MYTH making appears to be a staple diet among most Nigerians, as I guess it is with most Africans. Little wonder, we continue to draw blank, in our public and private lives, because we gorge our every fancy on myths instead of reality.
I grew up knowing some of these myths – which I dare say have remained so ingrained in our psyches – myself. To me, one of such myths, which has gained a frightening currency, among the illiterate and educated alike, is that all female children are, naturally, more drawn to their fathers than they are to their mothers. To vivify their point, those who cling, tenaciously, to this myth – even at the risk of being called cranky – swear that, so intense is the closeness of girls to their fathers, that only ‘Popsies’ are privy to their daughters’ innermost secrets, instead of ‘Momsies’. Hmm…
Male children, therefore, as you may very well guess, are believed to be fonder of their mothers than the girls. Indeed, proponents of this myth even extend the argument, by intellectualising the issue, referring to this son-mother relationship as akin to ‘Oedipus Complex’. How true this holds, however, remains to be seen.
Yet, if anyone truly bothers to examine the relationship between all children at infancy (be they male or female) and their parents, it is, largely, untainted and never lopsided. To be sure, when Mummy and Daddy are not at home or have gone to work, the tiny tots cry, endlessly, requesting the presence and attention of their beloved parents. At this time, anyone within earshot or those minders of the children, at day care centres or crèches, are bound to be moved when the relentless cry of ‘My Mummy! My Daadyyy!’, by the innocent, longing infants rent the air.
However, as these children cross the line, from childhood to adolescence and later adulthood, the narrative takes a new and shocking turn. This, in my view, is when every myth about female and male children, making favourites of either of their parents, becomes shattered.
I am almost certain that most men, too buried in their jobs and the involving responsibility of providing for their homes, hardly notice. But, the reality of it all is that some children are apt to shift their allegiance to their mothers, as they grow older. Not that they do not accord the fathers their dues or that they respect them any less. But, the father is seen as important in their lives, only because of what he represents: The provider of their school fees, pocket money, feeding allowance for the home and everything financial (an ATM machine of sorts, if you like). It is, however, the mother that is, evidently, the chief beneficiary of all the children’s emotional investments. Sadly enough.
Really, at every phase in the children’s lives, from when they are in elementary school through the university, until the time they begin to earn a living, some fathers earn less and less of their offspring’s attention, unlike the mother. Why this is the fate of most men remains a mystery to me.
For good measure, while some children can call their mothers five times every week, their fathers may receive any such call only once in a blue moon. Unless he is around when they call the mother, they may just throw a few tokens of concern in his direction, for the sake of being ‘politically correct’. Nothing more.
BUT, if the children see nothing wrong in this, or are too besotted with their mothers to be aware of the inequity meted out to their fathers, why can’t the mothers halt this wicked drift? I guess some women decide not to, either because they get so swollen – headed and constipated with ‘eating the fruits of their labour’ or they are just too insensitive to care. Yet, if anybody deserves to be hero-worshipped, while alive and even in death, for his labour of love over the home and family, it should be the father!
In truth, there may be certain cases of ‘no love lost’ between father and mother. Consequently, the children, either for all the tissues of lies they have been fed about their fathers, or some other reasons, end up lining up behind their mothers, at all times. It is also a possibility that some fathers, at one point or another, have been so irresponsible, by turning their backs on their homes and families, when it mattered most – when they were supposed to be fathers to their children and husbands to their wives. In a case like this, some women deserve a diadem of honour, for sacrificing all the comfort in the world, by standing in the gap and raising all the children alone! But, truthfully, this is no excuse for the children to abandon these fathers and cause them to suffer emotionally. As a Yoruba song puts it: “A person’s mother remains his, just as the father cannot be exchanged for another.”
Conversely, there are some men who, for no fault of theirs or any wrong-doing, other than seeing to it that their children get the best of home training, by being the last bastion of discipline in the home, have come to acquire the image of a monster before whom every child must cringe. These kinds of men think of their homes round the clock. Indeed, on account of their work and the need to put food on their family’s tables, they can travel, either within the country or out of it for weeks on end. There are others who spend more hours, in the line of duty, than is normal, just to be able to keep their jobs and continue to pay their bills.
If some women want to be fair, most men deserve more than being treated as outcasts in their homes. A woman who sits her children down and begins to regale them on their father’s past and present misdeeds (either real or imagined) is only erecting a brick wall of disunity in her home.
