Step-daughter overshadows Ndola housewife

A HOUSEWIFE has complained in the Ndola’s Mapalo Local Court that her step-daughter disrespects her and has completely taken over the running of the house.
Lucy Chileshe, 35, said this in a case in which she sued her 21-year-old step-daughter Cynthia Mubanga for insults and defamation of character.
Chileshe told senior presiding magistrate Judith Bwalya sitting with magistrate Ntembe Sakala that she had been married to Cynthia’s father for nine years since his first wife died and have two children with him.
She lived well with her stepdaughter but ever since she involved herself with wrong friends, she started disrespecting her.
“We normally exchange duties in the house but when I clean the house, she begins to complain and insults me that I was not cleaning properly and that she wants the house to be clean like the way her late mother used to do it,” she said.
She said her stepdaughter now had control over the house more than she did and that she never allowed her to cook for her husband or even clean the house.
“Each time I wake up I just leave the house to avoid her. I have no peace as though I am not the mother of the house,” she said.
She said whenever she came back home in the evening, the stepdaughter would insult her and tell her to leave house.
Ms Chileshe said one day her stepdaughter came back home around 20:00hours drunk and started insulting her and that’s when her husband asked her to take her too court.
In defence Cynthia said they did not live well with her stepmother and that problems started when she stopped caring for siblings.
She said her stepmother left the house as early as 06:00hours immediately her father went for work to drink alcohol with her friends.
“She does not clean the house properly, she stopped doing any chores and always comes back home late. Problems started when she stopped taking care of the house,” she said.
However the court reconciled the two as they were a family and ordered Cynthia to respect her mother as she was the owner of the house.
The court further told Chileshe to control her stepdaughter in a calm way and not to allow her get control over the hous