BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH/MARVELLOUS ATAKERE
WE have both decided to make it our own story because it was a race to our past; both of us almost sharing the same experience.
Buoyed up by what our parents did for us as kids we never appreciated perhaps because we were too young then to appreciate, but now we are adults beginning to realize the importance of all what they did for us, the important roles they played in our lives as we attained adulthood, made this piece a neccessity for us both.
Only few children, about 10 per cent of them, are born with silver spoons in their mouth. About 20 per cent are born into the average class of wealth with about 25 per cent born into the not too poor not too rich class, and 45 percent born into the below average rating of improverished parents according to statistics.
Children that are born into the very rich homes, from very rich backgrounds, that is talking of those children born with silver spoons in their mouth (Category ‘A’) are carried to the extent of having buildings built for them by their parents, marry for their male children, equip their homes with expensive furniture and other household materials, buy them exotic cars, support suffiently in the marriage of their female children, and even give them juicy jobs before they are left alone to start catering for themselves. All these is to maintain their already rich established status symbol.
In some cases, some of them from the very rich homes are carried till death severe their parents from them. To this category of over-pampered adult-children so-called because of their over dependence on their rich parents, life becomes unbearable for them as they cannot stand being self-reliant as soon as their parents are gone. To them too, they easily fall back to their parents properties and start selling them in order to make ends meet. And most times the ends, they so crave for, never meet.
Only few Ajebotas (children from very rich parents) who perhaps were not over pampered by their rich parents and taught the virtue of being self-reliant while they lived side by side with their parents, are able to measure up to an extent when they get disengaged from the apron-strings of their parents because they started learning right from the on-set from their parents the need to embrace the virtue of being self-reliant; and the fact too that they were made to understand early enough that life itself is not the bed of roses they think it to be. To this set or category of children, selling their parents properties do no hold much space in their minds. They rather try to improve upon what is left behind by their parents as properties for them; properties mostly owned by their fathers, when they finally depart the world. But they are very few among children from the very rich homes who can be trusted and reckoned with along this line.
For those that fall into the 20 percent class of wealth rating, the not so rich, but not in any way poor (Category ‘B’, the bourgeoisie), children from this category could be anything but more sensibly inclined than the real Ajebotas.
Only very few are carried away by their parents wealth. Majority of them show extreme dedication, devotion and commitment to whatever they set out to do. Because they know their parents can readily afford to do for them whatever they desire without going aborrowing, most of them try as much as they can to level up with the real Ajebotas who some of them at times tend to compete with, feeling begrudged as they do that. They quickly understand when their parents refer to the proverb, than the real Ajebotas, ‘the pig tells its child to grow up fast so that it will be bequeathed with obnocious-looking outsized nose they (the adult pig) carry about.’
Parents of children born into category ‘C’ which forms 25 per cent of those born into the not too poor and not too rich class, a little down the middleclass, are more susceptible to taking advice and adhere strictly to it more than other children that fit into the afore-mentioned categories because they know any mistake made can lead them running round the wide field without scoring any goal; while 45 percent born into the below average rating of poor parents, the category ‘D’ class, are mostly more self-reliant than other children that fall into other categories since they know the parents they would have relied on have little or nothing at all to offer early enough and started fending for themselves.
The culture of being self-reliant transcends parents and their children as some nations of the world are not known to be self-reliant, rather, are known to depend on other more advanced nations of the world. Hence they keep importing goods from other countries and become chronic borrowers of loans from IMF, World Bank, other richer climes etc.
So, coming to what prompted this write-up, Marvellous had said ‘Ben, I now understand why my mom used to tell me using this proverb: ‘‘the pig tells its child to grow up fast so that it will be bequeathed with obnocious-looking outsized nose they (the adult pig) carry about.’
‘Ben, in my days at Mary-Mount College, Agbor, when my box and bags were ladened with provisions, I would be returning back to the boarding house still feeling unsatisfacted with all what my parents had given to me, I’m not talking of the pocket money that was even more than some workers salaries now; and what about my university days where much money was spent on me alongside my other siblings who were equally schooling then. It was when after attaining adulthood, and started facing the challenges that confront those that have attained fully the adolescent age I came to realize that it is not moi-moi business or a tea party thing. Since I started out on my own and now began having people around me that depend on me by way of catering for my children, and by extension, for both older and yonger siblings, and my parents, I came to realize what big loads my parents were carrying on their shoulders for our sake. It is not easy at all!. Saving, and looking for money for family up-keep is not what is easy and all that easily achievable, especially now prices of foodstuffs and other goods have reached an all-time high.’ Marvellous reveals further to me.
‘Marvellous,’ I called her’, ‘We both shared almost the same experience. I still recall with childhood memory my infantile days at Fountain of Knowledge Nursery and Primary School in Surulere, Lagos, how my mom used to take me to school, leaving the house early to beat the hold-up, driving through traffic jam all to ensure I get to school early enough, and my days at Baptist Academy (Baptacad) Obanikoro, Lagos, where I was in the boarding house and later Gbenoba Grammar School, Agbor, still in the boarding house, where I transferred to due to certain things I was doing not expected of a child of my age then; it was the same story of parental burden for a child that was bright but very stubborn and highly easily susceptible to peer group influence before I finally found myself in the university and tried to be reasonable and responsible to avoid causing them heart break as an only child. I knew what problems my parents carried off me just to ensure that I become a force to reckon with in the society. Then, especially in my college days, I didn’t realize they were doing anything for me until I left for the university, graduated, and started living on my own and began to see series upon series of challenges unfolding before me.’ I told Marvellous.
Being self-reliant at a certain age, preferably at age 18, as done in some advanced couuntries of the world, ought to have been introduced as a subject in the education curriculm so that children, irrespective of how rich or poor their parents are, will be able to learn on time, inculcate into them, and mentor them, on the need of being self-reliant, and start working towards it before it is too late. As a subject, they will start learning it early enough and be abreast with the whole idealogies behind it.
Many adults today, still depend on their already sapped parents, thinking there is no qualms still being tied to their parents apron strings or riding on their crest. It is too bad! It is our turn to train them, pamper them having toiled hard to bring us up this far. At this stage, our parents become our babies irrespective of the fact that they are older and some of them still richer than us.
