In some cultures parents disown their children for being disobedient, banish them and never speak to them again –without a second thought. In other cultures, children are allowed to get away with way too much, live their lives however they please. Their parents still speak to them, still love them. Too many African children grow up to think that their parents didn’t love them. Too many African parents think their children are forever lost to them. Some children take voluntary banishment in order to live their lives freely. Free from the impositions of well-meaning parents who want to raise only lawyers, doctors and engineers. African children who grow up in the Diaspora feel the tinge of “unloving” childhoods. Parents feel the tinge of “failed” parenthood. The usual divide between parent and child is eternally more difficult to bridge between first-generation African immigrants and their children.
Most of our parents come over here without a silver spoon in their mouth. It is very difficult to start a new life in a new country. You are a fish out of water, like a baby all over again—having to learn the ways of this new world as if you never lived before—but you’re a grown adult. You’re in a new world of a new language, a new culture and class. So little of what you were raised to believe seems to be true anymore—not to those around you now. Life is suddenly about work and survival. There is no family—not really—no friends. You are extremely lonely. And tired. You’ve been working twelve-hour shifts for the last week to pay tuition–and rent. You have to send money back home to your parents—and your children, who are to join you at a later date. You note the things about this new society that you find unbelievable and swear that neither you nor your children will ever participate in such things. Everyone you ever trusted has backstabbed you. Now you can not trust anyone. The relief would seem to come from phone calls to your family back home, but they can’t relate. They want to know when the money is coming.
So finally your children come. You have to raise them the best you know how, while still struggling to understand your surroundings. They seem obedient at first. But they want things. The longer they’re here, the more they want. You give in a little — because they are children after all. Eventually you outgrow that phase. You haven’t taught them about your culture or encouraged the speaking of your language at home, thinking that they needed to be as Europeanized as possible in order to benefit from the opportunities around them. But then, they seem to do nothing you say, unless you use the iron hand. They seem to be concerned only with integrating with the children at school. You do your best to limit their interaction with these strange people who you think will taint them. You think you are protecting them from the ills of this new world. They think you are over-protective. You instill discipline as much as you can by making them work in the house, as your parents had you do. They think you’re a drill sergeant. After all, their friends get paid by their parents to do these chores. How come you won’t let them go out and play? Their friends get to go out and play all the time. How come they have to watch their younger siblings? Can’t you get a baby-sitter? Can’t you watch them? They start throwing tantrums. They won’t do anything you say. Not unless you whip them into shape with a belt. Their mother is the buffer between your belt and their behinds. They’re getting older and they’re sneaking around more and more. You can barely keep up with their lies. Sometimes you pretend as if you don’t see. For God’s sake, you’re tired! You’ve been working all day! The dishes aren’t washed. The floors aren’t swept. And no one’s homework is done. You want to lash out. But you’re tired of being called a tyrant.
Now they’ve grown and left the house. You miss them. You wish they were closer. You wish that you could speak Yoruba to them and tell them the things your parents told you. You wish they had some sort of cultural understanding. You never hear from them, unless you call them. They try to check in every once in a while, but you can tell they’re doing it by force, not by choice. You wish they would call more often, talk to you about what’s going on in their lives. You wish you didn’t have to hear about them from others.
African parents tend to feel love defined by molding your child into someone fit to partake in the larger society. Children who mature in the European diaspora are exposed to love defined by affection, gratification and emotional support. There is very little middle ground. Thus the result of this is that parents who did their very best to produce children who would become future “successes” find eternal disappointment in their children’s lives. Children who would normally see eternal success in whatever they put their hands on actually end up with arrested development, stifled by their lack-of-love complex.
Because a parent so thoroughly believes that the best way to show love to his child is to make him more successful than he himself was, to lift the hurdles that the child can not lift himself, he can never wrap his head around the idea that his child does not feel he loves him. He never questions whether the track from which he is removing hurdles is even the right track for that child. After all, this is how his parents showed him love. He never questioned their love for him. It was irrelevant whether or not they loved him, because they did what they were supposed to do. Love? Who the hell needed parental love in Neo-Colonial West Africa? One needed food. Clothing. Shelter. How about a job? Nobody was looking for parental love—not outwardly. Love meant you were clothed and fed, trained, disciplined and educated. Simple.
Because the child is so adapted to this new society that knows nothing of the Neo-Colonial West African love, he feels abused as a child. He feels that his parents’ love is conditional—upon his becoming, or following the track to become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer. He is not worthy of their attention otherwise. If his grades fall below level, if he fails to do his chores in a timely manner, if he does not always do as he is told, he is a bad child and must redeem himself in order to be again treated as a cherished child. So he rebels against this. Or, he is a mumming, obedient child. Everything he does is to please his parents. They in turn shower him with blessings, and praises; those they would have showered on the other child had he been more obedient. The child who rebels is forever the black sheep, calls home by force every once in a while. The other grows up to be miserable when he finally realizes at thirty-four that he hasn’t begun to live his own life just yet.
What is the solution to this? There may not be one, unless parents seek to produce children who will balance submission with self-understanding. Children must seek to give their parents a fair amount of pride while staying true to self. The amount of discipline imparted on African children is respectable. This is why the rest of the world strains to compete with those of us given proper opportunity to succeed. But the self-confidence present in Europeans who grew up with constant positive reinforcement, given the attitude of power from a very early age, is what makes it possible for them to rule the rest of the world. What would Africans lose if we raised children with as much self-confidence as discipline? Would our children have less respect for their parents? Be less obedient? Less humble? How much do we have to lose and how much to gain?
This lack of self-confidence, lacking attitude of power, is arguably the most inhibiting factor in our development. We are raised to be obedient servants—to everyone. Without enough culture—in the last few generations—to use that as a viable standing ground. Wherever we go, we serve others. No matter that we are making $100K. Because of our $100K work, someone else is making $100mil, $100bil. We lack the risk-taking ability that billionaires and world-leaders possess. Because we are afraid of what our parents might say if we fall off the beaten track. If we take that unpopular major, non-mainstream job, live in the improper neighborhood. Those of us who do follow the beaten path with the hurdles removed by daddy tend still to feel as though he doesn’t love us. We feel like he constantly wants more. No matter what is achieved, there is always more to be achieved, and he breathes this down our necks. Until we break under the pressure.
There is a balance. European children curse their parents to their faces and still see the light of day. They may ask and receive. They may be heard at home. They may have security due to their family’s stability. They have individuality. But once they’ve reached the top, they still send visas to Africa to find the brightest minds to work for them. Every child, regardless which continent he hails from, has been gifted by God. He has been created by God to serve one purpose or another. Herein is the value of individuality. Every child must be given the opportunity to address this purpose. Too often in African tradition we think that only a few have been created with a purpose. Everyone else was created to serve this master. Thus it is okay to be a drone as long as you follow the right Oba. But then when thrown into the concrete jungle of an “industrial nation”, drone-ness can cause a great deal of suffering. A man who has been guided toward the discovery of his purpose will serve that when he arrives in the jungle. Not the green god, not the white god, not the slum god. Because we have the resourcefulness, the discipline, the work ethic that few other peoples have, it should not be so unthinkable that we not follow the unbeaten path. The path with hedges, thorns and swamps that none has conquered before, to arrive at a new kind of success.
I remember writing a letter to my parents in junior high school to explain why I was so “unhappy”. I made a list of all the things that were bothering me. They hadn’t asked for this letter, no, but something made me feel like they might be interested in knowing. Who knows? In this letter, I talked about how I didn’t like not being able to share in the same experiences my peers were having. My Nigerian peers and I hardly shared the same cultural context as most of our other peers. Most of the movies they were talking about we hadn’t seen. The albums they were listening to we hadn’t heard. We couldn’t go to the concerts or parties or sleepovers. We didn’t have the freedom they had. Drama class? Dance groups? They weren’t trying to hear it. I felt stifled, insecure because the inhibiting rules my parents’ culture set made me a sore thumb in my environment.
Our parents raise us to be obedient and disciplined so that we may live a certain life, free of the obstacles they faced. Surely, the obstacles are far removed by the time we come of age. They are so far removed that we fail to appreciate the fact that they have been removed. We are looking towards a different path by then. Our parents have such difficulty understanding this because it is for this that they lived their whole adulthood around us. They cleared the path so that we could take it. How dare we not want to take it? What they can not see is that along with all the opportunities to hit the road and surpass our peers in this new world with the traditional successful career options, there are so many other options presented as well. These can not be seen as options to them because they came here with a very narrow scope. It is through that scope that they wish for their children to view the world. It is extremely difficult to watch the same children that they toiled for disregard the scope entirely. If these children are to succeed in ways more profound than earning a top salary and buying a big house, the scope must be widened. If not, then certainly we must follow our parents’ blueprint only.
Your children probably shouldn’t be given everything they want, but maybe some of what they want. Your children should not rule the house, but certainly it may make sense to make them feel as though their feelings are heeded. Your children should never be allowed to curse you, but there may be times when they see you in a way that you don’t see yourself. Certainly children don’t know half of what their parents know. But they do know some things. If we now take pains to raise a generation of African children who know who they are and where they come from (not Brooklyn, but Benin), who are strengthened by their culture, disciplined and loved affectionately, we may just raise a generation of African children who could rule the world by their resourcefulness and power-wielding attitude of confidence.
Let us not reject our parents for their one-mindedness, but rather seek to take some understanding from it. Let us not blindly rebel against the over-arching arm of control in our lives, but rather carve out a path that none can argue has led to failure. Let us balance the upbringing of our own children with just as much affection as hard-handed discipline, give our children as much self-confidence as we give them diligence.
“Ti won ba fun eso ni ominira, se o ma ni ijanu bi enikan o wo o?”
When soldiers are given leave, how much discipline do they maintain when no one is looking?
