Loved girl problems
2 days ago I had to change my own lightbulb. Shock horror. You might say, but before my dad passed away I didn’t have to, I did change my own lightbulbs back then, but I didn’t have to. Dad would always come around and change them for me.
These are loved girl problems. The level of attention, affection and love I was given by my dad means that he is irreplaceable in my heart. I’m not marrying a man to compete with him. I’m marrying a man to love me in a different way. I’m not one of those “spank me daddy” girls. I was hugged as a child and even though I have issues with my dad I can’t fault his love for me. Ever.
So here are my issues. My dad was a typical West African man of his time. He was the youngest of 3 children and had 2 sisters. In my parents culture, your sisters children are always your blood and when his dad died at 3 they helped raise him as sisters normally do. Therefore he felt indebted to them as he was a man and he was allowed to fulfil his potential and be successful. He shared that success by looking after his sisters children. I have 4 cousins. I also have 2 half brothers. Then there’s me. And money was distributed I felt in that order. Which is age order.
This had a profound affect on me in 2 ways.
1. I absolutely in my adult life rejected black men. When I was a child and I was surrounded by black men, my early crushes were black. However post 18 I can say no. I became conscious of it in my mid 20’s.I rejected and still reject black men because I have yet to be impressed. Black women are conditioned to be “fabulous” it’s the hair you see. However the men have been conditioned to see themselves as primarily sexual beings, how much sex can you get. Commitment isn’t necessary. Also the ridiculous notion that “no one can love a black woman like a black man” is toxic. That’s plain wrong. The most love a black man can possibly show his wife is equivalent to the most love a white man can show his wife, and the same with Chinese, Indian, Green people and blue people. However what does seem to be true is that black men do incredibly bad things to their “strong black wives” because they can take it. I grew up looking at incredibly dysfunctional marriages. I’ll list a few tales from my childhood here.
The entire category of sham marriages or (men) mostly marrying for British citizenship, back when I was growing up in the 90’s the laws were a lot less strict, so the length of the marriage was immaterial, therefore a man could marry a woman, get his citizenship and dump her or abuse her so badly that she’d leave. The latter unfortunately was more often the case.
Financial abuse, this was the most common and isn’t even acknowledged as abuse. We need to talk in depth about this one. The class of men I grew up with as my “uncles” did not like paying for their kids. At all. It was the mum’s job to pay for the kids and the man may if he’s a good man, give the woman some money every month towards it. If the kids need more money its up to the woman to make up the shortfall. If he isn’t a “good man” its on a case by case basis that the wife has to petition for things like shoes, or football practice etc… he may or may not pay up. Then you have the 3rd class which is he would not pay at all. I had an aunt who was married for 20 years to a man who had children from a previous relationship. For 20 years her husband did not work, so did not pay a single cent towards her kids, but would often get her to pay for his adult kids problems, then one day he walked out on her and her 2 children and wouldn’t pay a cent towards her children.
Then there is the other aunt also who married a man with prior children from a couple of women. She is the gentlest lady I know and didn’t deserve what happened to her. She married this man into her 40’s had 2 children with him, he did work when she met him, she owned her own house and clearly put the man on the title deed of the house because soon after the wedding he announced he was going into Sierra Leonean politics… this is the worst kind of red flag. More of a death knell. He re-mortgaged the family house (this was pre the 2008 crash when this stuff was possible) to buy... I’m not lying here, London buses to SHIP to Freetown. London buses cost about a hundred grand each at the time and there is no infrastructure in Freetown to maintain it, however it was the novelty that was important here so he did it anyway, borrowed money from all sorts of people that the wife would have to pay back and then took off to Freetown, while she had a ridiculous mortgage and 2 small girls under 5. Worse still he lost the election so needed spousal support from his wife that he'd just laden with debt. She was worse off than a single mother, single mother’s get some sort of support, she was expected to support her husbands campaigns, pay her mortgage and for her 2 children’s upkeep on a civil servant salary.
Then we have the next class of men who want to build houses in “Africa” and are willing to sink what eventually becomes hundreds of thousands into the project. To build a house in Sierra Leone at least is £30,000-£50,000 depending on the size of the house. However if you use credit cards and overdrafts to finance it then yes, you can double or treble that amount. Especially if you have an unscrupulous project manager. Meanwhile your children in this country are hungry now. This was in part my dad, he already owned land, but it was stolen from him by mainly family members and he sunk thousands into it.
Then final category is where my dad predominantly sat, which as mentioned earlier is the “successful man” category. People come to you wanting to live like the Jones’ and see you as their way up. The amount of hangers on was incredible, and my dad took his entire family on his shoulders financially. Anyone needed anything then there was “uncle Audu” You could argue that he was only serving his community, but no one ever helped him, it was always take, take, take and I and my mother suffered for it.
2. I fought tooth and nail in my 20’s to become successful. Really successful. I do really well for myself, come to the top of my industry, because of the decisions my dad made to take care of his “famble” over his family. Some of those decisions forced us into real poverty, despite living in a rent free house (dad was a priest) I remember us really rationing money at one time because my dad had sent for his sister and one of her granddaughters, run up a massive overdraft and mum had to bail him out. Which brought our disposable income down to £100 per week for a family of 3 to get transport(dad travelled for work and I travelled for school), food and run a home. Very hard times. My version of success in my early to mid 20s could be measured by how much money I earn. Now my version of success is measured in how much love I have.
Now you see my issues, you see how why I have done what I have done, I have worked my entire life to feel safe from all the bad things I witnessed and that were done to me. But I have a lot to be grateful for as well, they made me who I am, and who I am is great. But remember that isn’t carte blanche to act with stupidity. If I had gone the other way, I would not be extended any grace because I grew up hard.
Grace and Courage
Annetta Mother-Smith.