My daughter is getting married to a woman

Dear Agatha,

I gave birth to my children while I was in England and struggling to make ends meet. Her father abandoned the two of us to marry another woman when she was just six months old.

I had to drop out of school to work so as to cope with the situation I found myself.

Because I combined about three jobs, I didn’t have enough time for my daughter. Along the line, I got involved with another man and had two other children. He too wanted a woman to depend on. I kicked him out when I discovered this.

To be frank, I had very little to do with the training of my children because I was too busy growing my business and social life to have time for them.

That was over 30 years ago. My younger daughter got married about two years ago and I have been on the case of my elder daughter whose friends are only women. I became bothered because I have never seen her in the company of boys. That should have gotten me very suspicious but it never crossed my mind to think along that line despite the prevalence of such in England.

Two years ago, I decided to come back to Nigeria for good. I was getting old and things were not as rosy as before. But having established here, I at least was comfortable.

Early last month, she told me that she has found someone she would like to spend the rest of her life with. I was happy and decided to visit her about three weeks ago since she was already talking about a private wedding ceremony. Knowing my daughter, she can decide on impulse to get married without informing any member of the family; including her siblings she didn’t really get on with.

To avoid the embarrassment of having a son-in-law I didn’t know, I went to England with the hope of meeting him and his family since she said the family lived in London too. Another reason I decided to go was to find out more about the stranger since she refused to give his name, country or what he is doing for a living.

I didn’t bother to inform any of them of my coming hence she didn’t have the time to evacuate evidence from my council flat she now occupies. Just as I thought, I found both of them in the flat but Agatha, she is a woman. My daughter is not only a lesbian but is going to marry a woman.

I’m finished. What do I have to show for all my labour over her? I got to know that the nanny I left them with introduced her to the act-infact she is marrying her nanny’s daughter. Now I understood why the other two children refused the nanny when they were young. I had to get a different nanny for them. It also explained why they never went near their elder sister or she near them.

If the flat wasn’t in my name she would have ordered me to leave that morning.

As it is now, they have a date and gown. She is the woman while the other lady is the male in the union.

Agatha, I have told her she can be a prostitute, or keep her secretly but not to marry her. What do I tell people? Help me with this. I feel responsible for this. If I didn’t entrust her to this nanny she wouldn’t be marrying a woman today. I don’t even know what to ask you for but please use your gift to help me before I get charged for killing my own daughter, which is what I will do if she goes ahead with this disaster she calls a marriage. 

Alaba.

Dear Alaba,

To avert the danger of committing murder; killing your own child, please come back to Nigeria. The longer you linger in England, the more complex and annoying you would find the situation.

At over, 30, there is nothing you can do about the situation. she is more than old enough to make her decisions and do whatever makes her happy. Sad as this is to you, it is her life, her choice and decision. Your work as her mother was over long time ago. Blaming yourself for her decision to become a lesbian won’t change a thing or make you feel better.

One thing you should realize is this; you had nothing to do with the choice she made then or now. The fact that her younger siblings didn’t adopt her lifestyle should be a kind of consolations and erase the blame you are trying to carry for her. You will only end up killing yourself before your time. It is bad enough to worry about her kind of lifestyle; to add the worry of blame to that would only cause you more depression.

You did what any young woman in your situation would have done in a foreign land. It was either what you did or come back to Nigeria to engage in the same struggle of survival.

Besides, the issue of the kind of sexuality a person chooses isn’t one any parent can change. Often than not, children adopt what they feel most comfortable with. That is why you would find children of prominent men and women of God adopting a lifestyle that goes contrary to what their parents stand for.

My years of handling this page and dealing with the emotional side of people have brought me face to face with some inexplicable situations. This is certainly one of them. You simply have to face reality that certain situations are beyond our control.

Some children will never be the kind of children we dream of. They come with their own peculiar agenda for their lives; which nobody can change or upturn.

She has taken her own way; mapped out plans for her own life. The truth is, you were only a vessel that brought her into this world.

At this point, all she needs from you is your calmness or you will completely lose her forever.

You may not like the choice she has made about her sexuality but she remains your daughter; your first child for that matter.

To erase that is to kill a part of you forever. Therefore, come back to Nigeria, where you can think logically and forget the temptation of killing your own child. Remember that in that society she lives in, anything is permissible. What you regard is madness is normal to them; you are the one who will be termed abnormal and primitive.

Therefore, it will help you not to witness the so called wedding by counting your losses far away from her.

At least you have your other daughter and child who have chosen to live normal lives and give you grandchildren.

Besides, time has a way of ameliorating pains and disappointment. No matter how much of a disappointment she has become to you, she suckled your breasts; one day, the natural nature of motherhood would make you want to see and talk to that baby you once carried. If you allow your emotions get the better of you, there will never be that opportunity for both of you to talk about what went wrong or happened to make her become a lesbian.

It might even be because of the way her father treated you. Children have funny ways of reacting to issues concerning their parents.

She may have decided long ago, never to have anything to do with a man to protect herself from going through the kinds of struggles you had to contend with.

If you look at it from this angle, you may not feel so bad about her decision.

Yes, in our society, her decision is an abomination but she has never been part of our culture or ways of life. You cannot blame her for taking after the culture of the people she has known all her life. It is the kind of life she has ever known so your objections may not make sense to her.

What she needs from you is prayer to change all those things you consider inappropriate in her.

Since nobody knows her in Nigeria, don’t tell anybody about her. Keep it within you and your other children.

Good luck.