Even though parents are extra in general, Nigerian parents take the cake. But just how extra are they? We asked people to tell us the wildest, most embarrassing thing their parents have done to or for them. Here’s what they said.
“My dad sexted with my boyfriend” — Amanda*, 20
I’m an only child, and my dad is very strict. I got my first phone at 18 only because I had to leave home for university. Anytime I came home for holidays, my dad would demand I limit my phone usage so we could “spend time as a family”.
One Saturday, during one holiday like that, I was exchanging suggestive texts with my boyfriend on WhatsApp when I had to leave my phone to run a brief errand. I still don’t know how my dad got my password, but he saw the chats. And when my boyfriend asked if I wanted to see how hard he was, I kid you not, my dad typed, “Yes, baby”. My boyfriend sent a dick pic, and my dad was horrified. When I got home that day, he beat me so much, I saw heaven and came back.
“My mum fought me in school over a tampon” — Tina*, 18
My mum and I weren’t the best of friends growing up. Maybe it was teenage rebellion, but we couldn’t understand or communicate well with each other. In JSS 3, I started menstruating and decided to try tampons since my friends always talked about them. I knew my mum would never allow me to use hers, so I just took some without her consent. She discovered they were missing while I was in school, and she searched my room and found the opened wrappers.
She was so pissed she called my school and had them punish me. She also arrived 30 minutes later and jumped me. We literally had a dirty fight on the floor in front of all my seniors and my crush! It was so embarrassing.
She eventually apologised, and we’re besties now that I’m older, but I still call her out for it at least once a week.
“My dad brought my naked baby pictures to school” — June*, 22
I was in Primary Six, and it was Children’s Day. Parents were invited, so my dad came armed with my stark naked baby pictures and shared them with all my teachers. No one asked him to bring the pictures o; he just did. My classmates saw them too, and made fun of me for the longest time after that incident.
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“My mum visited my boss to warn him” — Henry, 27
My very first boss was toxic. He had crazy expectations, and the funny thing was it was an unpaid internship. He’d expect me to be at the office at 7 a.m. even though work started at 9. You also couldn’t leave the office until he left. It was difficult, but I was learning a lot, so I endured.
My mum had other plans. She never said anything suspicious when I complained about work stress, so imagine my shock when she walked into our office at 7 p.m. one day. Closing time was 5 p.m., but as usual, we were still there because of my boss. She requested to see him, and even though they spoke in his office, everyone on the floor heard her seriously warning and cussing him out. Then she told me to follow her home. Of course, I didn’t even try to resume at the office the next day.
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“My dad shaved my hair in school” — Dami*, 23
I attended a military secondary school where my soldier father worked. Female students had to be on low-cut hair, and people who grew their hair longer than the required length would have their hair cut by the soldiers.
When we were writing WAEC in SS 3, I didn’t shave my hair because I wanted to grow it and just tied a really tight scarf every morning so my hair would shrink and appear low-cut. At home, my dad would remind me every other day to go shave my hair and just start growing it after WAEC, but I delayed, hoping he’d forget.
That’s how I went to school for my last paper after shrinking my hair as usual. And my dad just singled me out during our assembly, put a comb in my hair to stretch it out and proceeded to shave it in front of the entire school. He never apologised.
“She told the entire church about my bed-wetting issues” — John, 24
I had potty training issues and wet the bed at night till I was around 11 years old. My mother tried so many things, including making me pee on hot coals and waking me up at night to pee, but I still somehow peed on the bed.
When I was ten, my church was organising a deliverance for children, and she attended it with me and my siblings. At a point, the pastor said parents should declare their children’s issues so it would end forever, and this woman really took a microphone and announced my bed-wetting. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. All my friends and a couple of my classmates were there, so it spread to school too. The bed-wetting didn’t stop till about a year later, and I attribute the delay to the relentless bullying my mother’s “declaration” caused me in school.
“My mum slapped me in front of my crush” — Princess, 26
My mum had this best friend when I was younger. I naturally became close to her best friend’s son because we practically grew up together. I also started crushing on him.
Unfortunately for me, both mothers started quarrelling when I was 17, and I didn’t know. One day, I was walking with my mother and brothers around a popular T-junction in Port Harcourt, where we wanted to get a cab. My crush saw us and came to me so we could walk together. My mother and brothers were ahead of us. My crush and I were talking, and he soon started asking me out. I started forming hard-to-get, smiling sheepishly as he was toasting me.
When we got to where my mum was, and she noticed the smile on our faces, the next thing she did was slap the living daylight out of me in the presence of the boy and all the people around that busy junction.
Some passersby even had to hold me because I visibly saw stars. It was later I even got to know about the quarrel. That’s how I just received the brunt of other people’s malice o.
*Some names have been changed for the sake of anonymity.
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