A lady sent this message to me.
“I came home from work and met my 19-year-old son in our apartment with a young girl. I ordered the girl to leave my house and scolded my son severely. A few hours later, I asked him to go and fetch water because there was no water in the house, but he refused.
“He did not even behave as though he was the one I was talking to. So, I picked up a bucket and went to fetch some water. Immediately after I finished fetching that water, he stood up and picked a bucket to use the very water I had just finished fetching, but I blocked his way and also insisted that he drop the bucket.
“He began to struggle with me for the bucket and slapped me in the process. That very evening, I asked him to leave my house immediately. A few days later, he came to beg me, and I allowed him to move back into the house. Please note that my son works at a factory, where he earns some money while also learning a plumbing skill. But he has never brought a pack of salt home from his salary, not even once.
“Recently, my elder brother, whom the boy has lived with, forwarded some text messages to me that my son had sent him. In those texts, my son told my brother that nobody wanted to help him become someone in the future and that he was left alone to suffer.
“My brother responded by telling my son to come back to his base and write WAEC/GCE to prepare himself for a university education, but my son’s reply to my brother was, ‘Give me the money that you want to use to train me in school to start a business.’ My brother told him that he could not do that but was prepared to train him in school. Do you know that my son turned around and started accusing me of ‘spoiling his name before people who could help him’?
“He claimed that the reason my elder brother did not give him that money was that I was always tarnishing his image before my brother. He also said that I had done the same with my boss, who once scolded him for being disrespectful to me. My elder brother said that he pointed out how entitled my son was and told him how I used to work in cocoa farms, breaking cocoa pods, at a young age just to support our feeding at home.
“The next day, my son left home and did not come back for some days. After a while, he contacted me to tell me that he was staying with one of his friends. I said, ‘No problem.’ A few days after that, he called and claimed that he was in need of money. I told him that I had not received my salary but that, of the fifty thousand naira in my account, we could share it 50/50. And that’s what I did. I gave him twenty-five thousand naira and even packaged raw foodstuffs and beverages for him to share with those he was living with.
“Recently, this boy started attacking me on WhatsApp and accusing me of tarnishing his image before his ‘destiny helpers’. He then ended the message by swearing that he would never contact me in his life again. I said, ‘Fine. You can even consider yourself motherless.’ He blocked me.
“A few days ago, one of our church members contacted me about a job that my son had been recommended to handle for him and asked for his contact details. The man told me that the moment he contacted my son and told him that it was his mother who had given him his contact details, my son ended the call and blocked the man.
“His character is causing me sleepless nights. I have two children (I am no longer with their father). You would never know they came out of the same womb. He only knows himself, yet his younger brother loves him. Will he change his ways? How should I handle him henceforth? I have never stopped him from relating with his father and his father’s people, but this boy runs back as soon as he sets foot there.”
From Oby…
Refusing to lose your mind over a defiant child is the most important resolution that a parent can make in this age. Life knows how to set them straight eventually.
However, what you should neither tolerate nor let go unpunished is the incident of your own child raising his hand to you. I don’t care what his reasons are!
Of course, keep him in your prayers, but prioritise your well-being.