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Today's post is a guest post! And because this blog covers everything about life, we're entertaining this gist. A blog reader shared her concerns with me via mail (you can send yours too) about the attitude of our parents to inter-tribal marriages and she wrote this letter. I however did some fine tuning so our parents can get us. You may have been in this shoe or you're currently wearing this shoe, and myself and the concerned reader who sent in this letter will love to know how you handled it.
So here goes the letter.
Dear mum and dad,
We can never thank you enough for all you've been to us and being through just because of us. We're most grateful to God who used you as a tool to ship us into this world, kept us in your custody and trust me you've done and you're still doing an amazing job as our caretaker. we greatly appreciate the fact that you train, provide and care for us deeply, all these and more which cannot be quantified we are very grateful and appreciative for.
Thank you also for the privilege of enlightenment and exposure through the platform of education, with this tool we have come to appreciate certain practices and have become more informed with the happenings in the world and trends as well. The truth is, things are not the same anymore. We've come to appreciate that human beings are equal irrespective of their colour, language, race or country. We've come to understand that community isn't just made up of our clan or village as we now have the global world A. K. A online community. Because of this exposure too we can now easily meet and mix up with people of different backgrounds and origin and in some cases we form a strong bond that's hard to separate.
You possibly thought going to school was just a read and write project, but unfortunately is bagged with so much experience than the prospectus reveals. We know you want us to be able to also better your lives after you've invested in ours and Yes, you're right cause you deserve to reap the fruit of your labour. We also know what you expect most from us (your baby girls especially) and that is marriage. You don't want us staying longer than necessary in your house after school, in fact from NYSC you expect that our next move should be the marriage dance and all the orishishi/paparazi that comes with it.
But here is what troubles me, why do you make this decision difficult for us? maybe i'm wrong or I don't get you and I sincerely stand to be corrected and I want to understand too. If we finish school and unfortunately stay at home a bit longer than necessary, you are the ones who worry most and will pick offence with any little thing we do wrong. You throw statements like “We did not send you to school to come and sit at home with us, can’t you see the daughter of Mr, Akinwunmi or the son of Mrs Nkemjika, they are working and making life better for their parents but you are sitting here with us, Don’t tell us we wasted all that money on you for nothing" we become more annoying to you and like a piece you readily want to dispose off. When we mistakenly do something and don’t do it well, you'll scream “did you just do this...i can’t believe you did this, even me that didn’t go to school can do this better than you did. It goes on and on. We keep hearing how we're supposed to do everything better than you and also be better than you.
Then, when it comes to choosing a life partner, you remember that you know better (you may be right being that you're in the business already). You come up with reasons why we cannot marry from another village or tribe, just because it wasn't obtainable in your time. We understand that you want to be able to go to the village and make inquiries, but in the the world of today what can you even easily ascertain by mere seeing. Even some of us your children you barely know. You expect us to follow your line of reasoning on why we should not marry the person we love, especially on grounds of tribe or race. You say things like "Nooo you can’t marry from that state, they eat human beings head, you can’t marry from that tribe, their wives shave their head and drink the water used in cleaning their husbands dead body while mourning, noo you can’t marry from that village they are stingy, nooo people from that part of the country don’t know how to care for their wives, how will you say you want to marry from that village don’t you know that their wives bewitch their husbands and make them loose their senses to be favouring only their families? Haba!!! Then we ask, why not tell us the good things about these places or is it just the bad?
Dear mum and dad, we're not expcted with our level of exposure to still have same reasoning with you on certain issues of life marriage inclusive. Do you know that because of this same academic pursuit we hardly even meet people from the village, we can count how many village people we've said hello to talk more of becoming real friends with. You even know we hardly travel to the village so practically our whole life is spent in the city, how do we meet your choice (the village love)? We know better than to discriminate against a person cause of tribe, language or colour. Most times we're not in control of who our hearts fall for or who God has designed for us. We also understand that a person's character should not be judged communally but individually. We understand your fears but being too careful over something that isn't so material wouldn't help us. That someone’s marriage failed is not because of where he or she married from, or came from. There is no perfect marriage, and there is no wonderful marriage that miraculously happens no matter how long you fast and pray. Every wonderful marriage that happens involves two people who consciously choose to work and make their marriage a happy one.
We love and appreciate your concern but we beg that you also consider our choice, cause really we're the ones going to stay in the marriage and not you.
Thanks for your anticipated understanding and God bless you.
Your children
PS: Dear married young ones out there, who are lucky to have met the love of their lives from a different state or city or local government or tribe, please please and please try and work on your marriage so that yours will not be the bad example that will be used to discourage some other person. Try and make your marriage a happy one that can be a role model for others.
And to the unmarried ones learn to know someone and love that person that you can fight and convince your parents that this is the person you want to spend the rest of your live with. Get backbone and fight for your love, except if it isn’t love.
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