One of the funniest virals of all time has got to be the ‘PRANKING MY AFRICAN DAD’ one.
I received this video clip one Sunday morning a few years back….my thoughts at the time were ‘see me, see wahala, so early in the morning?’ It was the Blackberry days and the phone was ‘pinging’ but when I ‘pressed phone’ roll on the credits, 4 minutes later……my chest! I couldn't breathe as I had laughed so much.
If I was to do a blog post exclusively dedicated to that video we could possibly be talking pages and pages of descriptive writing, you guys would be here for days….It would be a disservice not to start off with a description of that typical African ‘parlour’. We have the all important white wedding photo of mummy and daddy hung up on wall above ‘the settee’, strategically placed above it is another ‘foto frame’ and it goes on….
If you've not been privy to the above video I refer to, you've read the memo folk….‘Google And YouTube are your friend’ Kindly get with the programme!
The title of my blog post ‘Funke’ refers to the wife of the African dad in the video clip. When son breaks news to dad that he has gotten his 14 year old girlfriend pregnant…dad ‘kent’ deal with this info it's just too much for him to handle, he's about to have a heart attack so what does he do….he dramatically shouts out name of his wife “FUNKE” to come to his rescue.
He says “No GCSE, no A levels You will end up in 'Mag-donalz' and you are impregnating a girl. Apostle will hear this" 😂
Typical Naija dad right?
A friend further buttressed point recently, when she told me that anytime her hubby is faced with something too complicated that he can't figure out himself, this could be something as complicated as not being able to boil the kettle 👀…..he will frantically call out to the kids “Where is your mummy?” It's become a household joke, everyone is in on it….except him! Every Naija dad has a ‘Funke’
Anyways ‘yet again’ I digress, I'm not here to play today! Now where am I going with this one?
We’ve all read the memo peeps as illustrated in that video “African parents and the word ‘DRAMA’ go to together like 5 & 6!
Over the past few weeks there has been this recurring pattern of conversations between me and my homies…we are all reminiscing growing up with Naija parents and their knack for ‘quenching’ any illusion we had about future career paths. Why did they do that?
I was chatting with a childhood friend, she spoke of her teenage years here and being selected to train for the Olympics……fantastic right? Far from it! Her parents went into a frenzy ‘Eh you don't want to face your education abi?…..you want to be gallivanting (another word our parents love!) running to where exactly…they are just deceiving you…they want you to be running from the police abi?’ 🤔
As she had never mentioned this to me before, I was quite taken aback so asked her “Were you THAT good?” And she replied ‘Ola I was small and strong….and really fast. I really don't know why they were so against it’ as I was still getting my head around this, she mentioned further that at the age of 16, her brother was to be signed up to train with a premier league football team here in the U.K. Her mum actually ripped up the contract! Mum and dad weren't haven't that either, their solution to ‘this problem’ was to ship off her brother to boarding school.
Now let's imagine Papa Ronaldo had shipped him off to boarding school and not let him train for football…. 2 mins silence up!
Another behaviour of our parents is that they conveniently feign amnesia when we later attempt to bring up the past. When my friend attempted to broach the ‘ripped contract’ incidence with her folk, they just denied it and said it never happened! We both tried to rationalise this and came to conclusion that because a football contract was so insignificant to a Nigerian parent back then…they had genuinely forgotten the event 😢
I’ve had a number of conversations about African parents not empowering us to follow our preferred career paths as we were growing up. There was a bros growing up in Naija, he was such a great artist, you need to have seen the art work covering his exercise books, he made mistake of telling his folk that he wanted to be an illustrator/cartoonist. Family meeting was called, “You want to be an ‘oluya’ if you like drawing why don't you study architecture, you can't ruin your life to do this and disgrace us”
Dad which part of ‘I want to study illustration’ don't you understand?
Anyway at earliest opportunity this chap had he checked out to The States. Another talent flies the nest!
The thing is a lot of parents just didn't see talent if it wasn’t academic or what they called ‘professional qualification’. Growing up I had always wanted to study Mass communications, my parents laughed in my face, not happy at all. I remember my dad saying ‘So you want to be reading the news and all those politicians will be chasing you?’ I just wondered at the time, What had politician chasing one got to do with my career choice, I was told ‘You are going to study law…and that was it. The end. ‘Their dream’ was to ‘produce’ A doctor, lawyer and an accountant which they/we (grey area) did!
We had parents living vicariously through their kids, with a mum telling daughter ‘ah o wunmi ko ma se pharmacy’ (I’d love you to study pharmacy) And this daughter was not studying a single science related subject in her GCE’s!! 😩
And the disappointment of being told by daughter that she actually wanted to be a teacher, shock horror, mammy is not having it, so now starts crying while pulling her headtie from head ‘You this child will not give me high blood pressure…ok what about nursing?’ ermmm, isn't nursing supposed to be a vocation, Ma?
Or the much highly sought career, piloting. I chuckle as I recall 2 different parent’s reaction to their son’s telling them they wanted to train as pilots.
First parent’s reaction was hysteria, she screamed in Yoruba so “o fe ma de fila abi, lati lo ki awon ore to wa ni university?” which translates to “Oh so you want to wear your pilot cap and go visiting your friends in the university, right?” What has wearing a pilot’s cap got to do with the matter on ground? But that's just our dramatic Naija folk for you.
My other friend upon completion of WAEC he told his older siblings that he wanted to be a pilot, family meeting was called (notice the pattern there, it’s always that meeting) he was asked to stand in the centre of the whole family as they tabled his matter. He was asked to once again repeat what he had told his siblings, when he mentioned piloting, he was told that if he wanted to be lazy good for nothing ‘somebody’ and lacking ambition they would buy a taxi for him! Because as far as they were concerned there was no difference between flying a plane and driving a taxi! End of discussion.
Now don't get me wrong, I know this reasoning possibly came from a good place and number of us heeded to ‘the career choices’ of our folk and were none the worst for wear. However do you think this was the best thing to have done? Would you do the same?
What were your dreams as a teenager, did you realise them?
On that note, let’s thank God it's Friday.
Ps. All eyes on Zimbabwe…thought provoking incident of the day was when a naive colleague asked me earlier this week ‘Ola what's a coup?’ I had flash back to Naija with thoughts of Abacha, Gideon Orkar, Babangida, Idiagbon & Buhari and thought to myself… ‘Animal Farm things’. Blog for another day!
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Writer’s Block: When your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you!
17 comments:
I completely agree with parents that tell children what direction they should go. What do children know?
That is why we are parents. If I tell my child that he is going to be a doctor,that is what I expect him to be. Mother’s know best. Look at Serena and Venus. They are great today because they listened to their father. Look at Tiger Wood. And many other children like that. Our children will make us happy and proud. By God’s Grace.
Fellow RBNites
I want to comment but my eyes are glazing over. This missive will have to be continued later.
We grew up in a time when a good education was the only key to a good living. Our parents impositions came from a good place. That being said it does not reduce the despondent feeling you have for not being allowed to be who you want to be or do what what you want to do.
I totally agree with the comment that parents know the best for their "chuduwen". If a kid has a talent, please help him or her to develop it. But when kids don't have a clue of their life ambition and just want lazy around, then parents are needed for guidance.
What does a child know? As a parent it is our duty to guide our children- help them to think outside of the box, introduce them to different activities and hobbies. In addition KNOW your child, so they can BECOME.
On point.
@ Ña me
Surely you jest "what do children know"??.
My Bible tells me that God ordains strength from the mouth of babes and sucklings. My Child knows and I am grateful to God for that.
If we as parents levened an inheritance for our children, we would probably not need to be in the driving seat of their lives.
Our children are not our possessions, they are flesh and blood with hopes dreams and aspirations.
Our job as parents is not to crush their dreams but to encourage them and nurture them.
Thought provoking. I guess a lot of parents are living their dreams through their children.
That question was a rhetorical one Folake. I wasn’t promoting that we crush the spirit of our children... but we explore POSSIBILITIES with them, however it is DEFINITELY our job as parents to guide them.
RBN didn't know you were blogging again. welcome back
That was a great viral. My father had 'Funke' then both her and her family were responsible for any bad behavior shown by the children.😂😂
@ Anonymous you put it right. Parents living through their children.
@ The Mysterious Ms Jackson Oooooo
How could I have forgotten that.....Yes Funke was ALWAYS to blame for the misdeeds of the children😂
The bad child was the mother's child.
Even at the end of that viral when the dad found out he had been pranked by the son, he quickly seizes the opportunity to cuss out the mum's family😩🙈
I actually wanted to be a air hostess with Pan American Airlines!
That idea got beaten out of me!
As much as our parents were living their dreams through us. I am part of the generation of spouses enjoying the fruits of the tough decisions made by those parents. I could stay at home knowing my spouse can support me but my own parents invested in my education so i work. Our parents knew jobs that put food on the table. Parents should not aim to be their kids' best pals. I wonder what the best career options will be for our kids. Probably doctor, lawyer and accountant are still safe options but there are more options now. That said parents should not dictate spouses, churches or where to live. We all want self sufficient children...
Anonymous @8.31 IWLD! I feel your pain.
Na me @ 15.07 You have just shown a red rag to a bull, but I love a good argument so I like you already.
You were probably trying to take the sting out of your question by stating that it is rhetorical.
You have achieved the opposite. A rhetoric question suggests the answer is an obvious one of which you are persuaded and that is why an answer is not required.
So I repeat "Surely you jest".
Growing up in Nigeria then, If you are not a Lawyer, Doctor, an engineer, etc, in the eyes of our parents, you are a no body. Most parents will encourage those in that category and discourage those that are not. I guess they did their best at that time. Lately Parents are open, aware and have learnt that there is more to success than academics. I agree that children should have a reasonable level of education, at least at university level , to please mum and dad before going on to do what they are passionate about, for themselves Everything that our parents did was in the best interest of the child. The meant well.
My mum is a Christian while my dad was a liberal Moslem. All of my primary school was in a faith school. So primary school was a catholic school led by real nuns. I loved and admired them. I just wanted to be one of them. I loved their habit. The way they moved,walked talked and stood. By the time I got to secondary school. I still loved them. By my second year in secondary school, also a catholic school led by nuns and Rev Sisters, I had discovered that they were not all theywere cracked up to be. Peer groups were good. They let me know all the things I could have missed out on. Now if I had mentioned my thoughts hopes and aspirations to my parent.s guess what they would have said? Especially my dad. I would have kicked back. Possibly I would have been a Nun and a very frustrated one too, Lucky me I haven’t exactly missed out on the good thing in life, or have I? Children do have brains of their own too,
I see nothing funny or amusing about ‘Funke’ men. I just find it highly irritating. Men calling every time they need their nappies changed. Men should be men. In charge and on the ball at all times. Not a whimpering mess. I can’t deal with such men. Man up please. In fact, if I hear “where’s your mummy?” From any man, I shall slap him, after all you are not a baby.
Yes o. I know who my mother is and who my father is. I am not my husbands’s mummy. He will forever call and there will never be an answer. Man up and be a man. Case closed.
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