My mum makes me scapegoat for her past mistake

Dear Agatha,

I’m 19 and a 200 level student in one of the universities. My boyfriend has just finished his youth service and is yet to get a job. He still stays with his parents who are still picking his bills.

My mother is a single parent. My father abandoned her when she was pregnant of me. Since then, she has refused to re-marry out of bitterness.

I’m her only investment as well as the only family she has.  I understand from her that her entire family disowned her. It was a stranger that picked her from the street and helped her to get back on her feet.  The woman died this year.  Her father, until his death never bothered about her or me. Her mother too hasn’t for once called.  Only her brother used to call her, but stopped when their father threatened to disown him.

Because of my mother’s experience, I have been very careful with boys; but there is something about my boyfriend that is so compelling. I love him to a fault and would do anything to make him happy.

He has been demanding for sex, but I have kept refusing him. But I know I would eventually agree to it because of what I feel for him.

But I don’t want to disappoint my mother who is forever telling me her story to guide me against making the same mistake she made. My mother is just 35.

Agatha, I’m sure my boyfriend won’t turn out like my father because he loves me and has promised to marry me as soon as he gets a job. He is 23 years old.

Another thing is that I’m beginning to resent my mother because I feel she is making me the scapegoat for her mistakes.  She doesn’t want to see me with any man until I graduate. I don’t think it is fair at all. After all, I didn’t ask my father to abandon her or her family for that matter.

She made her choice; I want to be left to make my mistakes and choices in life. Is that too much to ask at my age?

Dupe.

Dear Dupe,

What is your main concern? Going to bed with your boyfriend or your mother’s way of parenting? What is actually eating you up? Life is about having a focus. You won’t go far if you at this early stage of your life if begin to load your plate with so many issues all at once.

From your letter, more than the issue of having sex with your boyfriend is resentment for your mother.  Given what she has gone through, can you blame her for wanting to protect you against the likes of your father who got her pregnant at 15 and abandoned her to face life all by herself? It couldn’t have been easy for her to have been turned out and denied by her family.  Despite the help and support of the kind stranger, she will never forget until she dies how her conduct took away the love and company of her family. Perhaps, if your father and his family had come to own up to their responsibilities, her family may not have condemned her so much. While not in support of their actions, having their 15-year-old daughter pregnant without any man coming forward to claim the baby, couldn’t have been easy for them to accept too.

Don’t be rude and insensitive to the experiences of your mother by saying it is the choice she made. Yes, she had a say in the incident that brought about your existence, but taking on the entire responsibility for you at that age when she was still very much a child herself, isn’t a choice she made. Don’t forget that she could easily have put you up for adoption or since remarried if she was thinking of herself alone.

If she had also turned her back on you like your father did, you won’t be in a position to question her manner of parenting or accusing her of making you a scapegoat for her own mistakes. Standing by you means you are not a mistake to her. If she hasn’t bothered to go back to her family; is determined to give you a good life, means she loves you very much and wouldn’t want you to be in her shoes. Rather than bemoan her refusal to give you the freedom to associate openly with boys, appreciate her sacrifice. At only 34, she still has some good years to be fulfilled as a woman.

In her shoes, any woman would say the things she is saying to you. No mother wants her child, especially her daughter to make the same mistakes she made in life. I agree that mothers sometimes go over the board in their quest to drive some points home but, that doesn’t give you any reason to be rude to her.

If you say her current lifestyle is a choice she made, yes, you are right; but, shouldn’t you learn from her mistake? Do you too want to go down the same road you are condemning and blaming for your woes? Only a wise student of life learns from the mistake of others.

The question is: Are you ready to learn from your mother’s mistake? From your letter, I seriously doubt if you have learnt anything from seeing her pains and living with her mistakes.

If you have, you won’t be thinking of having sex with your boyfriend or vouching for him.  Even if he doesn’t leave you, do you think it is a good testimonial for you and your mother that you too got pregnant outside wedlock and while at school?

Love and wisdom go together. Your mother became a single parent because at 15, she lacked the wisdom to deal with what she felt for your father. You may be 19 and in the university, but your story won’t be any better if you get pregnant for a man who is still dependent on his family for sustenance.  He may have graduated, but he doesn’t have a job to sustain whatever will come out of your decision to have sex.

There is no way his family or your mother would want to take on the responsibility of fending for a baby in addition to what they are doing for both of you.

The wisdom you have to apply is to be patient until you graduate and able to handle and caring for yourself and a child.

At 19, you are not exactly a child as you are making it so obvious.  It is high time you sat your mother down for a heart-to-heart discussion. Just as you are anxious about your own love life, also be worried about the lack of it in your mother’s life.  Like I said earlier, she is still young and needs love in her own life. Very soon, you would be leaving to begin your own life and that would mean her being on her own completely.

She has done more than enough for you; this is the time to help her stand again and see life from a different perspective by encouraging her to go on a date.

She has to forget the past and take on the future. She cannot continue to make herself unhappy by living only for you. The fact that your father betrayed her doesn’t mean the next man would. Your happiness and freedom is in ensuring she begins to take interest in herself as a woman and not just as a mother.

Your maturity in handling this difficult phase in your lives will give her all the assurances that you have indeed grown and quite capable of dealing with your own challenges as a young woman. Fighting her on the other hand, will make her more determined to protect you from yourself.

Good luck