This subject
was addressed by a very good friend of mine on Facebook. In her post, she
indignantly expressed her view on how African parents keep such a tight rein
on their children that even when they are past 18; they still feel they have
the right to tell them what to do and constantly interfere with their lives.
So
true, especially here in Nigeria. Culture
dictates that children should respect, listen and obey their parents because
being their parents; they are older and wiser. Children are brought up to take
their parents' guidance and as the years go by, they find themselves
continually doing as they are told and decisions made for them... after their
own decisions are tossed aside and ignored.
"Mummy
and Daddy" are always right and we are the ignorant children who must
listen to them because Culture (which is held over our heads like a gun)
dictates it. If in a situation where the grown child stands up to them, they
are dubbed 'disrespectful', 'stubborn, and sometimes even 'ungrateful'.
"After all," so goes the usual tirade meant to manipulate and guilt,
"we are your parents, we raised you, clothed you, sent you to school and
you think you know better?" In the eyes of Nigerian parents, children are
still children and don’t seem to notice they’ve grown at all.
In more developed countries, children go off to
begin their lives away from their parents when they get to 18 or 21. Here, such
a thing is pretty much impossible.
One reason is the economy, with the staggering cost of rents and hard-to-find jobs; what 18 or 21-year-olds will be able to get their own place?
The other
is parents; who adamantly refuse to let
their children move out of the safety of the family house, either in a misguided sense of over-protectiveness or
they simply want to keep their children under their control.
When my friend
talked about how a young woman she knew was forced to quit her job and move to
the village because her tyrannical father ‘said so’; I felt very sorry for her,
especially since she had her life planned out only to be ignored and shoved
aside because Daddy for some reason wanted her to move to the village. It’s
more about control, than knowing what’s best for her.
That’s all we
hear in Nigeria; ‘Mummy and Daddy knows what’s best for us’; in almost every
aspect of our lives; from what we were to what course to study at the
University. They do all they can to guide us, except on how to be independent and they are seldom
given the chance to stand on their own. In the end, the children’s lives are
ruined because they cannot stand on their own, after such a long period of
dominance and dependence.
I know a woman
in her thirties who still lives with her mother. Even if she had enough money to rent a place
of her own, her mother had already warned her she would not allow it.
Her
reason? “Letting you live on your own will be like putting a curse on you.”
I’ve gone over that weird sentence and till now, I still don’t know what that means.
Nigerian
parents would say that parents in the Western world spoil their children and don’t
discipline their children enough and spoil them. But it’s not like Nigerian
children are better off under their parents’ dominating control either. How do
they expect their children to grow if they won’t let them grow?
There’s a major emphasis on having children in
this country, if you don’t have children, you’re nothing. Yet children most
times are treated like property, not human beings. Their needs are met yes, but
what about their emotional needs?
They say they
know what’s best. I say they are being
damn selfish.
