The Responsibility We Never Applied For I didn’t apply for this role. There was no interview, no contract, no training. Yet somehow, I became the one expected to hold everything together. The one who figures it out, stretches money, absorbs pressure, and keeps going even when it hurts. If you’re a young woman, a young mom, or a young lady trying to survive adulthood in Nairobi, this reality probably feels painfully familiar. It starts early, long before we even have money. As

I carried a nation in my womb, Not just a child But hunger, fear, and borrowed hope. I counted coins while counting kicks, Wondering which pain would come first: Labor, Or life after it. The hospital walls were too white for my reality, Private rooms reserved for women Who never feared the word deposit. I labored on plastic beds, Among cries stitched together by poverty, Where nurses work miracles with tired hands And mothers learn strength by force. They say childbirth is na