"Home-training"
I come from a traditional background, but I grew up in London so my upbringing is mixed. There are things I did that my cousins in Nigeria would never have been able to get away with, but there were also a few things that my school mates could but would earn me an ass whooping if I tried.
In a sense it's what you would call a typical British Nigerian home. This means that the guys had one rules and the girls had a different set of rules. I've always been a bit of a rebel, it may or may not be linked to the fact that I'm a Taurus, but I never liked the fact everybody wasn't held to the same standard. Combine that with a love for theatrics and well, growing up was interesting to say the least.
When I was younger my parent's encouraged us to be vocal, didn't mean they'd actually do what we said, but at least they'd pretend to listen, to help us exercise our voices.
One faithful evening my mum comes into my room, she'd just returned from work.
"Why is the kitchen a mess," she asks.
By which she really means 'why are there dishes in the sink and has the floor been swept today.'
I hadn't realised it was messy. I didn't expect it to be messy because I'd cleaned up before bed the night before and I'd only just returned home myself.
Now I have two sensible options, I could either tell her this, or just get up and get straight to tidying up. But my alter ego goes for option number three and says "I don't know, it wasn't me." Why didn't my brother who's been at home clean up. He probably created the mess in the first place.
She respond's with "because you're a woman, and one day you will be a wife and a mother, and you will have to clean up after men" of course I vehemently disagree, and so we get into a debate. Why can't men clean up after themselves, I'm nobody's slave, why did she automatically come to me and not my brother, why is being a woman tantamount to being a house-girl (maid), why am I expected to be the one to always clear up messes I had nothing to do with it.
She shifts her weight to the other foot, "Tell me more"
At this point I'm going full steam ahead about the time I cooked and everybody ate and left nothing but dirty dishes for me, and how my brothers were always in the living room and never helping to cook.
That was a pet peeve of mine, I hated being stuck in the kitchen whilst everyone else did stuff that seemed more fun. But my mum would always say she was training me for the future, for a time when she wouldn't be around.
And so my dear mother waited for me to finish my rant and then she said, "this one time, please tidy up, I'll talk to your brother, I agree he doesn't do enough, I'll make him do it next time." I sluggishly drag myself out of bed and my feet feels like lead as I walk down the stairs, she calls out that there's puff-puff and plantain for me on the counter.
I bound down the stairs, rant forgotten, thinking only of my favourite snack waiting for me. She calls out again, "please wash the dishes, I need to cook." I rush to the sink and wash the dishes, thinking of how much fun I'm gonna have with my puff-puff.
I realise moments later that I've been tricked... with a snack... in the name of home-training...