TOXIC PARENTING: GROWING UP NIGERIAN

For a really long time, I’ve been thinking about posting a piece on this, it really serves controversy so lady/gentleman, shall we?😏

     It is a known fact that the principles to raising a well disciplined child in Nigeria is quite questionable sometimes.

So much pressure is put on us right from childhood. From academics, to financial success to jobs to marriage to child bearing and most commonly careers. My belief about parents that pressure their kids into careers these kids aren’t interested in is that the parents do it because they have failed dreams they want to achieve through their kids or they just want to be able to brag to people around them.
     Some Nigerian parents refuse to realize that every child is different, they’d go on to pressurize their children, leaving some of the children to a mentality that tells them they are dumb and useless without academic success whilst some other children develop perfectionist traits as they put too much pressure on themselves trying to please their parents. 

Our Nigerian parents, plenty a time refuse to support their child in improving the child’s talent as long as the talent isn’t school related. Why?! 

Many a time, children believe they achieve academic success for their parents and not themselves but are scared to speak up therefore struggle to establish autonomy and often succumb to depression. Conclusion: putting children under pressure can be detrimental to their psychological health!
How about their consistent violence? Sigh. 

A typical Nigerian parent would hit you, use harsh words on you or yell at you at the slightest mistake, you fail at school, you break a plate, you stain your clothes. There was a time you get an ass whooping for simple things like this, things that can happen to anyone regardless of the age.  

They don’t understand this. I’ve had the opportunity to see a mother hit her toddler. Like really hit with a piece of wood. I was infuriated! 

This child doesn’t understand why you are hitting him🤦🏽‍♀️. Honestly how this barbarism is even seen as discipline, I’m yet to understand.

From that little age, his mom had already began to instill fear in him, this fear grows into resentment as the child gets older and when the child is all grown up and doesn’t visit his parents often or have a close relationship with the parents, it’s suddenly a surprise, like hold up! Who caused it?🤷🏽‍♀️

      I also have a problem with parents who don’t let their children socialize and stuff, parents who think the only form of social gatherings their children should belong to are schools and a places of religious worship. If only they knew what most of their kids do when given little freedom 🤦🏽‍♀️. 

I believe it is better to be a protective and cautious parent not an overprotective and ignorant one!

       I’m not leaving out parents who think they are immune to being wrong, they ignore your opinion or hush you if you ever have the chance to make one, everything they say goes, no addition🤦🏽‍♀️. 

I have this friend who tells me how much he dislikes his mom whenever she gets all “know it all” with him and doesn’t give him a chance to air his opinions and even if he gets that chance she trashes his opinion. 

He says it makes having a reasonable conversation with her impossible. So he became distant and I don’t blame him.

     Now this is probably the worst and most common  kind of parenting toxicity there is, some of our parents who are can be very bipolar every now and then, pour out their anger and frustration on their kids when they have mood swings.  

Sometime ago, December I think, a Nigerian lady, committed suicide. What pushed her to do this?

The pain and frustration that lead to depression which her bipolar mother inflicted on her. It’s quite saddening that most Nigerian parents ignorantly trigger the depression and frustration in their childrens’ lives.

       This particular one I’m about to tell you isn’t exactly toxicity but it’s just plain wrong, a good number of our Nigerian parents don’t believe in reciprocating the respect we give them, simple gestures like saying please/thank you/excuse me and most importantly apologizing can go a long way but rather we get insulted and can’t speak up because of respect. 

Many of us till this day are scared to speak to our parents about so many things for the fear of being judged or ridiculed or INSULTED.

        Finally, most of our parents have the habit of reminding us how much they’ve sacrificed for us, this is infuriating to be honest, it’s wonderful that they sacrificed but constantly reminding us seems like though they sacrificed even when they weren’t supposed to!
     At this point, I’ve come to an overall conclusion that, children of toxic parents often try to justify why their parents’ ill-treatment towards them, many still love their parents admist all but have been fed a constant narrative that they (the children) are the problem. 

If you happen to be reading this article  and it reflects  any part or parts of your life, just know, it’s a phase and most importantly, you aren’t/weren’t the problem. Namaste 🙏🏼

CHINWEKENE 🌹