By Generally, I show some understanding towards African parents because I’m fully aware that most of them carried out their parenting in a way that they thought was best. A person cannot give more than he/she has.
I’m older now, and the kitchen and I are sworn enemies, and it’s not just because I leave there with a new wound almost every time, but because I have cooked for so long. I have been in the kitchen for so long, I’m exhausted.
Growing up, there are certain incidents that made it clear to me that I was “supposed to” be in the kitchen. One of them is being scolded on many occasions because I had gotten back from school and proceeded to play or rest instead of assisting my mum in the kitchen as a woman, and the first girl too. Tough times.
There are other times when my parents would leave all four of us children at home, and come back to pick me out for questioning as to why there was no food at home.
While I remember this, I also remember some of my moments of rebellion, when my mother would ask me to cook something and I would refuse vehemently.
Once, she went out, came back and asked me to kneel down for not boiling yam, when all of my siblings were home too. I also remember when I was twenty and, fed up, I went on a strike and refused to cook for a long period of time. Then I became lazy and was asked to pray so I wouldn’t be selfish anymore – so God would touch my heart.
One of the tangible differences between now and all of my childhood combined is that if I’m unable to cook, I do not bother. My parents will complain but that really is the most they can do. Imagine going to work, coming back, and being asked why you did not cook, when there were people at home who could’ve cooked.
Yes, it happened to me, and when I asked my mum why she did not inquire why my siblings did not cook, she said that I should have instructed them to cook. Why is the initiative expected of first daughters not spread to the rest of the children?
I remember, sometime this year, my parents complaining because I grumbled about taking their food to them in the parlor, when they could’ve just come to eat it in the kitchen, and my father asking if that was how I would serve my husband. In response, I said that my husband would know how to cook, and why would I serve my husband? The way my father looked at me you’d have thought I said I was pregnant.
Some of the phrases they use make them sound intellectual in their wrongdoing. For instance, “You’ll be a mother – won’t you cook for your husband?” As if cooking was not a life skill, and both men and women do not need food.
The thing about behaviour like this is that it never really ends, so now I’ve become immune. In fact, I consider it to be self-care when they tell me I’m lazy. It just means I’m no longer slaving away.
You’ve become lazy/selfish is the new “you’re beautiful”.
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Oghome Evwierhoma
