Confessions of an "American" girl raised by Nigerian parents

I’m usually the silent one when all of my Nigerian friends start reminiscing on their grade school days. You see, I was born and raised in the United States to Nigerian parents and quite honestly, my school stories aren’t that interesting. Well, I take that back. To me and my other “American” friends, they are hilarious and everybody can relate, but to my Nigerian friends, my tales of grade school are probably boring, to say the least. Stories of my bully who would always trip me with her cello on the bus can never hold up to my friends’ grass cutting days with plain scissors. (I mean that’s how I understood it. How can they make you cut grass with plain scissors, where was the lawn mower?) As you can see, I just don’t get it! Anyway, I do feel that I have something that you (those raised in Nigeria) can understand. Though I was raised in the United States, my parents were still VERY Nigerian. Here’s my story…

My mom used to have a store back in the day. During my summer breaks, I’d spend most days at the “shop” with her. At first, it was kind of cool getting to run a cash register, but after a while (like the first hour of the first day), I was very bored. Why couldn’t I just go to the beach like Megan and Ashley or summer camp like Kelly or Brittany? Instead of long walks on the sand or cabins at Lake Pocahona, I’d be at the shop being forced to watch the Young and the Restless. For a 10 year old girl, that was so not fun! Along with watching every CBS soap, I was the shop “housegirl.” Every floor that needed to be swept or window that needed washing was my job. The shop was located in a strip mall that had a grocery store, drug store, hair supply store, some random store (clothing, rental center, etc.) that popped up for 3 months and left, and a hair salon. As you can imagine, I was the person who had to pick something up from the grocery store, go get change from the hair supply store, or make my mom’s hair appointment at the salon. By mid summer, your girl was very tired and irritated! Then one day, I think I went mad. My mom asked me to go get something from the grocery store and I flipped! I mean, I was like “why do I always have get something for YOU!” and “why can’t YOU just do it YOURSELF, I’m tired of being treated like a slave!” All of this was said with my whitest of white, white girl accent (with some black girl eye rolls and head motions- please just try to imagine). I actually went off on my very Igbo mother! Can you just imagine? Anyway, after minutes of “going off” I reluctantly went to Food Lion. As I was going, I was just rolling my eyes and murmuring all kinds of crazy stuff under my breath to her. The walk to the Food Lion, though about 4 stores away, seemed like an eternity. It was at this point that I realized just what I had done. I contemplated many things. I thought about running away (besides I saw kids doing it all the time on the soaps), I thought about calling 911 to report what was going to happen to me (knew this wouldn’t work), I thought about pretending that I was deathly ill (usually works for an only child), but I knew that all of that just wouldn’t do it. After picking up the item at the store, I headed back and decided that instead of becoming a street child in one big city and maybe being hauled off by social services to go and stay in a trailer with a foster mother, that I’d just pretend (as best as I could) that the incident never even happened. I would go back to the shop, clean the bathroom, wash the windows, and even give my mommy a back massage, all in an attempt at giving her some form of amnesia. Well much to my surprise, my methodology worked. I got back, but instead of me having to go out of my way to be very nice, it was the other way around. My mom was sooooooo extremely nice to ME. She laughed with me, asked me what I wanted to eat that night, and we exchanged all sorts of other pleasantries. It was greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat! Alas, I was in charge! “I bet she’ll never ask me to run an errand again,” I thought. She was so nice that I had totally forgotten about what had happened. We went on like this for about 3 hours. At the 3^rd hour mark, my mom went into the back room. She called for me and of course I happily answered. As I stepped in that room, I knew something was just not right. Immediately both of my feet entered into the back, the lights turned off and the door slammed. If I hadn’t been raised Catholic, I would have been speaking in tongues at this point, rejecting and rebuking any work of the devil in my life. The next thing I felt was plastic hangers all over my body. They were just breaking anyhow. I felt like I was going to die. After about a solid 15 minutes of beatings, my mom left the room. As she was going (while I was in fetal position on the floor) she warned me that if I ever spoke to her in that way again, I would be killed. The last thing I heard was “I brought you into this world and I can take you out if I like, stupid girl!”

Though I didn’t grow up in Nigeria, I think this beating story can stand up to most any Nigerian child’s story. If you can top this one, please let me know! My name is Patience, guest blogger #3! Peace and love!!!