, do not hesitate to draw your boundaries. Tell the person that that's private and that you would rather talk about something else.