Our Lagosmums mum of the month is Tayo Magulike. Mum to two divas, a wife, who started her career as an HR professional, Senior Business Consultant, but is now an Event Consultant and Volunteer Business Coach.
Please tell us about yourself
My name is Tayo Magulike, I’m a mum to two divas. I enjoy challenges. I believe in strengths and teaching my children to always be able to see the positive in a lot of things and not let the negatives wear them down. Accept that negatives are there so that positives will be appreciated more. I love life. I love being able to enjoy life. I love good things and love good food especially, I’m a foodie. So that’s about me.
Can you tell us all the hats you wear?
The hats I wear. I wear the mum hat, I wear the wife hat, the entrepreneur hat and I wear the caregiver hat. I wear the researcher hat. As a caregiver, I volunteer for a few organizations and a few places where I help out where necessary. I volunteer at power and initiative as one of the coaches, well this is my second year, I give my time to encourage women in emerging businesses to have a chance to mentor. Last year I was a mentor to about 16 ladies all over Africa. So yeah, that’s about the hats I wear.
Share one unexpected thing about you?
Well, I can not tell if this is unexpected, I love encouraging women. Before I purchase anywhere, I like to know if it is a woman-owned business. Once I know you’re a woman, I would make a purchase. I will do business with you first because you are a woman. I like to give women that choice. I may go on to check if you’re Nigerian afterwards. Being a woman first gets me any time, any day most of the vendors I work with know that’s what I do. So, I don’t know if that’s unexpected.
Tell Us About Your Beautiful Family.
My beautiful family ????. I have two girls, two divas; 10 and 7 like I mentioned earlier. They are my handful. I enjoy letting them explore the world, not raising them to be typical girls. So they do roller blades, they have roller skates, they do ballet, Taekwondo, Mandarin, and they are music proteges. I try not to limit them, I guide them. So those are my girls. I have a good husband. I say a good husband because he knows me, He’s my friend. We share, we fight, but, we always understand what we’re arguing about. He says we argue, I say we fight ????.
How did you meet your husband?
My husband’s my friend’s brother, my friend’s older brother. So December this year, we’ll be married for 12 years. I’ve known him since 1999???? . So we’re friends, he was that- you know when you go to somebody’s house and a friend’s older brother that can be annoying. Somewhere down the line, he stopped being annoying and I was checking out his six packs ????????.
Do you and your spouse have the same parenting style?
Well, we agreed from even before we had kids that I was going to be the mean mum because he is the cool dad and I love being the mean mum. I enjoy it because it helps me, I realize that you need to be a “mean parent”. So yes, we’ve always agreed on that. What is interesting despite this is that despite being the mean one, the divas will come to me first before anything. We’re friends also because being friends doesn’t mean that you can not be a mean mum.
Can you tell us one of the funniest things your children have done?
I can not pick off the top of my head, one of the funniest things my children have done off. The older one is more subdued. She’s quiet. The younger one is a hurricane. So maybe I’ll pick a typical example of her because I teach them to stand up for themselves.
One day we were in traffic, and somebody in the car ahead of us threw something out the window, and she goes, “Mummy, mummy, drive next to that man and tell him that he should come down and pick up his trash”. And she kept on talking until he was on Kingsway road, by the next stop, I went next to the man, rolled down and indicated that he should roll down. I told him that even my kids realize that what they did wasn’t very good. And she rolled down her window, and said, “Sorry sir, don’t put trash on the road, you’re not helping our country”. I thought it was funny. But I guess if everybody can do that, then we’ll have a cleaner, better country.
Share with us what you love most about your work at Fabmoments and being an Event Planner?
I’m an Events Coordinator. I love what I do. All my vendors, all my clients, know I love what I do. I love that each event is different. I don’t think I have any two events that have been the same. And I’ve been in this for almost a decade. All my events are different. I enjoy working with clients, even if it’s a child’s birthday. Usually, I say the parents are the people paying, but the child is my client. I love to sit down to plan and visualize what the child wants. And being able to make the child say, “Oh, this is what I wanted”, or the bride say, “Oh, this is Mrs Magulike you made what I envision come to life”, no matter the budget, I enjoy doing that.
Can you share how the pandemic has affected you either professionally or personally? What is your one takeaway?
Before the pandemic, I focused more on events, birthdays, weddings, and celebrations of life, you know. I realized during the pandemic that because people were not having events, funny enough, I got tons of birthdays, but there were online parties that would get DJs, we had gift baskets, individual boxes delivered to a child’s house and there was a DJ, 30 minutes birthday party that is not just the celebrant that enjoys the birthday. Even the attendees enjoyed the zoom parties, that was a lot of fun. So the child, the parents, the adults, because we had some adults that we had to do the same for, all had fun. The pandemic encouraged me to think outside the box regarding being able to grow my business. And so we’ve also built on that.
How important is a support system for a mum? Who is in your tribe and what kind of your support do you have?
My number one support system is my husband. That’s one of the reasons why I stopped 9-5, just after we had our second baby. We realized that the best way to raise our children is to be available for them. So when I need someone to relieve me, it’s usually him. However, we have friends, very good friends that whatever we have to do, we can always call them and say, “oh please, these sisters, can you please just sit in? Or can you please help me keep an eye on or give me an idea of what I can do with this”. Then I have a fantastic mother-in-law, she’s completely awesome. She’s a woman that I love so much.
What are some ways that children and parenting are different from when you were growing up and now?
Growing up, my mother didn’t allow us to share our opinion like that. With my parents, especially my mom, if you had an opinion, you keep it to yourself, especially not at that moment. You can share it like two-three days after when the repercussion will not be a knock on the head or slippers to the bum ????. But these days we encourage our children to share their opinion, not in a rude or intrusive way. If you feel passionate about something, you should speak up. Because of the way the world is going if you don’t speak up for yourself, not a lot of people will speak up for you. So, we encourage the children to speak up for themselves and be kind when they do.
With the divas, one of the things we do is family meetings at the end of every month-family nights. And one of the things we do is have a little listen-10 minutes meeting. where everybody says their mind about something. And we’re hoping that more children speak up for themselves. You should be able to speak up for others and hopefully, a little drop of water makes an ocean. Hopefully, the ripple effects will spread and help us have a better world.
we encourage our children to share their opinion, not in a rude or intrusive way...to speak up for themselves and be kind when they do.. Click To TweetHow do you balance work and parenting? Is it possible to achieve this?
Does anybody ever achieve this 100%? As I said, My husband’s a good support system. Oh, there are days I feel frustrated. When I do, I take time off. I go to the spa, I take myself out for lunch. If you look at my social media, I enjoy me-days or me-hours. I do not deprive myself of having a good time to the detriment of my health. Mental health is very important to me. It’s very key as a woman, as a mother, and as a business owner, it’s very key to have time to yourself to rejuvenate mentally and physically.
What has motherhood taught you about yourself?
Motherhood has taught me to be patient and to always consider others. I have realized that with my kids, I always ask them about their feelings, their thoughts, how the world sees them and how they see the world. And motherhood has taught me not to be impatient with people and to give them a benefit of the doubt.
Use one word to describe one thing that should not be missing from every home.
I would choose empathy. If you have empathy, it would go a long way in making you and the people around you better people. If everyone has empathy, the world will be a better place. It doesn’t mean being a pushover. It just means that you’re considerate. So empathy is one word I would choose.
If you have empathy, it would go a long way in making you and the people around you better people... It doesn't mean being a pushover. It just means that you're considerate.. Click To TweetShare one self-care tip. How do you relax and spend time on yourself?
I enjoy good food. And enjoy going to the spa. I enjoy the adventure. I go, I will go bounce with friends. I just enjoy taking care of myself.
Can you tell us how you stay stylish and what’s your beauty routine as a mum?
I’m a bit of a tomboy at heart. So apart from going to the spa and having good facials and then making sure that it’s the professionals that give you the right advice, someone that has some certification in one thing or the other when it comes to self-care and beauty, then you can’t go wrong about that.
What do you love about LagosMums?
I’ve been a follower of LagosMums for 8 years. My friend and I used to attend events at Eko Hotel during the early days. And we always used to enjoy that. You know, mothers feel connected with things that are posted, with events that are organized. It doesn’t make you feel like you’re alone when you see the messages and information shared by LagosMums. So I think it’s such a good initiative and a good platform.
A spa day or Eat Out?
A spa day.
It was so lovely learning more from our mum of the month, Tayo Magulike. Thank you for sharing with us. You can connect with Tayo Magulike here.
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