Unknown to parents, most bad habits our children grow up to have is our fault, if your child is aggressive, check yourself, because our children is a reflection of who we are.
I have three children, all of whom are scattered all over the country, My first born Debo is married now with two kids in Ibadan, my only girl and the apple of my eye Detola is working at a multinational country in Lagos and my last born Femi is serving his country in Bauchi.
Since Debo got married with kids he’s totally forgotten about home, if I don’t call, he wouldn’t call, I feel like he really has forgotten his extended family. I remember a day I was sick, I called Debo to tell him I’m sick, “could you please send me money so I can buy drugs” Not because I can’t afford to buy the drugs myself but because as a mother I expect my children to take care of me now that they can.
Could you believe that he totally forgot, yes when I called him two days later he said he totally forgot that his poor mother was on the sick bed and needed him to do his duty has her son. After he apologized, I told him to call me everyday, just to know if I’m okay and doing great. I didn’t hear from him until a month later when he got in trouble and needed me to intercede for him in prayers.
In all fairness to my girl Detola, even before I call her for money, she’d send me and her father something immediately she gets paid at work, although, like Debo she never calls just to see how I’m faring, unless she has a question she wants to ask or she needs prayers, especially about her choice of husband.
The last of them calls, almost every week, but for what? To ask for money! And Femi doesn’t ever want to hear the statement “I don’t have…” He’d complain and nag until I get the money even if I have to sell the last of my George to get it for him.
Even when he has enough to last him a week, he wouldn’t take a “No” for an answer. This trend of behaviour I’ve seen in my kids, the fact that my two boys are inconsiderate, and all of them unfeeling, enough not to even know they need to check up on their parents made me to look back at the way I parented them, at the end of the evaluation I came at the conclusion; I have failed.
If they don’t miss us, their parents it’s my fault, they don’t call each other and check up on each other and that’s my fault too. I remember the days when I’d leave home early in the morning to come back late at night, my husband was almost always on tour so they didn’t see much of him (which is why they are not close to him at all).
On weekends when I’m home, it’s one function to another and on those days too, I’m rarely at home, they got attached to their grandma because she was the one taking care of them.
As to why they aren’t close to each other, I can’t be sure but from what I’ve seen, the fact that I didn’t promote family bonding and togetherness, that I wasn’t always there to bring them all together made them all go adrift.
Now I wish I can really go back in time and change things, if I could, I would spend the rare moments I have with them judiciously, promote family bonding and unity, show them the importance of family not through words but by making the time we have together count.
I’m 50 years old this year, a full-time minister of God which is one of the things that gives me joy, but besides my brethen in church, I feel like I have no one. My own children can go a month and more without calling to see if all is well with me, meaning if something happens to myself and their father they might not find out until we are rotting and smelling, and I say I have children?
I would have loved to lay all the blame on witchcraft, someone turning my children’s back against me, but it’s really my fault. Moms! Your children are still young, promote togetherness and the importance of unity so you can have peace in your old age.
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