Thinking Out Loud

To whom it may concern,

If you can’t understand to say the least, try and mind your business. When I was a little girl or a teenager; all I wanted to do was to get married ‘real quick’ and have children. At some point when I’d linger in my fantasies, the process seemed easier than the thoughts. #Whew! How ironic!! The number of family and family friends that were settling down at the point of my fantasy were not helping matters either. Their mode of celebration contributed to the expansion of my fantasy; all the fineness and expensivenss going on… Oh Lord! It made it worse.

I was talking with one of my classmates who now lives very far away from home. We talked for a long time and I asked her when she will be visiting home (i.e Nigeria) because it will be a joy to see a good friend I haven’t seen in nearly a decade. It was quite unfortunate that she didn’t share this mushy missing feeling with me and this was her response: “if I ever have to be in Nigeria again, I must come with my husband, if not my parents will send me back”. Since this is supposed to be a joke right, I was laughing my a** off but she echoed- “I am serious O” twice!!for she did seem quite serious. She said “when my siblings and other relatives come here, they come to see me but my Mom and Dad haven’t seen me for four years now and we rarely talk”. My mode of bewilderment automatically reduced my laughter to a forced smile. It amazed me that people on the surface of this earth will prefer a marital process than the well being of their own child but hey! This is the reality of so many others that I do not even know.

Just recently I was talking to one of my very good friends and we were talking about how easy it was to make money during our parents’ times, how it was easy for them to erect buildings and run their businesses and marry wife/wives and have many children and take them to the best of schools and take all the many kids on a beautiful vakay as at that time. When they would acclaim how N500 was a lot of money and what they could and could not do with N500; when the exchange rate was NOTHING compared to what it is right now. I can wish I lived in that time but I thank God I didn’t… wink ;). Our parents will go on and on about how they had your younger brother, you or the tenth born when your Mom was ‘just’ in her early twenties. These days, I bet that if you see a young person under 40 or under 30 as a millionaire or billionaire your detective-question-mode (DQM) automatically comes on: Who is his Father? What does he do? Where is he from? Our questions roll-in unend okay? Some of us are guilty of this treat.

I have a particular problem with older people (parents, older siblings, aunties, uncles etc) trying to live their lives through younger ones. You have lived your days on this earth, and still living it so please allow your young ones make their mistakes and learn from it! At least for those who dare to. Even the Holy Book summarizes it: “train your child in a way that he should go so that when he grows, he would not depart from it”. Many friends have shared their irritation with me on how their parents want them (the children) to get married so fast because of they (the Parents) want to see their grandchildren. And I begin to wonder and think of many things. If only these parents would also contribute to the financial stability of the child or children they want to produce their grandchildren and also settle their children’s marriage with already-made investments then their wishes of ‘us’ running off to get married would be more than granted.

Also, for me or anyone for that matter to get ready to marry someone, I’ll know him/her well enough (character-wise), analyze a ‘shit-ton’ (forgive my french) of things about him/her, understand ourselves to a good extent, know if we are compatible or not! Know if we can live/survive with what works for either or both of us, understand if the person is good for you as a person and not for your parents, siblings, or friends… As I said, a shit ton. You haven’t even known someone for up to two months and our parents begin to follow us bumper-to-bumper and warn you on how if you know you don’t see yourself settling down with this man/woman, you should stop hanging around him or her and my thoughts start running deep; I begin to examine my spiritual and magical prowesses; how my sorcery would allow me see all of these from someone I am just getting to know or barely even known. I also ask questions like: if I don’t marry someone, can’t I have a friend because of common interests or goals anymore? Does an adult’s life only start and end in marriage? What kind of man or woman would I be if everybody that comes my way should only be a wedding day or marriage-target?

Our parents always mean the best for us but they should not force it down our throats and like I’ll always say, just because an older person does something wrong does not mean that that thing or peson is right, even though the Nigerian society somewhat permits it. When I sit down with boys who acclaim that some girls who we share as common friends are desperate to get married and I have the same opportunity to talk with these said desperate girls, I begin to understand that the troubles are from the roots-home! The undue pressure that parents and some relatives put young people because of the said marriage and the victims of this pressure are 98% of the time, girls! Most times, they do not see it as pressure because their parents have created this voice or voices in their heads that when they see anyone of the opposite sex the only decibels in their heads bellow marriage!!! There is so much more to life and living than settling down with one person.

Just like the little girls that we were once, we still want to settle down with not just anybody or everybody that comes our way but someone that despite all the frails and flaws, we’ll love each other all our lives and get not just your grandchildren but our own children as well. We will prefer a happily ever after than a divorcing nearly after experience and to enjoy and endure our happily ever afters, we want to construct our houses on rocks and hills not on sand or straws and to get the best, time investment is inevitable. When we finally settle, just like how you took us on trips and provided the best for us, we want to do better than the best that you did for us, for our own children as well. Instead of always doing the usual top-to bottom no-feedback of command information flow, it would be better if you as our parents or in an older person position tried to work towards understanding and talking to us or who ever you are trying to force ‘the DO NOTs’ down their throats. Just like the marching song and many who are afraid to even speak out; listen to us your children, we are not just the leaders of tomorrow but are also human beings.