What did I do?

Earlier, my mother called for me and started talking to me. I don’t mean the gisting type of talk but the lashing type. She and my grandmother were in the room so she first reported me to her before she started with me, after which my grandmother then started her own. My mother recalled all my ‘sins’ and railed some false accusations, none that I agreed with. The sad thing is that I couldn’t defend myself against any of them because the last thing you would want to do is talk back when two generations of Yoruba mothers are lashing you, you will never hear the end of the story. My grandmother’s lashing was based on my mother’s earlier one. Has your grandmother ever talked to you? You will find out that the fact that she has time on her hands and is not rushing anywhere means that she will keep going on and on and on.

The amazing thing is that till now, I don’t know what I did. No, let me correct that statement, I did not do anything. I am of the opinion that they just called me out of the blues, found a small gap and took advantage of that to start lashing me. I also believe that they think that since I will be leaving their house very soon, they have to try everything they can for me not to ‘disgrace’ them and make them proud wherever I find myself. They were doing this out of love, but going about it the wrong way.

All through the encounter, I was thinking to myself, ‘what a waste of time, I just want to leave this room, what did I do? what kind of thing is this?’. Everything they were saying was entering one hear and coming out of the other. I was just… pissed! All these… For what now? All the while, my ‘other half’ (OH) was downstairs (yes, they made me leave him) and I was getting impatient. At the end of the encounter, my grandmother asked me to kneel down and say sorry to my mum and I was like ‘for which of the ‘sins’ exactly?’. I knelt down and said ‘sorry’ and left. Better to just oblige patiently than argue, it makes things die down more easily and faster.

To the mamas and grandmas out there, generational gaps are supposed to be bridged, not widened. If you want to ‘talk to’ someone younger than you, please be sure to have a genuine reason for lashing so it won’t sound like you are giving lectures. Giving lectures won’t make things better, it will only drive the wedge between the both generations further down. Be your child’s closest friend and confidant and don’t expect that it will automatically happen in future. And when the child is older, please step back. After all, you took the effort to train the child so he could be wise in future, so trust that all your effort was not in vain.