DEAR NIGERIAN PARENTS PART 2

Dear Nigerian parents, declining church on a Sunday doesn’t mean that I have missed heaven.

Refusing to attend a Sunday service in a Nigerian Christian home is as good as deciding to drop the family name. Nigerian parents, who are more often than not hypocrites of the religions they practice, will cover you with the big pots used in cooking party Jollof Rice if you refused going to church on a Sunday or, any other days. Religion is taken seriously in Nigerian homes albeit with an almost never deep understanding of faith. Faith is mostly for show in Nigeria or perhaps, identifying with it so as to have something to hold on to in the grand scheme of things.

Dear Nigerian parents, stop dragging me to church on a Sunday or declaring a nuclear war on me and my legions when I refuse to go. Church will not save me and your hypocritical attitude towards it discourages me further. Don’t curse the bus driver in traffic or starve the help and then wake me up at 12 midnight to pray.  Faith is a serious issue and I’d rather be left alone to battle my own demons then fully understand it than being dragged through my hair there. Truly, most people who go there will still descend instead of levitate on the day they die.

Dear Nigerian parents, I do not like all your siblings and that is okay.

African households are pretty tight with the family inclusion thing. Whilst that is okay for some reasons, the lines start to blur when parallel universes start to cross each other. In English, when family members stop minding their businesses. This is common with uncles, aunts and even grandparents and I can beat my chest to tell you that their concern is never out of love, just gbeborun (Yoruba for a person who loves to be in other people’s businesses). When our uncles and aunties repeat this habit, we get irritated, disgusted, vile and angry. They have the liberty to say just anything that pops into their head and stop giving us the respect that I, a human being deserves. Boundaries are overstepped at every visit and family gathering and sometimes, they even have a say at our weddings or decisions of a life partner.

Dear Nigerian parents, caution your siblings when you notice that they are overstepping their boundaries. We know you know when they do but, you choose to turn a blind eye out of respect or claims that they are your siblings and they have the right to be as involved in our lives as they want to, even without our permission. Don’t scold me when I decide to peg their mouths to a clothing line. Tell them to watch their mouths or I’ll watch it for them.

Dear Nigerian parents, stop trying to choose a career for me.

In Nigerian homes till date and till tomorrow, parents sit their kids down, tell them what careers that they are going to have, send them to the profession appropriate classes in secondary school and fill out their careers on the course of study column for university applications. A lot of young people today are damaged, stuck in jobs that they are dying to leave, depressed that leaving to pursue what they really want will cause a family hurricane and creating an unproductive mess in their careers which is somehow contributing to the mess that we call Nigeria. Can you see the cycle? Most times, Nigerian kids aren’t allowed to choose a career beyond the following: Medicine, law, pharmacy and engineering. The rest are deemed unserious, incapable of a good salary and not up to the standards for conversations at societal events.

Dear Nigerian parents, you have lived your life and I have the right to live mine and make decisions that will add to my happiness. Stop trying to relive your career dreams through me and stop trying to make me a continuation of your career success. My career choice really shouldn’t bother you except I choose prostitution. If you want to relieve your moments, creep into your mother’s womb, dead or alive and be born again.

Dear Nigerian parents, yelling every time will only increase your blood pressure and bring you closer to your grave.

We get that Nigeria as a country with its frustrations are enough to reduce your life span however, yelling all the time increases your chances of high blood pressure, hypertension and cardiac arrest. Learn to speak quietly when you’re angry and choose appropriate situations to give your fucks to. Prayers will never save you from the above illnesses if you don’t reduce the volume of your voice. I really wonder why you people even bother buying parenting books. All these things are right in there.

Dear Nigerian parents, stop bullying me with words. It’s borderline emotional abuse.

Most Nigerian parents are bullies-well physical sometimes and emotional other times. Damaging insults are thrown around in Nigerian homes freely without cognizance of the wreck they cause after. Omo ko omo (Yoruba for useless child), stupid child, idiot, animal, goat (really? How can I be equated to a flipping goat?) Etc, are popular insults used by Nigerian parents where a simple scold would’ve sufficed. Fun fact is that they say all this after sitting through a three hour church service or after a 6-8 hour night vigil.

Dear Nigerian parents, I am not a goat, cow, sheep, idiot, fool or any other common or abstract noun in English that means an insult. I get that parenting can be hard and a lot of us young people don’t have sense but please, don’t insult us. Insults have a way of shaping our identities and self esteem and as well, a way of coming back in our adulthood to cause commotion later. Save your insults for the Nigerian government, drivers in traffic and the brainless people at airline counters at the airport.

Dear Nigerian parents, marrying from another tribe will not make the earth collide with the sun and end the human race.

Marriage is an important and overrated issue in Nigeria. It is put on a golden pedestal as the pinnacle of a young person’s life. Whilst Nigerian parents are very religious, they suddenly forget 1^st Corinthians 7 of the Holy Bible (lol you lot think I’m going to hell? I can quote the Bible!) which somehow says that marriage is not by force. Well that aside though.

Tribal differences are still very apparent in Nigeria even almost 48 years after the civil war. 48 years isn’t really enough to heal the scars of what went on for those three horrible years however,tribal stereotypes existed before the war and only became worse after it. Bringing home a partner from another tribe in Nigeria (even from another state if you’re Igbo) will rattle the very ends of earth, all that is in it, above it and below it. Nigerian parents are very much against marrying from another tribe for reasons best known to their paranoid minds. Although some have been able to rise above it, a good number of the older generation will rather drink from a toilet than have their kids marry from another tribe. Igbos and Yorubas can we say yeah yeah? YEAH YEAH!!!

Dear Nigerian parents, love is blind to tribal differences. We agree that tribes are a huge influence in marriage but we can assure you that most of us have chosen to love despite it and you can do it too. These people who you think are an abomination are really not that bad in the end. Open your mind and your soul to life. Stop raining on my wedding march.

This is the end of the Dear Nigerian Parents series. If you’d like it to continue or you have any suggestions about more “Dear Nigerian parents” pet peeves, do indicate in the comments or message me privately.

You all are beautiful.