Mothers: They deserve our understanding…

By: Chukwuneta Obiageli

Our lady also doesn’t seem to understand that the woman was widowed when she was barely 33 years of age and had seven children to cater for!Another lady (who lives in the US) tells me that she has often had to go for therapy over there-to enable her deal with what she claimed was her mum’s cruelty to her-as a young girl.

According to her… her mum would always throw her out of the house and ensure she stays hungry for days. She downplays the impression that she was a wild girl, to whom domestic chores is alien. She would rather call on the boys in the neighbourhood to help her shift the furniture in their sitting room for an emergency ‘disco’ session, once her mother steps out of the house. And that’s even on the days that she elected to stay at home, otherwise, she’s known to leave home to wherever ‘it is happening’ for days.

Guardian Woman | Relationships

Mothers: They deserve our understanding…

By Chukwuneta Oby | 25 March 2017 | 5:58 am

Our lady also doesn’t seem to understand that the woman was widowed when she was barely 33 years of age and had seven children to cater for!Another lady (who lives in the US) tells me that she has often had to go for therapy over there-to enable her deal with what she claimed was her mum’s cruelty to her-as a young girl.

According to her… her mum would always throw her out of the house and ensure she stays hungry for days. She downplays the impression that she was a wild girl, to whom domestic chores is alien. She would rather call on the boys in the neighbourhood to help her shift the furniture in their sitting room for an emergency ‘disco’ session, once her mother steps out of the house. And that’s even on the days that she elected to stay at home, otherwise, she’s known to leave home to wherever ‘it is happening’ for days.

All these were happening in an era when shame would almost kill a mother, whose Ada (first daughter) is not as homely as the other good girls in the neighbourhood.Two sisters, whose parents divorced, are still nursing some deep-seated resentment towards their mother.

According to them, she left them with their dad when they were barely 10 years of age. And she never looked back. The younger one has outrightly refused to deal with her and the older one does so with obvious aloofness. Their angst is understandable but it also helps to spare a thought in the direction of that woman.

I was told that the marriage began to nose-dive when the years began to roll by without any fruits of the womb. And his meddlesome female relative began to dictate what happens in their home. She’s alleged to be the type that, if there was an outing, would send the man’s wife to the back seat of the car-as she occupies the front seat.Things began to deteriorate so much so that by the time the children arrived…it was like “she dared give birth to girls only!”

The marital ‘nose dive’ continued until the extended families decided to divorce them-traditionally. In those days (in some Igbo tradition)…the woman is told to leave her husband’s home with just her clothing.

I suspect that it’s probably in a bid to ‘stay strong,’ without her girls, that she went so far away and tried rebuilding her life. Those who are in the know also said that she was an exceptional mother-to her girls.

Over the years, one has come across a lot of ladies that have unimaginable resentment towards their mothers, for either what they did or failed to do.In their rights, their feelings are justified but it should also occur to us that most of our parents raised us the best way they knew how. If there is anywhere motherhood is sacrifice, it is in this clime!

Nobody sets out to be a bad mother to the best of my knowledge, but circumstances “arm-twist” people. Some of these women had so much on their young shoulders and probably couldn’t be the super-mum that every young girl idealizes.

You can handle this better by resolving to be, to your own children, everything good that your mother is/was not. Not by burdening your soul with resentments. Some people travel abroad and suddenly realise that their mothers didn’t try at all.

Advanced societies have support institutions for the family, but here, the “straightening out” is done with cane, tongue-lashing and maybe…hunger!I remember those days when I would go play without doing any house chores. My mother would use silence and hunger to straighten me out. I would be the one hovering around the woman with lines such as‘’Mama, did you call me?’’ ‘’Mama should I do this or that?”, anything to make the woman have mercy.

My prayer remains that every lady experiences motherhood…if only to realise that it is not easy at all, especially with a ‘handful’ of a child. These are women we know nothing about their emotional issues, who are operating in a culture that has idealised them into super humans.

“Forgive your mother, not because you don’t have a right to be upset about the way she has handled some things in her life and in your life. Forgive your mother because until you do, there will always be a void in your heart-’’ Iyanla Vanzant.