Guard that Child or Take Those Pills.

Days of Yore

I remembered while growing up that my siblings and I used to resent the way our parents caged prevented us from going out of our prison house to do gbeborun watch the neighbourhood from our spacious balcony, having sleep-overs with some friends, attending excursions conducted by the school or staying for a while at some relative’s house just for the holidays.

It used to be extremely annoying because we felt we were being deprived of the whole essence of childhood and we resented them all the more for it for separating us from what was our dreams.

Ours was a very sheltered and protected childhood and external trips outside the main door of our house that does not lead to the school gate was always met with a resounding “NO”. At times we got punished for even thinking of an excursion or sleep over talkless of  suggesting   going for an excursion or having a sleepover at somewhere that was not our beds.

For my parents, most especially my dad, it was greed and lack of contentment for nursing such hopes and those thoughts usually lead to some military punishment.

You see, my dad never served nor worked with any military organisation but his sense of upbringing towards his children was quite militarial in its approach. With my dad, you should never be seen nor heard. All those “sleep overs”, “tea parties”, “lunch with neighbours” “excursion to badagry, Paris, beach etc, that kids do back then and even now, my siblings and I never did that.Even thinking about it was a sin. And you may be wondering whether they were monitoring us while in school, right?

Not at all.They were confident enough to know that we dared not.

But despite the mini-security non-surveillance of both parents, it was never an option to misbehave while in school or consider leaving the school gates for any reason whatsoever.Suffice to say, I grew up sheltered and extremely protected. 

What made it even more annoying was that we were well aware of our financial comfortability so we did not for the love of God understood why we were not allowed to enjoy what kids like us were enjoying. The first public transport I ever took was when I was in my late teen years and had resumed as a day student in a school within Lagos. So prior to my 17 years on earth, I was being taken to wherever I needed to go (that’s if I am not being accompanied by my mum or an aunty or my dad or my brother or in company of senior relatives)

And I never got to even play in the rain. Ever! 

But you can't blame my folks for that though. I was brought up in that generation that believed lightning kills people.So once it starts drizzling, parents lock up their children from the unseen eyes of the wicked lightning. And also the days of cyclone that was rumoured to lift someone from Lagos to Maiduguri.

But that's another unrelated story for another day.

Have I also mentioned that apart from these excursions and sleepover curfews, we were also not allowed to have any cash whatsoever at hand?

Hian!

Any cash found on you would be concluded to be stolen funds and my parents would give us punishment deserving of children-theft.

However strict this upbringing was, my folks believed in giving us all we needed to grow amidst our peers without feeling deprived and also believed they were our guardians on this earth and contrary to what children rights activists and other foreign bodies may have said about a child’s right to opinion, it was never a consideration in my family for you to suggest an opinion that borders on stepping out to be somewhere outside our folks hovering eyes.

All big issues my siblings and I were  given the privilege to deliberate upon was whether we wanted to eat our food with meat or without meat, whether we would eat after daddy had flogged us or we would go to bed hungry, whether we should help mummy in the kitchen or assist the house help in peeling the egusi from its shell, whether to assist my sister with her homework or simply study on my own with classwork to be given by my dad, whether to sleep on the bed if I behaved well or on the floor where naughty children slept, whether to take injection on my buttocks or to take injection on my buttocks WITH those horrible tasting syrups of those days, whether to go to school with food flask or whether to go with biscuits, and all other big issues that we can exercise our children rights upon.

Other little issues like choosing to go for excursion, sleeping over at a home that was not my parents, having cash at hand while going to school, bringing friends over(abomination) at any stage of our growing lives, stepping out of our door to stay on the veranda, climbing down the stairs to go to the main gate of our house(a taboo that could cost you an arm and a leg), lying to my parents(my folks took this more serious than Moses did with the commandments), stealing money from my mum’s bag(we didn’t even bother stealing from our dad as the punishment would make you prefer death) were left for our parents’ to handle and they did and guarded us with all they had.

What’s the moral of this story?

I grew up disciplined, self-sufficient, independent, whole, non-abused nor assaulted in any way, because my parents, most especially my mum, took the job of parenthood seriously and to heart, even up till now. As I still remember that even after my wedding, my mum still kept on calling me every-day.(Omo mehn, I didn’t find it funny o and had to tell her but yes, she still takes offence if we don’t speak in 2 days. For my mum, no matter your status in life, you are still a baby and would be reprimanded if you misbehave whether you have multiple degrees or not.)

Back to the Present

I have had cause to read up on so many stories on abuses, assaults going on in young children’s’ lives, most especially young girls, by relatives or close acquaintances of the family or even little girls abused by neighbours only for the folks to cry foul after finding out days, weeks, months or even years later. Many of these assaults are usually caused by sheer neglect based on the path the stories usually take.

There was a story that was circulating sometime last year of 2 busy couples that kept their daughter with the husband’s father and one day, the little daughter was playing in the compound when a car’s brake failed and swerved into the compound killing the girl. I was so furious with the parents it almost clouded my compassion for the poor grandfather who may still be blaming himself up till now.

There are so many cases of parents in our generation being lax with their offspring and one is left to wonder if they got pregnant by mistake or whether they actually planned to be a parent and read on the many duties of a parent.

Child upbringing is more than just adorning our kids in the same cloth North West wore to the BETS or showing our awesome genes or showing off how financially upright we are based on the number of countries our little children have visited even before they clocked one. And it is definitely not about how many passports our kids can boast of having.

It is more than that, way more than that.

Children are the greatest gifts from God and we are their custodians on earth. Many of us protect our phones and jewellery more than we protect our children. Some of us even lock our rooms and go out with the keys while we leave our kids with the housemaids. When you have children and engage the services of a house help, that money you want to spend on Aso-Ebi and beads, biko, convert it into funds and get a CCTV and install in your house. Some kids suffer a lot of trauma in the hands of these maids and other helps we have around; the laundry man, the gate man, the gardener, the cook, the driver, that it leaves them damaged for life. 

And children most times, do not reveal what they go through as they have already being threatened by these people. Most of these children grow up with this resentment deeply etched in their memories and transfer the suppressed anger and frustration to their parents, most especially to the mother, who would not understand why the kid is usually angry and upset with her.

Let’s stop sending our under aged children down the street to go and buy stuff because we seem too busy or to keep sending our daughters to the teenage boy/girl staying at the neighbour’s house that’s still with raging hormones.

Guard your child like they are your salvation path to heaven and your only source of happiness in this life. They are too young to protect themselves. When you bring a soul to this earth, care for it until your dying bed. Let’s be ready before embarking on motherhood/fatherhood so we can have quality children rather than many walking shells that seem to be abundant these days.

Yoruba people call it "omo pon bi osan". 

Child upbringing is an extremely tasking and demanding job and you don’t stop nurturing a child even after the marriage of such child. We should nurture them until our dying breath. Some of our children need us more than ever, even after marriage. Some spouses are spawns of Satan and the first beneficiary of such evil would be their spouses. Look after your child even when they think they do not need you again.

My mum, my prison guard and mother hawk of those days that deprived me of so much "childhood dreams of sleeping over at any friend's place or going for excursions" and who I resented for some time due to this, despite my marital status still calls me almost all the time and was even at my place over the weekend to assist with stocking up our refrigerator with all manners of sauce, stew and food and even rearranged my kitchen as I sat down gisting and taking pictures, while my hubby as usual was in the living room doing what he knows best, munching on some of the delicacies she had prepared with the TV remote possessively in his hands, watching Sound City and with little care in the world, knowing his mum-in-law would prepare enough food to last the Salvation Army.

A child would always be a child and the Lord has kept us, especially mothers (lool, see me claiming as if I have 3 already but soon sha) on earth to nurture them till our last dying breath.

Guard your child from external forces as I am sure many of us were guarded by our parents; unnecessary excursions, sleepovers, minor or major errands down the street, unnecessary relatives we cannot vouch for, strange house helps, unwarranted closeness with neighbours without any chaperone etc.

Where your child is concerned, treat every other person apart from you like a criminal, until they prove otherwise.