The Nigerian Millennial Mother’s Conference of 1989
an attempt to explain the dramatic roles of Nigerian mothers in child upbringing (do not take this too seriously). originally posted on amore.ng
If you are an African millennial born in Africa or the Diaspora, there’s a 70% chance you must have gone through a dramatic childhood.
And that is not because, as some parenting books would say, you were exhibiting toddler behavior, but because of your Nigerian parents, most especially, your mum.
Besides personal experiences with one’s African mum, there seemed to be one ultimate truth: every mum had a similar line for executing discipline (in any situation) and upbringing generally. In recent times, millenials have employed these lines in making jokes, skits, and every other popular social media content available.
Without doubt, our mothers used the same pattern in raising us up. Just last night, a colleague and friend of mine said(in not exactly these words), ‘what if millennial mothers actually had a conference on child upbringing?’ And ding dong, this article was born.
I’ll not even lie, prior to the discussion with this said friend of mine(whom I’m going to be referring to as X), I’d never really given this issue much thought. But think about it, most mums had the ‘Oya put it on my head’ line ready for any child asking what they deemed a ‘stupid question’. Or the famous Anointing Oil Therapy for all ailments.
The Conference of 1989
Think about this. Picture this; a gloomy day in early ’89. It’d probably have been January or February, after the long enjoyable holiday and festive period of Christmas and the New Year. The large halls of the Mother’s Association of Nigeria (MAN) headquarters in every district filled to the brim with mothers: Young mothers who had been recently wed or even just engaged.
The air would have been really ashy — choking with the uncertainty of the next generation (their kids). The MAN National leader takes her place on the pavilion and her voice would reverberate through the speakers.
With her lecture began the new version of child upbringing for the millennial generation. And of course, pamphlets, magazines and study guides would have been distributed to every single mother present to better her Child Upbringing 101, relying on MAN study groups for support.
Frankly, it is not hard to imagine some of the new skill sets, retorts, sharp moves and gestures were learnt by our mothers in that famous conference of ’89.
1. The ‘Go and Put on your shoe’ move
If you have never been tricked by your mum with this line, then it’s safe to say your childhood was not ripped of a little trust. It would always be when you wanted to go out with your mum and your determination would drive her to calmly request or plead that you change into your outing clothes or footwear.
She’d probably have said this with the calmest look on her face and maybe even smiled at you encouragingly. Silly child that you were, you’d run inside to put on the appropriate or required items, happy, joyful that you’d be walking around with your mum and even have a chance for a treat.
With this joy, you’d run outside only to soon discover your mum had gone out without you. It would be at that moment your mind would put one and two together realizing that, ‘ mummy tricked me!’ And of course you’d cry and bad news, you’d propably have a difficult time believing your mother for a long time.
2. The famous ‘Pass/Give me the remote’
It usually didn’t matter if you’re in Hong Kong studying when your African mum in a Nigerian town somewhere needed the television remote urgently to switch to Channel 35 where Rashni would likely be killed dramatically on ZeeWorld. Your African mother would call and insist you fly down to Nigeria and get her that TV remote (best belie’ that).
And this insane request was never always limited to television remotes alone. It could be her eyeglass case, the famous multi-purpose Anointing Oil, her slippers, anything imaginable. And shocker- this requested item would most likely be right there in front of her the entire time.
3. ‘Put it on my Head’
If your mother ever said this to you, chances were you had brought something (like her food) and ‘stupidly’ askedher where you could put it. At the utter of that question, she’d probably have looked at you with her sarcastic look and said without blinking ‘Put it on my head’. That retort didn’t require any further questioning, it was your opportunity to prove your creative prowess or acquire what is called an ‘Agbara’ (a hit at the back of the head), or in your mum’s case wherever disciplinary method she preferred.
4. The Default Setting/ Reset move
It’s only normal for kids to misbehave, throw tantrums, and be stubborn, the very definition of little devils. Dr. Dinah Jayson says in her book, Understanding Children’s Behaviour, that toddlers are naturally prone to being impulsive and messy, egocentric, show little respect, be stubborn, ask endless questions and so on. She advises that the best way to deal with toddlers therefore, is to understand them, play with them, get them toys and etc.
Sincerely, this would have been a simple way to raise the average African millennial except for a little something called mothers. An African mum never has the patience, I repeat, has no patience to be playing games with annoying little devils of toddlers.
At that conference of ’89, they must have discussed possible ways of dealing with children’s insolence and picked corrective measures. It could be a slap behind the back (Agbara), a knock on the head (Shiko), a canning on the backside, a slap or even punishments like ‘Picking Pins’, kneeling and so on.
To be frank, these punishments did bring order and restored the said kid’s settings to default mode, pending of course, when it was corrupted with childish indulgences of stubbornness and misadventure.
5. The Repetitive Slurs of Past Crimes and Sins
This was perhaps the most painful comportment of an African mother or parents’ response to her child’s misbehavior. It is usually triggered by an eff up by the child and to better make a point to the child, the African mum and member of the MAN, would discuss, to the hearing of sneering or compassionate siblings, the history of the child’s wrongdoings from a decade ago.
The goal of this approach, was perhaps to remind the child that mothers never forget.
6. ‘Sorry for Yourself’
This was usually the final response to an after disciplinary action. The child, feeling all shades of guilt would have apologized, sincerely or not, to the mother, who’d respond with a ‘Sorry for Yourself’. Thus, building a heightened sense of fear in the child’s mind.
7. Sex Education
For those lucky to have received any form of ‘Sex education’ with their African mothers, you’d agree with me how not only uncomfortable, but hilarious it all seems now. Some mothers were famous to have told their daughters that hugging a male human would get them pregnant. Others would not waste time to threaten to disown should the said child ever get entangled in a pregnancy scandal.
8. The famous ‘Does XYZ have two heads?’ question
Usually this question followed a ‘failure’ of some sort on the child’s part. It didn’t matter if the child was third in class or lost to your opponent, an African mother, in part of her speech about victory would always chip in, ‘So does XYZ have two heads to have come top of your class?’ And usually, the child’s best response would be to remain quiet, and see how this reproach would play out (hopefully, unaccompanied by an invokasion of Songo’s thunder).
9. Other instructions I cannot quite remember now
Honestly, at this point, any other African Millennial mother move eludes me. And maybe it’s for a good reason too. If I had to continue writing, I might as well convert this article to my Dissertation abi?
Irrespective of the dramatic tactics African mothers employed in raising Millennials, there’s no doubt most of us turned out nicely after all. And maybe, just maybe, we’d do better than the preceding generation running the country in fear of demanding, money-swallowing snakes and Akara-eating Eagles.
