If there is anyone that has anything against Family planning/Birth control in this day and age especially in Nigeria, that person must be a Bill Gates financially. With the way the costs of living is now affecting the living, I don’t think it’s sensible to birth more than 4 kids.
I know that family planning is accepted in Nigeria. I have come across certain programs and initiatives in place to foster awareness towards this issue. But I have never attended any of them, what am I even going there for? There was always an age range in those programs and I didn’t meet the quota. That was then.
Now, I don’t know if family planning includes birth control pills (postinor like we call them here) and I don’t know how women in general feel about swallowing these things to prevent pregnancy. What I do know is that many young girls my age take them most especially the sexually active ones. When a young lady visits a pharmacy to purchase this drug (from my experience) they get the side eye.
As I was saying in the beginning, Family planning is accepted here but I don’t think it is practiced. Some women still pop out babies like a vending machine with ideals that have you keeling over in laughter. I remember hearing this woman admit to her fellow “baby makers” that the reason for birthing eleven kids was for precautions. Just in case some died. I was speechless.
That is no reason to bring children out into this world especially when you are not financially capable of providing for them. This practice is prevalent in the North. Having more than four kids is the norm and it’s a bad one because the streets is clad with “almajiris”.
Children begging for food, doing hard work for income because their parents thought it was wise to give birth to more than their pockets. I remember when I was returning from the market and one of these boys offered to carry my bag. There are lots of them that do that for money. I wanted to refuse because the main road was not far and the bag was not heavy but then I saw his feet! He was bare.
I let him take the bag and then bought him slippers. Then I gave him a thousand naira when it wasn’t even that much of a distance. For some reason, my chest felt tight when this boy started bowing and thanking me. It made me so uncomfortable. That is the other effect of the ignorance and selfishness of parents.
These children should be in school and not on the streets. I can’t even imagine the lack of attention this children handle with their parents to send them to the streets. Some of the thugs we see on the streets of Kaduna grew up that way not by choice but by the choices of their parents.
I’ve met and listened to young girls who had to result to “hook up” to survive especially in school. The background is always dark and I’m not saying it is justified but that was the solution they found in the moment. The ones I talked to did it only till they could stand on their own. It’s not a past they are proud of. A lady I spoke to regarding this issue (now married and happy) was forced into the streets after her father abandoned them. She had 9 other siblings and was the second (who later became first after the first died from an illness).
All siblings were girls. Their mother was in a frantic search of a boy to save her marriage and kept popping out girls instead. In the end, the man got another woman pregnant and she delivered a boy (who I’d learn died one year later) which prompted the man to leave his family and force the women into a life of hardship.
The woman could not care for all her children and unfortunately, some had to leave to find their paths. This lady wanted to complete her education and worked hard jobs to provide as much as she could for herself and her family. However, she made decisions that she was not proud of in the long run.
This is the adverse effect of people who have the knowledge of something but don’t use it and worse if they don’t know.
This is my entry to the 6th Day of the August INLEO monthly initiative in the Hive Naija Community.
