Your Gender Wars Don’t Play Too Well in Ntoaboma.
NTOABOMA: In Ntoaboma, an Ewe Mother for instance, forces her first child, boy or girl (no matter), to become her second in command. You will cook, fetch water, bath your siblings, lotion them down, put them to bed and keep the peace with all your younger siblings!
No exceptions. Ewes revere their eldest sibling, like She/He is their Mother/Father! Eldest siblings feel a near parental responsibility towards their younger siblings. That is the law!
So, my dear the Mis-Educated Than His Ancestors (the Metha), your importation of your Selfless Western Narcissistic Orgasmatron Gender Wars don’t play very well in Ntoaboma. Why don’t the Metha gain some humility and learn a little bit about Traditional Africa (not the colonial schools you were raised in)?
It is for this family structure that last borns, or last babies (youngest siblings), are almost always spoiled unless for one reason or another the elder siblings left Home early enough for the Parents to force the young one (or only child) into Responsibility.
Hence the saying: The Last Babies Are Spoiled, proper!
LOL. Never thought about it, but I married a first born girl from an Ewe mother! Her sheer love and discipline was scary when we first met. But I mustered the courage and I will never be the same… culture is something! We must cherish what our ancestors built! We must acquire just a little bit of humility to accept that our ancestors were not a bunch of clueless idiots (as the Feminazis from the North would like us to rather believe).
?..largely true bɛt what about all the other kids between the first and last?
Don’t they also get over pampered when the first born is made to take care of all of them?
Ewe family structure when I first studied it revealed one main consideration about this subject: Closeness in age of the first children, i.e. where the first 1st, 2nd and 3rd borns (etc.) were close in age the responsibility was somewhat divided equally. The eldest was still the second in command to the Mother and is accorded the respect of the a 3rd in command (after Father and Mother) in the house. Where the age gap became more significant, the first born(s) became almost parent figures.
So to answer your question: the more significant the age gap the more pampering happened down the line.
excellent , I grew up without a sister the first of six boys my mum a trader who travels to buy goods, I became the Mum in the absence of my mum and taught my siblings after me cooking and everything, The up bringing plays a role.
Upriser General I know! And I understand. People who don’t understand Africa make all kinds of silly comments about boys and girls growing up in Africa. People need to start being specific with language and with context. But you see, specificity kills the Agenda/Propaganda of the Ideology of Selfless Gender Narcissistic Orgasmatron Wars from the West.
My snr bro played the father role in my life when I was in junior high and he was then an SHS leaver. He still does and I love him for that.
So true. We were trained to take responsibilities at very early stage. Unknown to us before we grow up, or we enter adolescence, we already know many things about life in general sense. Kudos to our parents and elders.
And how is this supposed to be a good thing to be still perpetuated? Let kids be kids. If you don’t have the resources to raise and care for ALL your kids, don’t have them. Do you know how many emotionally stunted and neglected first-born offsprings I know and the debilitating impact of this forced adulthood on them?
(1) I don’t think you know any more first born children raised by Ewe Mothers than I do. However, let’s assume that you do and that the majority of the ones you have come across in life are, as you say, “emotionally stunted and neglected.” Is that a medical term or a socio-economic term? Whatever you define this term to be, can you also, while at it, confirm that the children raised under other systems (family structures) of your choice (name them) do not suffer this prescribed “sickness” that you call “emotionally stunted and neglected?”
(2) Let me address this “Let kids be kids” issue. Perhaps another way to put this is that while we insist on the Independence of kids, we also must emphasize the cultural Independence of whole societies the predate those who judge them ever so harshly. What is the “good thing to be still perpetuated?” The only societies that “let kids be kids” that I know (and here, you are free to name any one that I do not know to be so) all colonize and loot the resources of the very societies they judge so harshly. The moralizing saviour trope of letting kids be kids does not square with the entire morally degraded way that these very societies treat their various “other” citizens, plus the way they treat the shitty third worlds they happily colonize. Won’t you say?
(3) As for having kids one cannot afford, it is disingenuous to ascribe this “undesirable” outcome to any group of people. People don’t plan to have babies they can’t afford, you know! Or is that a decision the Mother must ultimately make when pregnant, as is it done in certain Abortion Labs across the west? What is the purpose of the Economic South ever existing, for after all, we can’t afford our own babies! Or can we? What is the point for the poor to exist at all if they can’t afford their own babies! Right?
Lol! Twist this all you want but this over-romanticized traditional ways of raising kids need to be re-evaluated. And yes, I have met several first-born offspring from different ethnicities and Nationalities and the reason many (the ones I know) don’t want any kids of their own is because they felt they were robbed of their childhoods.
Narmer Amenuti deeply profound!
Efe Plange “Let kids be kids”? You mean like the ones who take guns to school and shoot up the whole school? No matter how “emotionally stunted” you deem some African kids are they have never taken a machete/gun to school and shot everyone in sight. Clearly, your definition of an emotionally stunted kid differs from mine and the rest of the rational world
Atiga Jonas Atingdui it’s youthful exuberance lol
Atiga Jonas Atingdui Efe does have a point. Also, things are currently not what they used to be. Our cultures are now influenced by Christianity and Islam which has necessitated what Narmer refers to as “gender wars”. There’s only so far injustice can go.
Ama Owusuah Boateng I’m referring to her views on “let kids be kids” comment. What is wrong with a child helping to raise his/her younger siblings?
My Father used to cook for us whilst mum went to run the shop business. And when I had my babies, Dad would look after the babies whilst Mum and I took a rest. Hence all the male species in my family have domestic basic skills like cooking, washing dishes etc. Respect to our parents.
The plus side is the life skills gained by the eldest regardless of the gender. It will be even more fantastic if the responsibilities are spread to all the children and the eldest is allowed to breath and be a child every now and then. I am not knocking what you described ( I am a quasi first born). I will not change the skills acquired for anything but it took me a long time to just chill and not always be on edge.
Nana Abokoma
Some of the premium placed on the first born training and discipline, especially where there’s a significant age gap, rests in the reality that these first borns sooner than later become defacto leaders of their families. For instance, they almost always become their Family Heads (Fome-metsitsi or Abusua-panyin), Clan Leaders, Chiefs or Queen Mothers.
Often, when the Father of the house has passed on (since more traditional marriages encourage age-gap coupling where the man is usually significantly older and reaches old age faster) this premium in training the first-borns to be highly responsible becomes an assert.
Our family structures, because our societies are not based on looting other people’s resources and committing genocides on distant lands, are exceedingly complex. They have to be exceedingly complex and oftentimes internally demanding to be self-sustaining and Earth-friendly.
How the western world has gotten around this level of complexity in order to avoid the internal demands that is required of it is to externalize their laziness elsewhere. They fund mercenary armies to do what? Occupy lands, colonize peoples, loot resources and commit genocides. This barbarism has never been, and remains unsustainable. Just take for instance what they have done to the planet in under 100 years? African socieites have been around for hundreds of thousands of years without posing this level of an existential threat to the Earth!
The Rosy Ideals we often impose on African traditions from the west, like “let kids be kids,” are always (without exception) grown from the putrefying farms of the decaying human flesh of the global victims of western European barbarism. The most deplorable acts of humanity actually germinate in these so-called high societies of the west which purport/externalize these Rosy Ideals. Many genocides have been glorified (or planned) around such European dinner tables adorned with shiny forks and knives made from actual silver by letting their kids be kids.