how's Suri's burnbook relates to Rwanda

in keeping with my unintentional theme of blogging about other blogs, today's post is (somewhat) inspired by http://surisburnbook.tumblr.com
it's funny how i always know the most about Hollywood gossip when I'm the furthest from it, in every sense of the word. when you have so much time, it's a lot easier to justify spending inordinate amounts of it looking at brainless, but amusing stuff. how else can you possibly explain going through not 1, not 2, but 26 pages of this damn tumblr yesterday?? Yes, I impressed even myself!
If you're not familiar with it, it's a tumblr with posts about celebrities and their kids, in particular, the Royal baby (which isn't even born yet), Blue Ivy (child of Beyonce & Jay Z), the Beckham kids and the Jolie-Pitt pack, as told by TomKat's Suri Cruise. It's pretty funny imagining an angry 7 year old with scathing commentary primarily about how much better/more fashionable she is than other celebrity kids. While that all seems about the furthest thing from Rwanda and the kids here as can be imagined, it wasn't the ridiculousness of their outfits, toys, etc. that struck me.
What was striking was the number of times the Dads were pictured with their respective children...granted the majority were still the kids with their mothers, but frequently both parents, or just the father is pictured. Accepting how un-gender equal even American & European societies are, I was struck by how seldom I see this same picture in Rwandan society. I see it so rarely that I'm absolutely aghast at the site of just a father with his child. I wonder what has happened to the mother...I usually assume dead or ran off, which is terrible. I acknowledge that that's a gross oversimplification and assumption, but the rarity of the situation lends itself to the more outlandish of ideas. The burden of childcare here is so firmly fixed upon mothers that even if the father were to be sitting at home doing nothing, and the mother had a full day of field labor, the likelihood that the child would NOT be strapped to the mama's back is next to none. Past the pregnancy and even accepting the nursing stages, there's no biological reason why the mother has to be taking care of the child, and yet, traditions and society deem that it must be so.
This all ties in very easily with the number of times I shock Rwandans by telling them I have no kids. How could I, at my ripe, old age, continue to be without? Probably something wrong with me! Yes, in fact there is, I have these quirky ideas about becoming educated and making a career for myself before beginning that whole process. I understand that this is also a societal notion, my society has led me one way while their's has led them another. BUT why is it then, whenever girls are given the option for later marriage and more education, they more than often than not, will take that option?
I was told by a well-educated colleague of a friend's that I should do it now, because I can do all the educating myself and job acquisition later, after I have children...but how long after? Months, years, decades? Needless to say, I wasn't exactly persuaded by that option... so in the meantime I'll just quell all these maternal instincts with Hollywood surrogates.