Mama Wants Me Forever On Spinster’s Shelf…

Dear Agatha, 

Please help me resolve this problem I am always having with my mother, who insists on treating me like a child, simply because, at 29, I am still living at home due to various disappointments I have suffered.

She wants me to get married, but unwilling to give me the concomitant freedom I need to be happy with the choice I make. Apart from making the house very uncomfortable for me, she has taken to quizzing all my male guests. She goes from asking if he is my boyfriend and to when he would be coming to pay the bride price.

I am embarrassed and would have left home if not for my father who is suffering from stroke. 

Being in the medical line, I care for him and as his favourite child, he takes tremendous delight in my company. It would break his heart if I leave home to stay on my own. It isn’t as if I cannot pay my rent, but my father’s health as well as my mother’s disposition to him restrains me from making the obvious choice.

My younger sister would be getting married in March, and since then it has one hell of a problem in the house. With the announcement of my younger sister’s plan to marry, my mother has not only branded me a failure, but also one who has completely lost it. She openly tells whosoever cares to listen that I will end up old on the shelf of time, because I am too proud to humble myself.

All efforts to make her understand that I also desire to be married like most of my friends have gone the wrong way with her.

I am writing you based on what happened recently. Because I protested the way she spoke to me when a friend of mine came to see me with her child, she slapped me right in front of my friend and child. 

She told me that as long as I still stay under her roof, I must abide by her laws. Whereas, my younger sister can do as she pleases, but not me. 

My friends and elder sister think I should leave and get a place of my own to avoid my mother’s constant nagging. My elder brother, who has had to come and plead with my mother to let me be has actually rented a place for me in Ibadan and facilitated my transfer there to begin a new life.

My problem continues to be, who will care for my father? My mother lacks the kind of patience a sick man, like my father, needs to live long. The issue isn’t just getting a paid house-help to clean him, but that of him having the company of his family members. What do I do? Do I stay with my father or follow my heart’s desires as my father has also demanded I do?

Yvonne.

Dear Yvonne, 

Cold and lack of feeling as it may sound your father isn’t your responsibility. He is your mother’s. If she is unable to give her husband the kind of care he needs at this critical stage of his life, it is her can, not yours to carry. Both your parents have lived their lives to the fullest, sacrificing yours to make your father happy would only create more problems between the two of them. Your mother would eventually turn the heat on your father as encouraging you to remain single for his sake. As long as you remain in that home there will never be peace for you and your father. 

If you were not there, your mother would be forced to attend to her husband. She isn’t paying much attention to him because you are there to help out. As a matter of fact, one of her resentments may have to do with your closeness to your father, although she may not openly admit to it. Your relationship with your father is overshadowing hers with him. Her attitude towards you underscores jealousy, but is unable to mouth it because you are her daughter. Like everywoman, seeking ways of protecting her home has decided to make the place inhabitable for you. Without you knowing it, you have unintentionally, usurped her roles that as wife, taking over duties traditionally hers to perform. 

She may not be hostile to your sister, because she isn’t her rival taking over her husband and turning his heart against her. By constantly being at your father’s side, you unwittingly make your mother appear unconcerned and uncaring about the plight of her husband turning his heart against her while making yourself the most important person in his life.

Allow her the freedom to bond again with her husband by leaving her home for her. Accept the offer of your brother who thinks leaving town entirely would help heal the wound you have created between you and your mother as well as restore peace in the home. Not that you are guilty of intentionally going out of your way to destroy your parents’ marriage, but you are unintentionally constituting a major problem between your parents. 

 He may be sick, but he is still the husband of this woman. She craves for the company of her husband, the memory of a time before you and actualisation of the dream they had of this moment when they would be alone, when all the children would be away from home.

The only way you can appreciate your mother’s feelings is to try to put yourself in her position, try projecting into the future, imagine yourself in your mother’s shoes and your daughter in your place. How would you feel if your daughter plays the role you are now playing in your mother’s life? Honestly, you will feel the same emotions your mother is feeling now.

It is for this reason you must not fight your mother or feel bad about her attitude towards you. Continue to give her every respect she deserves as your mother. 

Far from being dejected by your exit from his house, your father would welcome it, because not only would you be giving him the chance to feel like a man to his woman again, but also that you are free to pursue your own dreams as a young woman. 

He is encouraging you to go, because your place isn’t by his side, but by the side of a young man who loves and cherishes you. Irrespective of where you are, your father knows you love him and wants him to be happy. You can always talk to him on the phone as often as you like. I am sure he wouldn’t want you to suffer needlessly on his account. 

Not only would you make your father happier by beginning a new life altogether, but would be saving yourself from the incessant embarrassment your mother is subjecting you and your visitors to. 

At 29, you need peace not to make the wrong decision. Staying under your mother’s roof would only succeed in pressurising you into taking on the wrong kind of man, a decision you may not be able to endure for long.  

Even if you don’t feel like having a complete change, move out of your parents’ home. It is imperative you do it while praying to God to give you a permanent smile in your life.

Good luck.