If anyone asked me what my greatest achievement was, it’d be mothering my kids. I swear down. For someone as emotionally messed up as I was as a teenager and having had two kids by the age of 19, coming this far with Eny and Omotee is nothing short of amazing.
Parenting is hard mehn!
I wish someone had told me that long before my I.Q started shacking me, before the boobs and ass came, before I started making calf eyes at Wale and Kamoru down our street, before the catcalls began and before I went to the university at less than 15 years old and started seeing myself as some kind of babe. I wish someone had told me just how hard raising kids was.
On some days, I feel like someone ran me over with truck and that same mean, very mean person backed up the truck and ran me over a couple more times. Sometimes, I’m so exhausted I just want to fall into bed and sleep for at least one year. But I can’t! I can’t because long before I feel like waking up someone’s in my ear saying ‘Wakey wakey Mummy. What’s for breakfast?’ Haa. E gba mi ke. You woke up long before me fa. What were you doing?
If parenting is hard, being a single parent? Lawdamercy, that’s HARDDDDDD. Boy is it hard! But still, I drag myself up every day and get cracking. I have to because the bills don’t stop and money isn’t coming from anywhere but my pocket.
On some other days however, being a single parent is manageable.
And sometimes some people, people like this pretty little badass, make it worth it. You meet some people and you know they’re just not ordinary and that God makes them like that because He wants to show off. Eny is like that. Many times I wonder, ‘Okay. Where did I get this one from?’ She speaks way beyond her age and if you’ve ever had a conversation with her you can testify.
At just 15, she knows exactly what she wants to do with her life, who she wants to go into business with after her O’levels next year, where she wants to study Creative Arts no matter how many times I say ‘Madam, ma ko ba mi. I don’t know any university in the U.S.’ She pretty much runs on auto-pilot and I always have to be on my toes else she’ll be the one mothering me.
I’m not a crier but when she says ‘Mom, relax. We’re going to be fine. We may not have the right clothes or the right shoes or pocket money, or the fancy phones people our age have but you’ve done well. We’re exposed beyond our age and we have the right upbringing. That’s all that matters and it’s all you’, when she says that I just want to go to a corner and cry like a baby. On those days, the sacrifice is worth it. On those days, I just want to climb a rooftop and shout ‘I’M A ROCKSTAR!!!!!!!!!’ to the whole world.
To you mummies and daddies trying to hold things down without a significant other, I hear you. You’re a one-man battalion and that drives people crazy but they don’t get that you have to be to survive. You’re all your kids have so you can’t be caught napping. There’s no box big enough to contain you and it’s okay that the society puts you aside like a misfit and in church they don’t even know where to place you because you don’t fit with the singles and the married don’t know how to act around you. It’s okay that the romantic relationships don’t flow as much as you’d want and sometimes the loneliness is so tangible that you can cut it with a knife. That’s all okay!
Now let’s take a moment to remind you you’re rockstars. You’ve come thus far because you’re all shades of amazing. You’ve gone ahead to shoulder the responsibilities of two people single-handedly and you’ve not fainted. You’re phenomenal. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Here’s to you.
By the way, why do you do your mouth like a duck when you take pictures? Why do you always tell me ‘Ewww’ when I ask about your boyfriend? Why do you always press my phone like you bought it for me? Why you gotta always nag me about buying you a phone? Why do you tell me it's 2018 each time I say your outfit is odd? Why does almost everybody in your class beat you in Mathematics? Why do I sleep comfortably at night and I wake up sandwiched between you and your brother on my own bed? WHY? 😂😂😂😂😂😂