Nairobi News

#babygirl and #babygirltreatment are just two of many social media hashtags that glorify living the soft lifestyle and bragging about it to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.

It is a lifestyle where the female gender – ranging from young girls to adult women – expect to be pampered and complimented especially by the male gender. For the young girls, this pampering often comes from their parents and is more innocent and different compared to what adult women enjoy as #babygirltreatment.

For adult females, this treatment is often characterized with money being spent on them to obtain luxurious gifts including flowers, cars, fashion items and romantic vacations from their partners. They enjoy receiving compliments on their looks and ; and showing off that they are living ‘better’ lives than most women out there in terms of lifestyle and love.

But in my opinion, #babygirltreatment is a trap for women, especially if it is being sustained by a romantic partner – whether the relationship is casual or serious. #babygirltreatment changes a woman’s life.

Also read: Kikuyu ‘red thigh women’: Myth or Reality?

As seen with some female Kenyan influencers, their home abodes are upgraded from small houses in lower income areas to posh houses in higher income areas, they begin driving cars if they never did before because their partners buy them cars, their devices become more expensive just as their fashion and lifestyle.

They begin living a life they never imagined for themselves because they could neither afford nor sustain them on their own. But because a well off guy looked at them and saw that they deserve the #babygirltreatment kind of lifestyle, they upgraded them. Again, I say, this is nothing but a trap for the women. Why you ask?

These women are introduced into a new lifestyle where they begin expecting certain things to be done for them. But for many women, some who opt to remain silent, to enjoy this lifestyle, they have to put up with things they did not think they would be subjected to.

To keep the car, one would be expected to tolerate disrespect and 24/7 monitoring, to enjoy her lifestyle, she may have to put up with infidelity, to keep her new house, she’d have to trade sexual favors to keep him pleased to continue paying the rent…it’s a never ending cycle. The power imbalance is to her disadvantage.

Also read: This is the harm you do by dressing your kids inappropriately…

Baby girl is basically trapped in her life because of money. Her movements have to be calculated so that she does not annoy her benefactor, many of her decisions have to be run by him as opposed to where she once independently made decisions, her social life may end up being dictated if her man does not like certain people being around her. It’s an invisible prison.

Now imagine what happens when the #babygirltreatment lifestyle suddenly comes to a stop?

On society’s hands, there will be a woman who is at risk of exploitation because when the money dries up, she will look for other sources to maintain the lifestyle she was introduced to. Her relationships turn casual and transactional. Sex for money.

Moral degradation. And people will talk about her, leaving her self-esteem down in the dump because she suddenly has no dignity to speak of, she has no leg to stand on when talking about certain social topics such as women empowerment or protecting the girl child; her contribution to society will forever be tainted and questioned. Her reputation will be shattered, leaving her no room to salvage it.

Also read: Why children from abusive relationships are destined to repeat the pattern

Eventually, this trap and all its accompanying consequences will leave her with emotional scars such as fear of men, fear of getting into committed long-term romantic relationships no matter how good the man is but is not well off and having dependency issues related to men.

If you are a woman and know you can provide yourself with #babygirltreatment, do it and celebrate yourself. If a man has to do it for you, let it be a long-term partner you see yourself having a future with and has verbalized the same to you, not the 90 day type of guys who only stick around for the fun and bail when things become seeming serious.

Funding your own #babygirltreatment will leave you feeling empowered, independent from having your life and decisions influenced and dictated in ways that displease you and personally fulfilled to do whatever you want, whenever you want it.

So yes, #babygirltreatment does sound nice by all accounts, but at what cost are you enjoying it?