Thought Picnic: Meeting Your Estranged Children Where They Are

Adapting to a Changing World

I am constantly told that I need to make allowances for the older generation because they are set in their ways. This might be true, but the world is always changing around us, and thriving in any community requires steady, sometimes sudden, adaptations if we are to relate to people, events, ideas, and circumstances.

Whilst reading an article on LinkedIn titled “Meeting Your Resistant Children Where They Are”, I immediately realised that it seemed to address only one part of the wider issue of relationships. The article focused more on divorced parents and their apparently adolescent children, and I appreciate that the writer's area of expertise is divorce and parenting.

If I were to extrapolate, however, the issue extends well beyond divorce, which is merely one of the elements contributing to the breakdown of relationships, just as resistance is only one facet of parent-child estrangement.

The Generational Cycle

It is interesting to observe how we all move through the generational phases of life, beginning as children with parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and then transitioning through these phases as those who came before us begin to drop off, in that natural cycle of life.

How we relate to those before us sometimes follows an established code of community, reverence, and respect. What rarely finds adequate scrutiny is the need to adapt for those who come after us.

For instance, when does a parent begin to see their child as an adult, one to be treated with some acknowledgement and, I dare say, respect for their autonomy, independence, initiative, and decision-making?

A Personal Reflection

Then again, this topic is probably too broad to be addressed in a blog, or from an amateur's background, even with the lived experience that might cloud one's judgement. My parents were never divorced; rather, with the palpable tension, the middle-aged theatrics, and the passage of time, they grew apart.

It might have been better had they gone their separate ways a long time ago, rather than being hemmed in by middle-class values until their cohabitation became untenable. Each kept their own record of what the other might or might not have done, and we, the children, were corralled into narratives that expected us to take sides; in the main, we tended to remain neutral.

However, to bring this conversation back on course, there is where my parents expect me to be, where they see me, and where I actually am. These are entirely different places. Whether I am a child, an adult, pliant, or recalcitrant, I can only wonder whether I am all of these at the same time. The fact that I have never been a parent might inform other perspectives.

Naming the Thing

Still, there is a name for the thing I am circling, and I only came upon it recently: relational maturity. It is not the same as being agreeable, nor the same as being patient, though it borrows freely from both. It is, rather, the capacity to meet another person where they actually stand, without insisting they first travel to where we happen to be waiting for them. I had felt its absence for a lifetime without ever knowing what to call it.

The question that follows is not a comfortable one: who is obliged to do the adjusting? Tradition has a ready answer, that the younger defers to the older and the child to the parent, and like most tidy arrangements, it survives chiefly because it serves the people who designed it.

Relational maturity refuses this one-way traffic. It accepts that adjustment must flow in both directions, that the parent who demands reverence might first ask whether they have offered acknowledgement. I say this as a sexagenarian, mind you, and not as a young firebrand with a grievance, for I am now of the very generation that is customarily granted the latitude I am here declining to claim.

There is a temptation to mistake all this for weakness, as though meeting people where they are were merely a polite word for capitulation. It is nothing of the sort. The mature party is not the one who folds; it is the one who can hold their own position firmly whilst still granting the other their dignity and their difference. Anyone can be tolerant of those who already agree with them; the test arrives with the person who does not.

And yet relational maturity is not infinite. There comes a point where meeting someone where they are reveals only that they have no intention of moving, and no interest in your moving either. At that juncture, the mature response is not to keep travelling toward a meeting that will never take place, but to disengage calmly and without rancour, which is itself a form of maturity.

Snipping the Cord

Certain interactions have rubbed me up the wrong way, and my reaction has usually been to disengage. People, and this goes beyond parents to siblings, relations, friends, and others you encounter throughout life, seem to forget that, regardless of what they assume ties you together, you can snip the cord and walk away, unbound, unfettered, and unconcerned.

The way you address and talk to people, their slight and unfortunate expressions of indifference, and the use of words that fail to give credence to the multifaceted nature of a person, or that fail to acknowledge the changes we see in ourselves and in others, can alter things so radically as to put them beyond redemption.

Tradition Versus Individuality

Tradition might dictate one thing, but personalities are individual and unique; they may not conform to any prescribed norms and may fall entirely outside our common frames of reference.

The question, then, becomes whether you are ready to shift your position, find common ground, seek resolution, and even accept that you were wrong, despite your ways being set in reinforced concrete.

The Cost of Indifference

I remember conversations and interactions that informed my decision to withdraw fellowship from certain people. You may not realise you have done something wrong, albeit inadvertently, but whoever is doing the kicking is rarely the one doing the hurting.

There might be another way to work through this, yet I am only human, and there is a dignity in that which demands the courtesy of others, regardless of the ties.

Restrict this ever-constant need to adapt our relationships, the need that keeps conversation thriving and engaged, all in the name of conserving what we think we hold dear, and the consequences will be exactly where we find ourselves, whether we are involved or not.

Honour and Provocation

Parents tend to think of estranged children as personifications of the Prodigal Son. Yet we, the children, eventually begin to see our parents with all their flaws, and for all the care and responsibility that went into their parenting, they were never in the class of God; they were simply human. Where the holy book says, “honour your father and mother”, it also says, “do not provoke your children unto wrath”.

Someone really ought to write an academic study on “Meeting Your Estranged Children Where They Are”.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

When Are You Going to Sit Down?

An Unexpected Enquiry

Just over two years ago, a man whose history in journalism stretches back more than 45 years contacted me for a copy of my CV. He had held top editorial positions at four of the most prominent Nigerian newspapers and magazines, and he still writes syndicated copy today.

He had come across my blog and, from a link on the page, requested access to my CV. To satisfy his curiosity, he wanted to determine whether I had a journalism background that might explain how I had sustained a blog for 20 years. On reading my CV, he expressed both shock and surprise that I held no formal qualifications in the humanities; I am an engineer who has broadly pursued a career in IT.

Recognition and Striving

Acknowledgement and recognition come from many places, and I hope I am able to take a compliment with grace whenever it is offered.

However, even as one strives for excellence, there are others who observe what you do and for whom you are not yet performing at your best. There is always that feeling that you could do better, and that in itself overrides every other concern.

Why I Began

When I started my blog in 2003, I saw it as an outlet for my views, and I had no intention of turning it into a commercial venture. I did everything at my own pace and wrote as I was inspired, usually hoping to bring a fresh perspective to matters that others tended to cover with a common view.

I do not believe I ever came to any agreement with anyone that my blog would become a platform for other activities, such as publishing a book. The idea of writing my story only took hold after my first bout with cancer and the period following treatment in 2010. Things developed from there, and I also battled prostate cancer in 2024; today marks two years to the day since I received the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the prostate.

A Loaded Comment

Imagine my surprise, then, when a comment was left on one of my recent blogs to the following effect: “When are you going to sit down and assemble relevant topics of your writings into books for future generations, particularly in Africa, to benefit? Your use of the English language and construction is superb. Some of your writings could come under, for example, tourism, based on your experience in South Africa and Amsterdam, or business management.”

You could take a good deal from that comment; the commendation and the suggestion were both gratifying and informative. Yet you could just as easily miss the criticism buried within it, and I heard it in the voice of the writer, as I have many times before, whenever their expectations were not met by my application, rigour, or initiative.

Refusing to Please

One thing I learnt a long while ago was to jump off the bandwagon of trying to please people. I do my work to the best of my ability and constantly strive to do better. That is my conviction, and it is the energy I bring to every endeavour.

It is the phrase “When are you going to sit down…?” that does the heavy lifting here, implying that you are not directing your abilities and faculties towards the essential.

In this case, that means writing books for which I have so far received no commissions. I have no obligation to write either another blog or a book, but I do have the desire to, at a time of my own choosing, if and when I convince myself of that need.

Parents and Approval

I still have my parents, who are octogenarians. I receive the occasional expression of pride in me, but that can easily be a speck in a bowl of displeasure at one thing or another. The fact that I am totally estranged from one and barely in communication with the other is the sum of the difficult relationship we have had since my childhood.

I was a difficult child and adolescent; I had my own issues, just as they had theirs. However, I am so completely past seeking their approbation that the desire fizzled out at twenty, and, as far as possible, I resolved that their influence on me would be as minimal as it could be, just as my dear uncle, around that time, shielded me so that I could flourish in my own way.

Words That Matter

What could it have cost to word that comment another way? “Your use of the English language and construction is superb. I can see elements that might lend themselves to books on your travels to South Africa and Amsterdam. Other topics, such as business management, I have seen in your recent writings, show that you could benefit future generations, especially in Africa.”

Imagine how warmly I would have received that version, responding with gratitude and grace whilst taking the ideas into consideration. The manner and tone of a conversation, along with the order of the words, do matter. Instead, I am riled, annoyed, and spitting tacks. It might have been well-intentioned, but it failed to hit the mark.

I might just have lost the desire to write a book. The medal for royally pissing off your child must surely have been awarded in the King’s birthday honours list, released on Friday.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Shuttling and bungling

Sacrificing the child

I can imagine the exasperation of a parent when a child, given every opportunity, does not seem to take advantage of the situations presented.

Unfortunately, they usually view this failing from the perspective of the child not trying hard enough and not appreciating the privilege they have, compared to those never afforded such luxuries of comfort, shelter, provision, and family.

Weighed against societal expectations that seem to inform and drive parents to desire children who are naturally intelligent, succeeding, and exercise initiative to the extent that parents need to boast of their wards, they are blinded to other issues.

They never consider the possibility of psychological, mental, and emotional problems exacerbated by their environment that could have resulted in the child's change in behaviour, attitude, and productivity.

Burdening the child

To address these issues, they use attribution and comparison, finding examples of the succeeding and the failing to pitch the child into a quagmire of adjustments seeking to please others without addressing the actual problem.

Now, we have some understanding that bedwetting might not just be a lack of willpower and control of one's bladder; just as sudden changes in a child's performance and ability to produce expected results is not a basic lack of application.

Issues like bullying, childhood emotional and sexual abuse could easily be the factors indicative of these changes, but parents, in their naivety, think the home, or other bubbles they have created, are free of the unspeakable interferences that rob a child of innocence and a clear conscience.

Misunderstanding the child

Worse still, parents wrongly assume that the child, if afflicted by a violation of their body, will immediately run to them with a complaint when they have never created the atmosphere for that kind of troublesome conversation.

They are dealing with the symptoms without being intelligent about seeking the cause.

Whether the parent eventually appreciates this or not, the child carries these unfortunate failings of care and consideration into adulthood, at times damaged or simply resentful. Others find the kind of therapy that helps them move forward.

For instance, I was 52 when my father first learnt that I was sexually abused from the age of 8. This was prompted because, once again, he was trying to address the symptom of my homosexuality, causing him embarrassment, rather than knowing who his son is.

Losing the child

What I did not reveal in that exchange, which would have caused ructions beyond repair, was that my first sexual encounter was at 7, and I had no clue what was going on, but the playful intentions of the other destroyed the bubble of childhood bliss that one inhabited.

If anyone had been curious enough to look at what was happening, maybe, just maybe, there would have been a better relationship between parent and child.

However, the total breakdown of the relationship between my mother and I did not start in August 2023.

What we tried to build upon left lots of unresolved issues that, in African culture, I am not supposed to hold my elders accountable for. Then, whilst I might have an African heritage, I am hardly African, by any stretch of the imagination.

What parents easily overlook (AI-generated)

Since we are in the age of AI, having reviewed my blog above, I asked for it to share some common signs of childhood trauma that parents often overlook. The text following was generated by AI, and I believe it contributes to the conversation, prompted by my blog above.

Behavioural Changes

Academic decline - Sudden drops in grades or loss of interest in schoolwork that was previously enjoyed. Parents often attribute this to laziness rather than considering underlying distress.

Social withdrawal - A child who was once outgoing becomes isolated, avoids friends, or stops participating in activities they previously loved.

Aggression or defiance - Increased anger, talking back, or acting out. Parents may see this as typical teenage rebellion or poor discipline rather than a cry for help.

Regression - Returning to behaviours from earlier developmental stages, such as thumb-sucking, baby talk, or clinginess in older children.

Physical Manifestations

Sleep disturbances - Nightmares, difficulty falling asleep, fear of sleeping alone, or sleeping too much as an escape mechanism.

Bedwetting or toileting accidents - As you mentioned in your post, this is often dismissed as a control issue rather than a stress response.

Unexplained physical complaints - Frequent headaches, stomach aches, or general unwellness without medical cause.

Changes in eating habits - Either loss of appetite or comfort eating, which parents might dismiss as "just a phase".

Emotional Indicators

Heightened anxiety - Excessive worry, panic attacks, or fear of separation from parents or specific places.

Emotional numbness - A child who seems disconnected, shows little emotion, or appears "too mature" for their age. Parents sometimes praise this as being "well-behaved" or "independent".

Excessive guilt or shame - Taking blame for things beyond their control or expressing feelings of worthlessness.

Mood swings - Rapid changes between anger, sadness, and apparent normalcy that seem disproportionate to situations.

Cognitive and Developmental Signs

Difficulty concentrating - Inability to focus on tasks, appearing distracted or "in their own world".

Memory problems - Forgetting things they previously knew or seeming confused about recent events.

Developmental delays - Falling behind in speech, motor skills, or social development without obvious cause.

Red Flags Often Dismissed

Sexualised behaviour - Age-inappropriate knowledge of or interest in sexual matters. Parents often dismiss this as "curiosity" or something picked up from media.

Fear of specific people or places - Intense reactions to certain individuals or locations that parents attribute to "shyness" or "being difficult".

Perfectionism or people-pleasing - Desperate attempts to be "good" or avoid disappointing others, which parents often celebrate rather than question.

Self-harm or risk-taking - In older children, this might manifest as cutting, substance use, or dangerous behaviours that parents view as attention-seeking.

Why Parents Miss These Signs

Cultural expectations - As you noted, some cultures discourage questioning elders or discussing uncomfortable topics, creating barriers to disclosure.

Assumption of safety - Parents believe their home or supervised environments are inherently safe, blinding them to potential threats.

Normalising symptoms - Attributing changes to "phases", puberty, or typical childhood behaviour rather than investigating deeper causes.

Lack of open communication - Never establishing an atmosphere where children feel safe discussing troubling experiences, particularly around sexuality or abuse.

Focus on outcomes - Being more concerned with grades, behaviour, and social standing than the child's internal emotional state.

Denial - The possibility that something terrible has happened to their child is too painful to contemplate, so warning signs are rationalised away.

The Critical Point

As you powerfully illustrated in your blog, these signs are often symptoms of deeper trauma. Parents who focus solely on correcting the behaviour without seeking the underlying cause risk compounding the damage. The child learns that their pain is invisible, their distress is dismissed, and they must carry their burden alone into adulthood.

Creating an environment where difficult conversations are possible, where children know they'll be believed and supported, and where parents look beyond surface behaviours to understand their child's inner world, can make the difference between a lifetime of unresolved trauma and the possibility of healing.

On parental interference and sundry matters - III

A Problem Child

I have a blessing; I still have my parents who are alive and well, but we have a situation where we are estranged. This estrangement is probably because they are embarrassed or ashamed of me, and that is something we all have to deal with in life when it comes to how we live and the choices we make.

In those circumstances, I have taken measures to manage their exposure to these things, sometimes by reducing or eliminating communication.

For those children who have made their parents proud without having to sacrifice anything of themselves, I guess you are doubly blessed. The stars were aligned, maybe angels were even singing to the shepherds in the fields, as wise men journeyed with presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the East to herald your birth. Oh, the prophets foretold it all.

I was not that child; I was different, difficult, and diffident. I was at one time smart and then considered stupid; for a while, trusted, and then not trusted. I was a handful to my parents, yet a product of the environment I was in.

We Were Not Friends

My African parents made many assumptions about what they thought I had learnt from examples that were not always obvious, for instance, the handling of money. Heck! My father is an accountant, but tell me, how do you pass down the genes? I guess only one of my siblings pursued a career with any semblance of that profession, so much for the power of example.

My parents are of the generation that maintained a certain status and stature, with a school principal for a mother, someone moulding impressionable young lives. The pressure to perform was even more stifling, the need to impress was necessary, and every failing was condemned with such excoriation it left an indelible mark.

Then I failed. I failed woefully, twice. I started courses at two polytechnics, both ending with the advice to withdraw. When I look back, I realise I was clinically depressed; my mother had Psalms and white-garment prophets on the rolodex of that time, and I found religion. I had finished secondary school at 15 and was starting all over again at 20.

A Different Parent

The difference this time was being under the guardianship of an uncle, my sadly departed Uncle Cash, a close relation who had experienced failures early in life but had become very successful in his chosen profession of insurance.

That relationship was different. It was not built on a yearning to show power by demanding and comparing, but on engagement and an appreciation that I was a person first, with my own beliefs and persuasions that could be accommodated within his mentorship and guidance. My parents backed off a bit, and I thrived.

The purpose I gained moved from setting goals to make others proud to achieving success for myself. I had the power to make my own decisions, based not on what others thought, but on what I thought was best for who I was, what I was doing, and what I aimed to achieve.

We Are Really Strangers

In their eyes, I could very well still be the child they once knew, because we grew so far apart from the day they sent me to secondary boarding school. They knew one child; I am a different man, and their child still.

In the same vein, my parents have changed from the people I once knew, even as some characteristics remain, and we have never really had the time to compare notes about who everyone turned out to be.

I have issues and misgivings, many of which I have written about in my blogs. I think I have had a reasonable relationship with my father and a rather volatile one with my mother. Even as I think of them and love them, there are elements of past resentment and abandonment that have taken hold as I review their parenting of me as an individual.

My parents, I can understand, have their concerns too: they have a firstborn son who is gay, has never married and will marry a man, has no offspring, and whom they have not seen in decades. And I am comfortable with all that, because it is my own life and not theirs.

Let's Do This Again

On my Facebook page, I have a friend request, the inspiration for this blog, because it is from my father, who I once blocked, then unblocked, but did not re-establish the friend relationship. After all, he conflated the situations of parent, participant, and policing.

Allowing him to participate in my social media activities meant that he began to police me, and then I got the message: “The earlier you make a good change in your lifestyle the better; it is not too late. All the best”. I was 53. I am going to be 60 in December.

You know what? I’ll accept that friend request.

Blog - This is my life, this is me

Blog - On parental interference and sundry matters

Blog - On parental interference and sundry matters - II

Childhood: When parents think they know best

Classic inadvertent abandonment

I happened upon a Facebook status at the end of last year, where there was a discussion about some parents sending their foreign-born kids back to Nigeria to apparently teach the kids discipline and resilience along with avoiding any possibility of their kids being dragged into inner city issues like drugs, gangs, and crime.

After reading some of the comments one especially of a parent who had successfully reared kids in America and could not countenance the idea of sending their children into the care of strangers, be they relations, paid guardians, or strict/conservative boarding schools, I offered a perspective of my own experience.

The lifelong consequence

Imagine being sent from a private primary school environment with a majority international pupillage in Kaduna to a boarding school in Sagamu, Ogun State, at the age of ten. It could have been worse as I had admissions to even more remote places.

The lasting effects of that experience apart from feeling abandoned even if it helped make me both independent and resilient, not that it was unachievable at home, but my parents knew best.

As a child, I was quite outgoing, precocious, and inquisitive, with independent views. I have decidedly refused to associate with old student activities at my secondary school, nor do I retain any enduring friendships from that time. The scars are lifelong.

A rash of parental control

I suffered serious child psychological issues just months before I was shipped off and then in the first term at boarding school, that my parents' closest friends pled with them to bring me back home, those appeals fell on deaf ears, as if they had not learnt from the experiences of being placed with foster parents in England, one of such even starved me, much of that, I have blanked out of my mind.

These seemingly benign parental decisions still affect my relationship with them, and they are both octogenarians. There might be an immediate benefit to fostering your children out to strict environments, but the long-term break in the familial bonds would scarcely ever be repaired.

While there are parents who still think the boarding school experience is a rite of passage that is wholesome and germane to child development, if I was blessed with offspring, I would have totally negated some of the decisions taken as part of my upbringing. I know many parents of my generation did not repeat that vicious cycle.

I speak as someone who will be fifty-nine in less than a week. I charted my own course and chose what was good for me in the scheme of things. Some memories are best left unrecalled. [This was drafted before my birthday in December 2024.]

The identity complex of community collateral

At cultural crossroads

Much as I try to convince myself that I fully integrated with the norms and mores of the major cultural influences in my upbringing, I am ever so rudely brought to the realisation that I am very much distant and sometimes barely belong and understand certain situations.

What is becoming quite evident is the Western influences are both dominant and defining, the Nigerian and Yoruba influences whilst giving me the benefit of experience and appreciation, my worldview only inculcates snippets rather than full concepts.

Decades ago, when my father said, “You have always thought like a Westerner.” Whilst not taking offence, I felt my quest to adapt and integrate with the culture and norms of my parents’ roots was being discounted. My years of being toughened in secondary boarding school in southwestern Nigeria were more a reinforcement of my difference than sameness.

Accented differences accentuated

Some afterwards, my brother would say, in jest and yet with more than a scintilla of truth that, “You are not one of us.” I guess even where I have challenged that presumption, I might well be in denial. My mongrel accent of various influences leaves me speaking in Nigeria as if I have an English accent and, in the UK, I have West Midlands and Estuary pretensions and pronunciation with enunciation deliberate but not received. I don’t desire a posh accent.

It is my accent that immediately set me apart in the 19 years I lived in Nigeria, and from the time we landed in Nigeria, there were people who saw me as a foreigner of sorts to the day I left. There may be instances where I try to so hard and relent when I understand that I am indeed different and I should embrace that fact.

An individual at divides

Today, I was given another perspective to contextualise my reaction to a conversation where I thought the discussion had deviated from the issue to the collateral. To a person steeped in Western individuality, the issue revolves around the individual and that is where the focus should be. At least, that is where I would naturally gravitate.

My sister however suggested another perspective, in the communitarian construct of African identity, the individual exists in a community and the issue affecting the individual has impactful collateral that the community is burdened with for which the community sees incumbent to ingratiate, intrude, and intervene to address and ameliorate for themselves, the individual and the instigating issue.

The enlightenment is I probably have been too individualistic in the things that pertain to me, my engagement in the broader community has been on my own terms alone with little consideration of who is in that community or how what happens to me affects that community. To that community, I can be radical, a maverick and a possible outcast. Unfortunately, for the said community, just by my Western outlook I have sworn no allegiance even if it is implicitly demanded of me.

A renewed acceptance

It is unlikely that my perspective will change, but I need to give the periphery some thought. Already, I find myself reviewing some of my viewpoints before publication because of these allegiances, weak as they might seem. In the quest for a better understanding of my sense of identity, rather than battle with the differences and drown in the confluence of the conflicting influences, I will just accept I am an Englishman in the main, with an inept understanding of traditions and culture of my forebears.

I am a study of the Third Culture Kid that will be found in disagreement with an ancestral community and in agreement with that in which I was born, for the good and for life. There are many like me who still face these issues, I am just surprised that at close to 60, the question of identity is still a work in progress.

In the quest for that sliver of constructive criticism that mattered

The hostile oven of criticism

“Oò serious, Akin”. Is a code switch of mixing languages that you might find among people who speak more than one language, and in this case, this is a Yoruba-English construct roughly meaning, “You’re not serious, Akin.” I however found out that the Dutch who are usually polyglots find the mixing of languages confusing.

The many variants of this phrase, I have heard as the lead-in to criticism and excoriation, an unchallengeable viewpoint posited by those with responsibility, means, opportunity, and the power arrogated to deliver the cutting without the growing.

Along with this, is another in Yoruba, “Kí lón ṣe ẹ́?” “What is the matter with you?” Delivered with sneering, disdain, and derision, maybe just disappointment, but implicitly implying you are not trying hard enough with all the advantages, privileges, and benefits you might have in relation to others, not accounting for any extenuating circumstances that anyone is willing to discover.

Humiliation as character building

In one seminal case, when I was addressed with the first statement, I dared to respond that I thought I was doing my best. It was taken as disrespectful and an affront, and at that point, another uncle stepped in to deliver a stinging slap, before commanding I grovel and apologise. Then, it was necessary to compound the humiliation by being ordered to do house chores, which we had someone employed to do.

Somehow, in many cases, there was an absence of constructive criticism in elements of my upbringing, though, that is not to say that I was not a difficult child and adolescent, I had my issues, and I could argue that they were not considered important in the scheme of things.

Bygones that cannot be foregone

Why dredge up these historical events when as the patriarch is wont to say, let bygones be bygones? It is because the bygones were defining even if the instigators would like to forget what they did and the impact of the same. There is a child in us that never forgets, despite all the work we do in self-development to ensure that the hold of the past does not become a limiting factor in our present or immediate future.

We all bear scars that we apply the makeup of presentation, expression, and personality to conceal to varying degrees of success, it is gratifying that there were still people who believed in us and supported us from under the crushing weight of unrelenting criticism and much else.

Where a child lives

It reminds me of something I read that is attributed to Dorothy Law Nolte who articulated quite succinctly the power of positive youth development. It appears on many posters that I read, and I tried to convince myself that much of what I experienced was positive and a good deal was, but it is never that easy to forget the criticism, the ridicule, the insecurity, the threats, the unfriendliness, and all that feeding a debilitating fear than was deemed respectful.

One moment of searing endearment and concern was delivered when they both ganged up on me in the administration of corporal punishment. He was taking a breather, probably in exhaustion, he said to her, “Mind his eyes.” That is love, I remember it well.

I love them, but they are not saints.

Some contextual references

Blog - Thought Picnic: A dreamy page of a family saga (2016)

Blog - Never maltreat a child (2023)

Blog - Thought Picnic: A child has memories that last a lifetime (2021)

Blog - The damage done when parents fail to listen (2015)

Children Learn What They Live

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.
If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and others.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

© 1955 Dorothy Law Nolte – Children Learn What They Live

Thought Picnic: Discerning insidious familial device

Sometimes fraught in thought

Finding the form of words to illustrate certain situations that are difficult to talk about would usually be an area of ability I would rarely be wanting or lacking. Yet, having harboured these thoughts for days, I finally began to gain a handle on things enough to express to an extent, how I felt.

We are essentially products of the environments and influences in which we find ourselves from childhood experiences and observations that many expect with the passage of time for us to forget through to the recent times where the occupation of situation might be both distracting and at the same time uncomfortable.

Abuse in its other forms

I seek not to commend myself in the ways that facing adversity and hard times has been borne with varying levels of stoicism and fortitude as much as with the help, support, and prayers of many who are acquainted with the circumstances.

In a moment of vulnerability, I was caught off-guard by parental device, and we usually are, when the focus was shifted from issue to collateral. Indeed, how well we are doing does reflect on others, just as the adverse might too. What it should never become is using the preponderance of the affected to press the point of your situation. The exertion of emotional menace can be insidious.

People forget the facts

I have a lot to say about many things, that I give myself to the patience of listening should not be misconstrued as acquiescence or acceptance, it is love, liking, respect, and even consideration that lends my ears to incident, inclination, assumption, and the paranoia that afflicts others to the point that it negatively impacts the listener.

People who have for decades cannot resolve their differences and then regale us with constant and unrelenting tales of woe that you have heard from time began, their stories seep into your narrative and could become your own story if care is not taken to understand what is at play.

During that conversation, it was implied that one had deviated from the kind of instruction one had been given from childhood, but that is a total misreading of the historical fact. Despite the good intentions at the time, I remember things quite vividly and differently. The experience was and is never one to which I would want to return. The path in which I seek better understanding and direction is quite different, but for the sake of amity over conflict, I have kept my peace.

The God loves me race

The things I remember should make me angry, in the particular, they should be totally unforgivable, but for the purpose of living, one should keep a tender spirit, even a heart of forbearance with an understanding that we all have many faults and limitations for which we have been forgiven not to impute the various infractions of others on them by total disengagement.

The race I run is a process of learning, the teaching for life will be valuable and the testimony at the end will be of wonder and beauty. I count my blessings even in the depth of despair and despondency that life gives hope, health is wealth, and the best is yet to come. God loves me, I just need to appreciate that more. My journey remains mine to pursue, if others are affected, they have run into my lane, and I keep my focus on my race.

Thought Picnic: Knowing allies from the lies

Knowing an ally

An ally is a person or organisation that cooperates with or helps another in a particular activity.

Allying is combining or uniting resources or commodities with (another) for mutual benefit.

Earlier today on Twitter, I read of someone who was withdrawing his allyship with the LGBTQ+ community because we were not worth supporting. It read so totally like the typical self-important delusion of grandeur of someone who was never invested in a cause, they are like hit-and-run perpetrators of opportunistic lip-service that once engaged on their perfidious and superfluous premises become disillusioned castigating others as ungrateful as they lament their thankless situation.

Allies are invested

Indeed, all minorities of any persuasion need allies, and their contribution to the arc of justice and humanity that affords us relevance, respect, dignity, and protection from abuse, menace, or violence is welcome.

However, before we had allies, we were who we were, sometimes living dangerously, but living, all the same, thriving, organising, and speaking up for ourselves that we were noticed enough for others to join cause with us in the pursuit of equality and justice.

Allyship is invested and engaged, rarely incidental just as fair-weather hoppers on trendy bandwagons are not allies, they are just notorious and garrulous self-interested, self-promoting parasites drawing attention to themselves and away from the causes, they portend to support. They have no principled stance, and they stand for nothing, their pretence to liberalism is everything but, they are utterly vacuous.

Allies stick with it

True allies usually do not walk away when the going gets tough, they have life-long investments and interests in the cause that they will not allow to be impugned or usurped. The cause is not external and abstract, they are involved sometimes through situations they cannot have accounted for.

I think of my parents as allies, for they have had to review their frame of reference to include something they do not understand. They have had to travel a difficult road into the realm of being directly affected, and this applies to many we have bonds and relationships with.

They have a gay son; what does that even mean in the context of their worldview? Yet, they resolved to accept the person and the personality of their son with all the difficulties and questions that entails. They demonstrate strength in embracing me with love and affection, prayerfully supplicating for my happiness and health, blessing me at every opportunity and bringing my loves and affections into the sphere of belonging.

Allies have heart in it

They decided that society, community, tradition, or beliefs will not define or regulate our relationship. I may be different, but I am still their beloved offspring.

These are the words of an ally, my father said, “You are my son, I will not reject you.” Then some faceless insignificant nonentity thinks I depend on them for allyship, existence, and fulfilment? I guess social media is a platform for ignorant self-aggrandisement and befuddling idiocy. I saw that today.

Thought Picnic: No fighting with my parents

My parents are stars

There is one amazing gift of life that I probably do not appreciate as much as I should, the fact that I do still have my parents well into my golden jubilee years, they are both active and contributing to their communities, probably less agile by reason of age, but so totally with their faculties to participate in many things and dispense wisdom at no urging, besides the stories they can tell about life.

Even so, I am enamoured by their sense of adventure and willingness to try new things, like for instance, my mother went on a pilgrimage to the holy lands late last year, the trip sponsored by a class from the school where she was the pioneer principal.

Over Easter, my father launched a book he authored about the history of our hometown, Ijesha-Ijebu in Ogun State, not to be confused with Ijebu-Ijesha in Osun State. The well-attended event offered the opportunity for us to showcase the achievements of our patriarch.

Duly turning up

There is a likelihood that all of us would have attended if we were in the country because the occasion is more about him than us, it is one of those settings where we get to celebrate him amongst peers, in the community, and to the whole world.

I was left a bit disappointed by the fact that a certain one did not avail themselves of the opportunity to grace the occasion out of umbrage which would most definitely presage outrage. Their absence was noted and journaled, consequences would ensue but that is not for me to indicate.

However, I do remember that 40 years ago, on the birth of my baby sister, now of blessed memory, I absented myself from her naming ceremony having caused grievance to my parents the week before. It felt convenient for me, but my absence did not go unnoticed, everyone who could remember me from that precocious kid asked after me and my parents did not have the easiest excuse to render for someone who was also in the same city, hardly an hour away.

Wrath comes swiftly

I had stored up wrath for myself that when I next visited home, I faced severe and retributive justice from not just embarrassing my parents, but from not appreciating that there are things I am dutybound to perform as part of the family even if roles are not clearly defined, you step up and engage, you make yourself present and contribute, especially if you are at that time not of independent means.

There are expectations whether you choose to fulfil them or not, but what you cannot afford is to have your absence reckoned as a slight and disrespect to the family to which you belong. Strangely, for all the liberal views we might have, we are quite conservative on the matters of the composition of our family and show up mostly by being compelled even if the courtesy of politely asking in the remit of the patriarch. The many times, I have tried to make the point that he cannot order people around like he used to.

I suppose what stunned me in my father’s reaction to my not attending my sister’s naming ceremony was he headbutted me, I stumbled and fell backwards, literally dazed. Of all the means of discipline at his disposal, that was the strangest one and totally unforgettable.

Example for learning

Now, I do not expect an 82-year-old to go around headbutting his younger sons, much as I sometimes envy the musculature of his age and bearing, I fear for what might ensue for which I have not yet found the construct of admonition and advice to address the matter to the concerned. The attitude is not out of character, rather, it has been overlooked and essentially not imputed even as narratives and experiences would have dictated, because we are of better breeding than the pettiness things like this would entail.

Our parents provide examples, but an example is not a call to imitation, rather the study of example should allow us to follow the good and discard the bad, learn lessons, determine not to repeat their mistakes and end the vicious cycle of confrontation, conflict, and irritation.

We need to find accommodations of acceptance, agreement, and engagement for there is little we can demand of them than guidance and prayers, as essential responsibilities begin to devolve to those of us in our prime. We now have to take up the mantel, make the appearances for the family, find the means to attend to needs, wants, and provision, keep the family arrangements in good order and we do this with a sense of duty and humanity that it requires.

Play for the good

When I speak to either my father or my mother, I am regaled with prayers and blessings, their happy voices warming my heart and for all the trouble I was through my teenage years into early adulthood, I may not have made all the amends, but I am grateful that they appreciate me, just as they appreciate my other siblings.

At this juncture in their lives, it is just totally unnecessary to find oneself at the wrong end of their tongues. Indeed, we do disagree and respectfully so, but not to the extent of disagreeableness, they are in the twilight of their years and whatever would bring them comfort and joy stays paramount on our minds. We unite to fight against, not divide to fight amongst, a distinction that might be lost on the psyche of those poorly schooled on non-nuclear family constructs.

Choose good example

For all the conflict that has existed between my parents in their marriage and there is much to review, I have resolved never to take sides, be influenced, or persuaded by either party, to each I have a working and productive relationship and it has served me better than to allow either conscribe me into their battles.

They have their faults and that is for them to resolve not for me to accentuate and project for either, it is a principle of relationships some fail to learn and suffer much not understanding and differentiating between learning from example and repeating bad example.

Thought Picnic: Parental pride is a bonus

It took a while to come

I was well into my 50s when I heard my father say something along the lines of “I am proud of you.” to me. Now, parental pride is a sort of gift, precious in its provenance and quite useful in some circumstances. It is a kind of affirmation and approbation that can help build confidence and character, it can also be in short supply.

I would be the first to say, I was not the easiest or best child to raise, my adolescence was turmoil and conflict, headaches and frustration for my parents and I found no respite or succour for the changes I hoped to attain to move into the category of acceptable. However, it was in being the ward of someone else that I began to find sense and purpose.

Put it in perspective

On the matter of parental pride, that went to another sibling, who received accolades and praise from every place, the school, the community and beyond, much as it would have created scope for amazing success and ascendancy, it did not prepare them for some experiences would best be forgotten.

Much as I love my parents, I have never worshipped the ground on which they have walked, I have neither the temperament nor the predilection to obsequiousness. Obviously, my father thought I did not respect him enough, I could not think of what else was expected of me, the similarities between us are essential by inference genetic mainly, probably with some tics and mannerism but not definitive of who I am or have become.

Get on with your life

If after a fashion I had determined to please my parents to any degree, they probably would be the happiest parents around, but my life would have been utterly miserable because I would have been living an expression of their desires rather the fulness of my own individuality, uniqueness, and expression.

What I learnt for myself was to live my own life as best I can, achieving what I could with the tools I have been given. Whether impactful or less so, I have followed as much as I have been given means and opportunity, my dreams and the consequence is for better or for worse, I have my own narrative that anyone can choose to celebrate or excoriate, but I am not working to someone else’s time.

A bonus is not the thing

Parental pride, in the end, is a bonus, if it comes and it is expressed, it should be received with grace and if does not come, it is not the end of the world. I am glad for having my parents, their experience and advice can be useful, but the buck stops with me, I make my decisions and call the shots for my situation. Once the umbilical cord is cut, we are beings floating in space tethered by the gravity of filiality but not bound strictly to an orbit. They can only do so much; we have to do the rest.

You do not have to become the life your parents wished you had, but you can quite become the life they wished they had.

Thought Picnic: Separated from many roots and cores

Things that made things

One cannot suggest it is a matter of estrangement for it is not, there is a useful and productive relationship with one’s forebears even as it appears nothing necessitates proximity or visitation with the passage of over three decades.

Deep in the recesses of unfathomed reaches of memories probably long forgotten yet consequential, attitudes and demeanours might well have been conditioned to the contemporary.

It is a matter of medical certainty that a truncated gestational sojourn required being situated away from maternal succour for over two months. Then in periods of farming or fostering, addressed in the link following, the guardians for reasons best known to them starved their ward. [ITV: Why thousands of West African children were privately fostered by white families]

Groomed in the briars

The conditioning of lack presented a fear of need and in view of that, every opportunity that presented sustenance was exploited even though it was wrong. Trust reposed in many was abused as victims were made of the innocent.

By terms, initial bonding was deprecated, the consequent associations seemed contrived even if for responsibility, love, and parentage, a relationship developed with all the strains of conflict and troubled adolescence. One belongs without feeling a sense of belonging apart from what is defined by affinity, obligation, or duty.

One is neither bound nor compelled, the celebration of them is one that keeps the conscience from being seared, in the much that is owed and the little that is spared, the accounting for what is done, whilst frequently misunderstood, cannot occur between any other. For all the apparent excuses that are available, the truth is in a life experienced than in the situation desired.

On parental interference and sundry matters - II

Incubating a man

As a 55-year-old child and I use child expressly because I still have my parents alive and well, it is a blessing beyond measure, yet, our relationship has a fragility stuck in transition, for as a 55-year-old, if fortitude had allowed, I would be a grandparent besides the other achievements and tribulations that define my life story. I have no regrets.

There are long periods in time that my parents have not been part of any of my decision-making processes, I have made choices and lived by them even with life-threatening consequences that I have survived leaving me in gratitude to the divine and medicine. That is part of the construct of influences that informs my worldview.

Apron strings shredded

As parents, I would think there are times where they do presume, they control and direct what I do, it might come as a surprise to them that they lost that kind of influence when they were unwilling to negotiate way back in my teenage years.

On the part of my father, it was when we were on a break at our village of Ijesha-Ijebu, I wanted to spend a night away with friends in Sagamu, he flatly refused, not only was I embarrassed by it, at that point I swore never to return to our village again, I have not for 36 years, and whilst many may dismiss my fit of imperious petulance, that decision is made.

Umbilical cords destroyed

My mother however who I love so dearly has sometimes conflated her profession with her parenting, she is a retired schoolteacher and principal of many secondary schools. I do remember once when she asked me to do up a shirt button and I snapped back that I am her son not her student. My religious diversions brought much conflict at home in what they thought was taking me away from my studies, considering we came from mixed religious backgrounds and the deepest religious affliations have always differed between my father and my mother.

On returning from my chosen church one Sunday, my mother in a fit of rage deployed the sternest ovarian disapprobation that stuck like the branding of a hot-iron poker, searing me to the core. As I walked out of that encounter, I was probably saved from the more damaging effects of it by inspired words of Scripture that escaped my lips at that point. “For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” [Bible Hub: 1 Peter 2:25]

He’s gone, really

Indeed, I have forgiven my parents, but no, I have not forgotten, the encounters they have long dismissed as trivial are for the recipient literally life-defining. I am their child and their son; however, I will define the parameters within which that operates. The episodes above happened when I was already nominally an adult, and an adult is fundamental not a child regardless of what parental control they seek to exert even at this time.

It might seem that I am protesting much on this matter of apparently unresolved conflicts, I believe there are many for the truth is my parents do not know much about me or even a lot about me from when I left for boarding school at the age of 10. They might have seen some foundational personality traits, and some character-forming predilections, but that is where their understanding ends.

Participate well, police not

Much as I seek not to be confrontational, the fragility I referred to earlier is easily exposed to fractiousness by misplaced commentary or even obduracy on their part. In my usually mild-mannered demeanour, my individuality, and my independence are totally sacrosanct, how I choose to live my life will not be dictated to me by anyone.

The blessing of the ease of communication and social media interaction allows for participation, but I will brook no policing. I blocked my father on Facebook, I did rescind the block but declined a new friend request.

Blog: On parental interference and sundry matters (February 2019)

I will listen to a lot of insight, wisdom, and advice, but I will respectfully make my own decisions. I suppose the other views I have might end up in a series of blogs.