solo parenting drama

Dear Father: what is the cost of your love?

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prodigal son embraces his father

“My father called me” Khadijat blurted out as I picked her call

“Which father? I was confused

“Alhaji”

“Wow!” I returned “How did it go?”

“I did not pick” She said resignedly

“What do you mean you did not pick?”

“He is calling me because his beloved daughter is now a divorcee. And his golden son called his bluff and moved out”

“How do you know that is why he called though?”

“They told me before he did.  I knew when he requested for my number from my mom. He goes about showing off with me. I hear everyone calls him Baba Star. Seems the fact that I am an Influencer has erased the other fact of being an unmarried mother”

“But babe, why did you not pick his call?” I bit my tongue from further remonstrating

“Why would I? After Nine years? What if I had died when he threw me out? Have you forgotten what I went through? Sadeeq almost died or have you forgotten that night when you drove like a maniac to the hospital? You were driving, praying and telling me to stop crying. Do you know why I was even weeping that night?

“Tell me”

“You made me cry”

“Moi?”

 

“You came back from work on the Island. Tired and in bed before my scream roused you. Yet you threw your own son in the car and we set off that night. In the same city where I had a family. I kept looking at this stranger who had taken me into her house. A tired single mother who should be sleeping. I cannot forgive him”

“Khadijat, are we still on this forgiveness matter? If you can forgive the man who abandoned you with a child why not your own father? I have never understood her logic

“Jide is not my father. He is just a man. Has my sister’s husband not left? A man who courted her for six years and they were married for twelve years with four children? Men are men”

“So why not toss your father into the mix? forgive him, he is a man” I entreated

In the ensuing silence, my mind drifted to the biblical father of the Prodigals. A man who shamed society by breaking all conventions.

Imagine this scenario: your younger son comes to demand why you have refused to die? His goal is to tour the world and have fun on your account. A goal you keep thwarting by remaining alive. He cannot inherit until you pass away and since he wants to enjoy his life right now, can you please allot to him his share of your inheritance?

You do so.

He squanders it and dares to return. You run out to welcome him! A wealthy man that you are!

Everyone would understand if you instruct your servants to deny him entrance. Nobody would blame you if you refuse to see him for weeks on end. Or maybe banish him to the Servants Quarters

Instead you threw a lavish party and invited your neighbours and associates!

Ego. Honour. Anger. Shame. Position. Status. All forgotten.

That father is the colour of love to every child. Which leaves me wondering; those fathers who throw their daughters out for getting pregnant, is her error as grievous as that of the prodigal son?

 

#iwd2025: tackling the shame & stigma of a single mother

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Sharon is one of the innumerable gifts Life sent my way as I traipsed through the valley of shadow of death via cancer

Recently, we were on the phone and I was taking her through a Values Elicitation session. Simply put, it is an NLP tool which helps dislodge you from your inertia by untangling your cobwebs.

Read below part of that call as consented by her.

SHARON’S STORY

“When I got pregnant, everything changed. Especially within my family. The disappointment was too heavy. I had gone from the promising daughter – with high hopes and expectations — who was trained abroad and brought back home, to an unwed single mother. A failure

I resigned from my job as I could not bear the shame. I left church due to the stigma which was worse because he was active in the church.

Then I had to move back home to the same neighbourhood I grew up in. This was after my father died and I was the only unmarried person in the family. In addition to the fact that I was struggling financially and by now dependent on the others, my mother needed someone so I moved in with my son.

The intervening years damaged my self esteem. I carry the shame around and feel like everyone is staring at me when I step out. I no longer have friends and no social interactions. So I only join online Groups and even there I do not talk as I do not want to be known. I also do not think I have any value to bring to anyone.

That is why I am very quiet in Groups .” This woman in her 40s concluded plaintively in her 5 year old voice.

“Congratulations. You try” I said sarcastically in a Nigerian slang

“So this is what you have been putting that teenage boy through?

“How do you mean” she asked

“You are raising a son who sees you tell him that he is a mistake. Do you have any idea what that is doing to his identity and esteem?

“But I do not know what to do. I am not bold like you”

“Is that what you think about me? bold? do you know the difference between I and you?

“No” she remarked

“Our glasses”

“Glasses?” I was enjoying her confusion

“Yes. Prisms. What we are looking at”

“I don’t understand”

men s brown dress shirt
Photo by Agung Pandit Wiguna on Pexels.com

CREATE YOUR MOSAIC

We are in a procession to some destination, all of us attired in white. As we sashay along, Life thoughtlessly tosses a bunch of rotten lemons at us. While some of us where lucky enough to step out of the way in time, a few of us watched in horror as our dresses welcomed the lemons.

Now, you Sharon, extricate yourself from the procession, flop down there with a soiled dress and start crying. I, on the other hand, noticing the damage to my attire began to go through a range of emotions like you.

However, instead of stopping, I kept moving, albeit slowly now. As I move, I make a mosaic of my outfit with the lemon stains. Although it stands me out from the team, it also draws attention to me and makes me intriguing. It says there is something about her which makes her dress different. Yet, she is daring enough to be here”.

As the world celebrates women today, I celebrate all Sharons! Get off the floor, look at your dress and decide the pattern you want to create. Remember that a mosaic is made up of different materials woven together to create a stunning piece.

Start now. #AccelerateAction!

 

the single parent and the other gender child

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gray scale photo of man covering face with his hands

Holding my son’s crotch in my hands, I gingerly tilted it allways as I peered closer. Yet he winced at each turn.

“This boy is becoming a man” I considered silently trying to minimise what was an embarrassing moment for both of us.

“Dear God, you know I really shouldn’t be doing this. This is a man’s job and not how I planned to spend my Saturday” I opined

“Oh please shush and get on with it! How do you think all the single parents who raise children of the other gender, alone, do it? my head reprimanded

“Or the numerous solo parents including those living in the same space with an absentee partner?”

“Ah, yes. How come I have never contemplated that?” I rerouted my thoughts as images of some single parents within my circles surfaced.

I saw Nina, who has spent the last two years nursing her young adult son after he got injured in that car crash.

I saw Mamezi’s mom, my neighbour back at Yaba in Lagos. Raising four kids after their father walked. I remember that trying period when she was washing and cleaning her eldest son. A life-altering illness had him incapacitated. While his two immediate younger sisters found it quite awkward, the youngest boy was too small.

She pitched in and did what had to be done. There was only so much you could depend on his friends for. Who by the way, had their own lives to grind daily.

Furthermore, I saw Mama Sara. Who had to move into her son Joe’s home after his accident. Joe’s wife had taken the kids, cleared his accounts and made a run for it, as he lay in hospital with a head injury. Joe was our colleague at the bank, who had been knocked off a Moped and almost got crushed by a 16-wheeler. After his discharge from hospital to an eerily silent house – and as the rest of us sat in our comfort zones, and wondered what would happen to him – his mom who could not afford such a privilege, moved in to nurse her son who was in his 30s.

Then I remembered my friend, Roseline’s dad.

“Ah, that widower who raised his own five after vowing never to remarry”

Rose was the youngest of three sisters and two baby brothers. I recalled how he held their hands through teenagerhood and young adults. The sanitary products he provided. The talks. The hugs The cries. How he would walk into the girls’ room and sit and talk through things with us.

So it was that as I applied the wet oats around his scrotum, my discomfiture ceased. The mixture was soothing the itch and he began to relax.

As he laid back on his bed, calm after hours of frenzied scratching and hobbling, I felt accomplished. Because whereas the two visits to the Walk-In Centre and a Pharmacy where he was attended by male medics had not helped, I, a woman, has done it.

Meanwhile, why is there no guidance around managing such sensitive moments? I brooded as I walked off with pan in hand

If a parent gets this uneasy, how about the child in question?

Have you been in such a situation? Care to share your feelings?

of racism and our red milk of human kindness.

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“How is your knee today?” The elderly man [whom I will name baba] asked him “Better, it’s less painful.” Young replied cheerily “Oh, you remembered. Thank you for asking” I said to baba as the minus-1-degree icy cold shook my body mercilessly. “Yes, he was limping the other day and could barely walk” baba responded … Read more

cancer missed this birthday

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“Amara are you crying?”

“No, you are not”

I shifted under the Comforter in bed. Sniffling.

“What is it?”

“Why are you crying now when you are almost drifting off to sleep?

I sat upright as the strains of a song filtered into my room from the hallway.

‘God You’re So Good’ A Duet by Passion, Kristian Stanfil & Melodie Malone.

That song always gets me. However this night was different. I have been a mesh of emotions for the last week. And it culminated today when I was writing that letter to him.

You see, tomorrow is my son’s birthday. The threshold of his teen years. A new phase of life entirely. This morning before he went to school, I did what mothers across generations have always done. Laid hands on him and prayed out the old year. Reminding God of how grateful I am. And thanking him for the helpers, teachers and guides he has positioned on this boy’s path for this new season of his life.

Then in the afternoon, I wrote him a letter. It is not even that I will give him the letter. I left it inside a journal he barely uses. And left a caveat that I do not know when he would find or read it.

Writing that letter though, unlocked a surge of positive emotions. As I regaled him with stories from way back, a fresh realisation of how blessed we have been floated all around me.

This night again, I paid him a visit where we played and laughed on his bed.

Then laying in bed, I hear the words of this song weave through the air. And I can relate to every lyric.

His Goodness is why I am here, alive for another birthday. If God had dropped the ball, who knows whose house my son would be in this night? Maybe I would have been like that woman of whom my mother always recounted her story. The one people find her ghost wandering around. Yet each time it was that one question she asked anyone – “did you see my children? have they eaten?”

Both of us have lived the experience of God’s faithfulness in all shades. From the day I found out I was pregnant, I have not lacked for anything. God has set up a community around us so much so that even in a strange land, dealing with cancer, he remains our portion in this land of the Living.

punish me now

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“I am sorry, I did not mean to” He stood by the door of my room pleading again

“Go away please. Leave my room” I responded calmly

“I was trying to pick it up and….”

“Young man, just go. Have you finished the mopping?

“Yes. It was an accident”

“Go. it is not a big deal. Just go”

Watching him leave apprehensively, an image popped up in my head. Watching Iyawo-Urhobo hurl a can of Saturday Night powder at her daughter Edirin as she chased her round the compound angrily. Then just as quickly, another vision superimposed itself over that one. Mama Oche walking away from her son who had mistakenly dropped her flask on the floor.

Then this popular Nigerian saying came to my head. About not flogging a child on the day he spills palm oil.

A saying which simply means deferred punishment.

“Why do you even need to flog him at all?” I countered

Right at that instant as my son walked away almost dejectedly I called him back. For the first time in my life I was only realising how faulty the premise of that saying was. It was a passive-aggressive thing to do to a child. To any body. Ignore the elephant in the room yet expect the person to run around freely.

As he sat down on my bed, we got talking.

“I said it is okay so do you keep apologising?”

“Because I broke your glass and you are not saying anything”

“is this not your house too?”

“Yes. But you bought it with your money” he answered, shoulders still hunched while looking away

“I am the parent. Who else is going to buy it? you?”

He was silent.

“Hey, sit up and look at me” I chided him

“Have you ever broken something?”

He searched his memory bank. Then came up with one incident of a cracked plate at my friend’s house when we visited.

“Listen, I used to break stuff most times growing up in my auntie’s house. Quality crockery she returned home with from England. It was so bad that I felt sad for her. It was like my hands were accident-prone. Yet she never gave me grief.

“I am your mother. I do not recall you ever breaking anything. Even as a toddler, you did not break any of my devices nor throw any into water. So why should I make a fuss because you broke a cup for the first time in your life?”

We hugged and he left. Leaving me relieved. I have always worried that I was living with an old soul because which child does not break something?