Ways African parents say 'I love you'.
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| 'I love you' oyinbo style. |
Oyinbo people especially at this modern times punctuate every of their sentence with 'I love you' it has now become a way of life for them that their children need this reassurance all the time to the extent that if they do not say it, their love and care for their children will be become doubtful and very questionable and this can lead to very disastrous consequences.
I look at us in Africa, Nigeria to be precise and 'pity us', kissing, hugging and other physical show of affection is not in our culture,
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| Hugging, physical show of affection, very rare in traditional African homes. source |
even Indians that do not kiss rub their noses together but in Africa, what do we do to express our affection and love for our loved ones? This seemingly lack of show of affection has been extended to relationship between parents and children.
Well it is true that our 'I love you' are few and far between but does that mean we do not love our children? No. Does that mean we do not express this love we have for them? No. From my personal experience I will be sharing how Nigerian parents say 'I love you'
1. One of the first instructions drummed into our ears as we grow up is never to accept food or anything for that matter from strangers and even neighbours so our parents are indirectly saying 'I love you, be careful, I do not want any harm to befall you'
2. We should look left, right and left again before crossing the road. This is the first phase of our orientation into the 'school of hard knocks'. And there is no better school for training the child to be independent and self reliant than this school. We modern parents have failed a little in enrolling our children in this school, For example, my children have never walked to our Estate gate before, a walk of about 10 minutes, we drive them up and down but I am still a bit better than some, a friend of mine does not allow his ten year old son hold his ice cream by himself, a house help does the holding while the son does the sucking, her reason? It is too cold, is ice cream not supposed to be cold?
3. Mothers breastfeed their babies without caring whether the breasts go flat or not and you think they do not love you? Haba. When I was still having babies, in the hospital, I would see Oyinbo women quickly wrap and pack their breasts into firm girdle bras and start giving their babies bottle right from day 1,with the exception of a few of course.
4. Discipline, almighty discipline, even God Almighty agreed with African parents and gave them a verse to back it up in the Bible; Proverbs 13. 24 ' he that spareth his rod hateth his son ; but he that Lovett him chasteneth him betimes ( King James Version)
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| Almighty discipline. |
. Discipline of a child takes time, effort persistence and most important love. Let me share a real life experience, when I was in year 3 or so in secondary school, I went out during the Christmas period with some friends, those were the days when street lights worked on the streets of Lagos, fireworks, what we call banger was very cheap, we had harmless fun and before I knew it, I could not get transport back home, there was no telephone service then, something terrible happened; for the first and also the last time in my life, I passed the night outside my house, I did not get home until the following morning. When I got home, I saw relief on my parents faces followed by confusion and then a firm resolve, I greeted them, they responded, asked if everything was okay I said yes. I was giving breakfast, lunch and dinner just as normal. But I knew that calm, and I knew it was an uneasy calm. So at last I was relieved when it happened, in the middle of the night, I was flogged on the soles of my feet till I became too weak to struggle and cry for mercy. The lesson was learnt and there was no scare on any part of my body, you see in meting out the punishment they were being careful, although I could not walk for about two weeks because of the thrashing of my soles. Fine I might not have agreed at the time, I now know they love me and I will love my children just as much if not more. Fast forward 4 decades later, another real life story, this time a niece of mine based in the UK and her 13 year old daughter about the same age as I was then, came back home in the wee hours of the morning, as we learnt she usually did (offence count 1),went straight for the music player , put it on,(offence count 2) and raised the volume to the highest,(offence count 3) my niece trying to read for her 'igbayilaro' nursing exams told her to switch it off, she refused,(offence count 4) my niece got up to switch it of herself, her daughter gave her a hot slap,(offence count 5 and the mother of all offences) what would we have her do? She proceeded to beat some sense into her, her two younger brothers promptly called the police, she was arrested and put behind bars overnight, it was this same daughter that came to bail her in the morning, now you compare the two scenarios, meanwhile ,my niece's 'I love you' to her children does not have Part 2 as we say it in Naija home video parlance, all the actions are in Part 1.
5. African parents say 'I love you' by sharing real life experiences, warning on outcomes of any action or inaction. When I was growing up I had the habit of forgetting to close my mouth, you know like some other children too, my mum had reminded me to, times without number, there were no dental braces in Nigeria then to help control your teeth if they should protrude out of your mouth. What do you think my mum did? There was this woman that had a stall in a market not too far away from our house, my mum took me one day to that market, we bought stuff from her, I could not stop looking at her because of her protruding teeth,
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| This reminds me of the woman, only that her teeth was worse, my people call this 'eyin iku' source |
you know that kind of mouth that try what you will, it will not close, and you could not leave it open either. On our way back, my mum asked me if I still wanted to be leaving my mouth open, then I got the message, since that day I made extra effort to remember to close my mouth at all times. And the result, a beautiful Naijamum with the perfect set of teeth wink**
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| Naijamum's teeth result of practical show of love by her mother. |
My dad on his on part was an 'ogbologbo' expert at such lessons, if we see any truck pusher or menial jobber, he would not fail to let you know that it is the lazy person that ends up with the most difficult and low paying job. In his words. 'ole ló ma nsise to le ju'
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| Result of dodging work? Most likely. Taken with my Ipad. |
whilst dodging work, you will end up with the most difficult work so by extension if you don't get an education, you would become a labourer.
6. Most Nigerian parents would spend their life savings on their child, we do not get any help from government, no child benefit, no child care cost, no grants, no carer's allowance, no single parent allowance, no home fees lower than international fees at the university level, well no nothing, they single handed bring up their children themselves. After school, they continue to prop up their children and some children still doubt their love? My own mum gave me the title deed to one of her property to get a loan in the bank when I started business, of course she was cautioned by people who meant well, she said she trusted me and had faith in my capacity( maybe because I had graduated from the school of hard knocks with flying colours) and also because of this love she has for me. And thank God, I have not disappointed her yet.
6. Nigerian parents say I love you by helping you, with God's backing of course in your quest of a life mate, husband or wife,
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| Help just like Abraham did in the Bible in getting a life mate. Source |
though at the end of the day God knows best but you would not be left to your own devices.
7. Show of Affection is also seen in their help with their child's choice of career, vocation and all forms of means of livelihood. When I completed my National Youth Service in 1988, I came into contact with one of my cousin's husband who was in the Navy, he asked if I would like to join the Police Force and I thought, well why not? He gave me a letter to give somebody in the Police. My Dad was against it and put his foot down so I had to abandon the plan and look elsewhere.
Looking back, these are steps I would take myself if faced with similar circumstances, for instance, one of the reasons we relocated to Nigeria was to ensure our children were well grounded before getting into college/ university so that they would not begin to see any little disciplinary measure on our part as 'child abuse' as defined by the obodo oyinbo government.
Enough said. How do you say 'I love you?'
