Ese* (26) has been responsible for 80% of her family of seven’s needs since her parents left the police force a year ago, and it hasn’t been a walk in the park.
She talks about how her parents’ pension and gratuity payment delays have contributed to her family’s financial situation, sacrificing her needs and taking loans to meet demands at home, and how money has strained her relationship with her mum and sister.
As told to Boluwatife
Image: Canva AI
I’m my parents’ second child, but I’ve supported them and my siblings financially since I started making some money.
I graduated from the university in 2020 and almost immediately started working for an older coursemate who had a POS business. She had a chain of POS machines and didn’t trust her staff to transfer money to clients without diverting some of it, so my job was to do those transactions for ₦10k/month.
From that ₦10k, I started contributing to sort home expenses. My parents were police officers who didn’t make much money — they each earned less than ₦150k/month — and had five children to feed. My elder sister wasn’t working, so I had to pick up small expenses like utility bills and gas. I even dropped half my salary once to buy my mum a birthday cake. Still, the financial load was bearable until my parents retired from the force.
My dad retired first in May 2023. He retired as an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) after 35 years of service. I didn’t imagine the lack of a salary would immediately worsen our financial situation. My dad said he was entitled to a cooperative association payout, gratuity, and monthly pension, so we all expected to get a tangible cash inflow soon. It didn’t exactly happen like that.
First, my dad’s cooperative payout was only ₦600k. I expected it’d be more than that since it was supposed to be a portion of his salary for the whole 35 years he worked, but he may have withdrawn certain amounts at different times.
My dad decided to invest the payout in a fish farming business even though the family warned against it. Fish farming was a new business, and we weren’t sure there was enough capital. We suggested investing it in my mum’s small poultry business instead.
He refused, and as we predicted, the business folded up in six months. After building the pond, the remaining balance wasn’t enough to feed the fish regularly, and my dad ended up selling the fish at a loss.
For the gratuity and pension, it’s been over a year, and we still don’t know when the government will process either. The gratuity is supposed to be a lump sum of ₦1m+. However, my dad knows police officers who retired a year before him and still don’t know when gratuity will come because of the unnecessary bureaucracy in the Nigerian system.
My mum also retired early this year and has joined the queue of expectant retirees. She’s expecting a bit more gratuity and pension because she retired as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), but as of right now, she and my dad are in the same shoes.
With both my parents retired, I became the de facto breadwinner. Fortunately, I landed an account officer position at a bank in September 2023, and my ₦324k/month salary seemed more than enough to provide for my family.
My first mistake was letting my family know how much I earn, though I don’t see how I’d have avoided that. My parents asked about my salary after I returned from training school, and I don’t lie, so I told them.
Also, my local church is very small and almost entirely made up of my family. We have a tithe card system in the church, where members write the amount they pay as tithe. My family would’ve seen that my tithe had increased to ₦32k and would’ve easily added two and two together.
It’s not that I don’t want to help out. Earning more made it easy to fill the gaps my parents’ retirement caused, but the rising cost of everything due to inflation and increasing expectations at home have turned my salary into almost nothing.
By the time I remove ₦125k for ajo, sort out my lunch and transportation to work, food, utilities, school fees for my brother in secondary school and lend my parents money to do one thing or the other, I’m completely broke. I have to take quick loans from loan apps every other month to stay afloat.
A few months ago, I had to take a ₦230k loan to support my brother through police training school. Then I took another ₦50k loan for my mum to feed her birds at the poultry and pay me back after she sold them off— she never paid me back. These loan deductions have brought my salary to about ₦250k/month, but I have no choice but to keep handling 80% of my family’s needs.
The other 20% is my undergraduate younger sister, who fends for herself in uni, and my elder sister, who works at a school now but hardly makes enough to transport herself to work, let alone contribute to the home.
It’s exhausting being a breadwinner at 26. I’m constantly anxious about inflation and being unable to save for an emergency or even invest in property. I have about ₦300k saved up now, but it’s nowhere close to the ₦1m I need to buy land in my area or hold as emergency savings.
I’m constantly worried that one health emergency will come and drain me financially. My dad is diabetic, and my health insurance only covers me. He has NHIS, but that doesn’t get him standard treatment. I need to find a way to get him regular care at a private facility. Anyone else in my family can suddenly fall ill too. What do I do then?
The ajo I mentioned earlier was supposed to get me my own apartment, but since I can’t support two households, I used my share to update my work wardrobe, set money aside for my brother’s school fees and spent the rest on my family.
Aside from my concerns about savings and health, being breadwinner also means I constantly struggle with resentment toward and from my family.
My younger siblings don’t know how to manage with little, and they regularly ask for money. One could just go, “Can you give me ₦10k?” without giving reasons for why they need the money. Even me who’s making the money can’t make expenses like that.
I also expect them to pick up small expenses like soap or gas, but everyone just keeps whatever money they get because they know I’ll handle everything. I resent that a lot. It’s like they think I have a magic tree where I just make money appear.
On the other hand, I’m positive my mum and elder sister resent me because of this same breadwinner matter.
My mum isn’t used to not having her own money, so she often lashes out because of frustration. When I have extra money, I try to give my parents around ₦10k – ₦20k just so they can hold it as pocket money, but it doesn’t always help with my mum.
Whenever I complain about my siblings wasting food, my mum often throws shade. She says things like, “Some people complain too much just because they’re the ones who bought something.” Sometimes, she’s supportive, but most times, she’s annoyed with me. I never know what version of her to expect daily.
For my elder sister, I think the resentment is because culture expects that everyone runs to the firstborn for financial help, and she feels bad that I’m the one in that “firstborn” position. Sometimes, she acts off towards me, and our relationship is often tense. Other times, she’s sympathetic and tells me she appreciates my sacrifices. Just like with my mum, I never know what to expect from my sister.
At least I don’t have to face that with my dad. He’s always appreciative and constantly praying for me.
Still, I’m grateful that I can help my family. It’s difficult most of the time, but it’s my duty. My friends and colleagues assume I have no use for money because I live with my parents and get offended when I say I can’t join an asoebi wedding group or lend them money. How many people do I want to tell about my situation?
I know things will get easier when my parents receive their gratuity and start receiving pensions. My mum would start a business again and no longer need to depend on me. If my siblings also get good jobs, they’ll be able to contribute to the living expenses. That hope is the one thing keeping me going right now.
*Name has been changed for the sake of anonymity.
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