Parenting practices differ all around the world. For example, it is quite normal for Japanese children to travel on the tube on their own from a very young age (as young as 6 years old is not unheard of). Then there are cultures that subscribe to the idea that children should be seen and not heard. But in Latin American cultures, for example, this idea is anathema: children are integral to the hum of life.
And then you have Nigerian culture. OK, Nigerian parents.
If you grew up in a Nigerian home, if you are familiar with Nigerian culture, then you will relate to many of the following parenting practices.
Nigerian parenting practices
- Dare to challenge either one of your Nigerian parents and you will get what I call ‘the look’, which can be interpreted as ‘are you talking to me?’
- You are asked by your parents to pass the remote control to them – the one that is literally next to them on the sofa where they are sitting. Context: you are upstairs, they are downstairs.
- Your parents expect you to use up every moment of your waking day being productive. Done with your homework? Great – there is a pile of plates that need to hand washed. If you do not do the said washing up, you are called an ‘alainise se’.
- Your glasses-wearing parent will take off her glasses just to make sure she has not misheard what you have dared to just tell her.
- Your parents rarely tell you they are proud of you. However, they will tell literally everyone else they know about your greatness.
- Your parents will belittle you (loudly) for your misdemeanours, no matter how insignificant. Particular favourite terms of insult are ‘idiotttt’, ‘stupid’ and ‘disgrace’.
- Your parents will never pay you back for any money they ‘borrowed’ from you. In their minds, they raised you and that’s payment enough.
- Your parents’ default response to any request to go out with your friends is the ‘worst-case-scenario’ setting. So, if you ask to go out to a bar or club with a friend, you will be met with responses such as: ‘What if there are rapists there, eh?’
- Your parents are only interested in academic careers for you. Brilliant at music? Forget it; you have three, four or maybe five options, at most: medicine, law, engineering, dentistry, accountancy. It’s a Nigerian culture thing – or so I tell my non-Nigerian friends.
- Your parents have a habit of adding ‘o’ at the end of every sentence. Another entrenched linguistic habit is the insertion of the word ‘dirty’ before the word ‘slap’. Example: ‘Say that again and I will give you a dirty slap.’
- The response to an innocent request to go to a friend’s house is usually: ‘Don’t you have your own house?’ Likewise, should you suggest going out to a restaurant for dinner, the reply will be ‘There’s food at home’ (usually rice, of which there are voluminous sacks), or ‘Go and read your book, tchew.’
If you grew up in Nigerian culture, which of these twelve scenarios do you recognise?
