ME AS A NIGERIAN CHILD

ME AS A NIGERIAN CHILD

Me as a Nigerian child is when my parents say I can’t go to my friend’s house because they don’t come to mine but when I ask if friends can come over, they say 'NO.' I know we all have countless stories and scenarios to give about being a Nigerian kid. Personally, if I start, I can go on for hours but mainly out of frustration sha, lol. I mean we go through a lot yeah? Especially from our parents and can we all just say the truth, life as a Nigerian kid can never be fully understood. I mean we are still confused about how we found ourselves in this situation. Like how did I end up here please? Honestly, I feel we go through more stress than kids from other countries because I bet they don’t have to hear from their parents how they disgraced the family because they broke something in a public place or something. I mean, "How on earth have I disgraced the family by breaking a glass cup in an hotel in Ghana when I was 7 years old, Mum? How?"

Nigerian kids are often said to go through a lot of the 'same experience.' From strict parents to entitled adults to even village people. It feels like when we were being made, we came with a list of things and if you didn’t go through these things, at least one of them, can you ever say “me as a Nigerian kid?" Also, when talking to friends from other countries that aren’t Nigerians, they are often left wondering if we need therapy sometimes and me, I’m just like "lol it's an everyday stuff we go through." You see, the difference is definitely clear, or isn't it? I mean can we say that Nigerian kids abroad share the same parental experiences with those in Nigeria? Because sometimes a lot of things our parents react to or use in bringing us up are majorly principles that are societally or culturally controversial such as dressing, outings, language e.t.c. So, the experience should be a little better for those abroad yeah? Because the society and culture is deemed to be less controversial about the same things or do those Nigerian parents abroad still have the same mentality on how to raise their kids?

REAL TALK: Do all Nigerian children really go through the same experiences from internal factors such as parents or is it just a few similar experiences or coincidences that we have over exaggerated?

REAL TALK: Do Nigerian kids abroad have the same experience with those in Nigeria or is life sweeter for them?

ME AS A NIGERIAN CHILD

Growing up, I always wondered why my parents restricted me from a lot of things. I mean this wasn’t what I was watching on the family shows on Nickelodeon. Why wasn’t I allowed to go to friends’ houses when I wanted or be too friendly with the neighbors? Why was I shielded from making better connections with people in my society? On TV, the kids went to each other’s houses like they lived there, they ate each other’s foods and went to parks and parties together but in my reality, you can’t go to your friend’s house because your parents don’t know them. Well, how are you going to know them if you keep saying 'NO'? How then do I make friends outside formal environments like school and churches if I can’t go out to experience the world around me? How would I make memories for myself and even make mistakes? I often thought about these things especially when I was angry each time my parents told me no. It was like 'NO' was a magic word they used to shut me out of having fun, meeting people and living my own life.

And yes, maybe I understand them a little now. Maybe a lot of these 'NO's are their own way of protecting us from the society and keeping us on the right track. Maybe they are so strict because the society is already stacked against us so they probably want to make sure we are on the right part by controlling us and being firm.

The society we live in is very judgmental, especially to young people, so maybe they try to shut us down and stop us from doing things 'this society' frowns on. But at the end of the day, they are stopping us from living our truths and exploring ourselves. I mean, by making all these decisions for us, how do we discover ourselves? "What will people say?" is something our parents always say but that phrase cages us in a societally accepted box that might end up limiting our growth, our ability to chase our own dreams and be our own person. The Nigerian child is already caged in an extremely tight box of social norms regarding what is right and wrong before even discovering fully themselves.

REAL TALK: Do you think if your parents didn’t say no as much as they did, you would have had a different experience growing up? Would you be a different person if you were allowed to do the things, they didn’t let you do? Do you see your kind of upbringing as unnecessary or actually useful in shaping the person you are right now?

At the end of the day, the weird and very unique experiences we go through, not only gives some of us emotional stress. (lol) It helps us to be who we are because these experiences are part of our culture so we see it as unnecessary sometimes, but some of them have shielded us from a lot of harm we don’t even know about. We learn from the good ones and we strive to do better than the bad ones for our future kids. Being a Nigerian kid is a lot of things and we all tend to question so much as we grow. Some of these experiences are the repetition of an unending cycle of how things were done in the past because no one really knows the reason why our parents act the way they do, but that doesn’t always make it the best way. It’s up to us to learn from our own experiences and give our kids a better Nigerian child experience.

Me as a Nigerian child: I love my experience and I’m grateful for it but I want a better one for my kids. Don’t you?