One of the young people I interacted with during a recent trip told me why she had not gone home in many years.
According to her, her father died very young, and her mother believes one of his relatives had a hand in his death.
She told me that on the day her father was buried, her mother sneaked them out of the family house at midnight, and that was the last time they had anything to do with her father’s people.
I asked if she had made any contact with them on her own, now that she is an adult, and she admitted that she once paid them a visit behind her mother’s back. However, she refused to accept the refreshments they offered her.
She said her grandmother was very happy to see her and cried when she was leaving. She also mentioned that her grandfather, who is in his 80s, is still alive.
At a point, she referred to her grandfather as “a bad man.” But a few more things she said made me realise that the old man’s wrongdoing was outliving his own son.
Interestingly, it seemed the joyful memories she had of her childhood were mostly from the moments they travelled home for Christmas and met other returning relatives, ending up with so many playmates while their grandparents, uncles, and aunts fussed over them.
This is not the first time I have come across stories like hers, but almost all of them follow a similar pattern.
The man’s side of the family is vilified so much that the children end up relating with them from a place of deep bias or resentment.
What parents who feed their children the milk of resentment consistently fail to understand is that they have not succeeded in raising well-adjusted human beings. They often end up breeding children with distorted reasoning, who struggle to find their place in the world.
Someone once told me how one of her relatives, a woman in her 50s who had not been home in over a decade, showed up one night with “prayer people” and was throwing herself on the ground while they claimed to be breaking the spiritual hold preventing her from getting married.
According to her, the woman and her mother do not relate with the rest of the family, except to show up in the family house with all manner of prayer people.
This is what I tell parents:
No matter what you have against your in-laws or other adults anywhere, children should be kept out of it because exposing them to things that do not help their young minds creates dysfunction in them. And dysfunction is one of the easiest things to incubate in family lines.
We are not going to be in the lives of our children forever.
It is important to equip them with values that will foster healthy relationships with others because life is deep, and anybody could become your child’s saving grace in the future.
There is a certain loveliness to children who are raised with an open mind towards relatives.
How about children who would not even touch a grandparent with a ten-foot pole because they have been indoctrinated into seeing them as a witch or wizard?
So many people are raising children whom their own parents have never set eyes on because a mind that does not know it is unwell believes it is running from the source of all its woes in life.
When I think back to my childhood, a disturbing reality stares me in the face. Some of my childhood peers turned out awkwardly in many ways. And those were often the ones who did not speak or mingle with the rest of us because their mothers had quarrelled with almost every neighbour and relative.
There is an awkwardness of character and reasoning that walks through life with children raised with pettiness. They also tend to lack compassion.
I remind us today that it is not always about you, the parent, but about a child whom your deliberate selfishness and pettiness may leave socially and emotionally unbalanced for the rest of their life.
The call to parenting is not for unblemished human beings, but for those who have enough sincerity in their hearts because such sincerity is what enables you to sit down with yourself in honest self-reflection.
Children are like a package entrusted to your care until the owner comes for it. They do not belong to you. You are simply a custodian whom God has assigned over them.
Your children do not have to inherit your enemies because their lives are not about you.
Also, watch how you bad-mouth other adults or treat vulnerable people, especially domestic workers and the elderly, in front of them.
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