On a trip down memory lane and I honestly do not think there was ever a time my parents, especially my mother got it wrong with the whole parental advice thing. I am currently living in regrets and facing the repercussions of all what she advised against while I was growing up and I refused to listen because I was forming rebel.
There's a popular adage in Nigeria that says what an elder sees why sitting down, a young person can and will never see it even when they climb an Iroko tree. My mother is always and still of the opinion that every women must get a skill that she's earning from or a sustainable job before attempting marriage or perhaps a long term relationship.
She would always ring it to my hearing like a loud church bell and I'll often feel irritated and show traces of anger because in my opinion, where is the job? in a country where we have graduates being unemployed for over 5 years? with a large portion of the population unemployed? So if I don't get employed I should not start a family? So that menopause will start and I cannot have children? Those where the questions that often build up anger in my mind when ever my mother starts with the get a job before commitment sermon. As if she knows what I was thinking and she could actually read minds, she'd top up her sermon with a follow up and go, when I was much younger, the popular opinion back then was that there was no job anywhere but in the midst of the high unemployment level, I was able to secure a job with the government. In my head I will respond, because your inlaw was the permanent secretary then, it is not same for us now.
But you see right now? Everything my mother said back then when I was younger is an excerpt from the future and I honestly wish I had listened, I wouldn't have made so much mistakes, miscalculation and misstep. I am currently looking for a job like my life depends on it which it actually does lol. Having tendering my resignation letter at my former place of work, I am not about to sit and do nothing because the last time I was unemployed a long time ago, it came with a lot of disrespect and emotional trauma that I had to run for my life. While some women are lucky to be adored and adequately provided for as a full time house wife or a trophy wife/girlfriend, some of us are not so lucky in that regards hence we must work and earn to provide for ourselves that luxury that we want.
Like the saying goes, it is better late than never so the next time my mother is dishing out advice, I am listening with wrapped attention and a wide opened ear because common, you cannot argue with experience unless you want to learn the hard way. While experience is the best teacher, it is wiser to learn from people’s experiences.
I have a very bad habit of questioning things and always finding excuses why my point of view is the correct one and not what I’m being told. This bad habit of mine has caused me a lot and I have now realized it is not a wise trait but a foolish one so I’m dropping it.
Writing this post now and cracking my head really hard to think of a time my parents had ever given an advice that turned out wrong and I cannot remember any. Like they say in my country, na me just get coconut head and every time I exercise my inner rebel, it always ends in tears.
Thank you for reading word for word, your contribution will be highly appreciated.
Ps
Picture is mine.
