ONCE UPON A TIME, MY MOTHER TOLD ME…

One of the things I hated the most back then when I lived with my parents was family time… I would be like “please not again, can't I just be left in my room.” This was majorly because my mother took it very seriously to gather the family for a discussion. My dad sometimes would run away in his own way as the head of the family but we the children dare not move an inch. The most annoying thing about it for me was how long it took with my mother turning every conversation into an avenue for counseling and prayer 😂. The prayer was even preferable, but you see that counseling part, it could last for hours. You can't sleep off, you can't even hold your phone, plus our eyes must be fixed on her the whole time the moment you even look at your phone, my mother would often use Yoruba to say ”Discussion is in the face”.

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Although there were a few family times that were very interesting, especially when my dad was in a good mood, he could be very jovial at that point in time and find a way to make everyone laugh and even forget they had phones in the first place. My dad doesn't really have a time to start a serious conversation, not because he isn't the serious type, but because he usually can't find the words. So he leaves the serious conversation to my mother. If he should mistakenly start a serious conversation, it's because he's angry and it never ends well for the person he's angry with. These two life scenarios in my family have taught me the essence of spending quality time as a family.

They say boys are usually closer to their mothers, and girls their fathers. Looking at my family, it's okay to think we (the children) are close to our father because of his jovial personality. But in the real sense we are closer with my mother (Even my sister). And the reason why is nothing more than the fact that she spends more family time with us than our father. Even though she doesn't know how to be jovial and is usually too serious with her words of advice that could make us wish we never started the family time in the first place, we prefer to stay around her because she spends time with us (the children). This isn't because she is a stay at home mum, but rather because it's what she chooses to do.

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My mother can start a family time anyway the family is gathered together, she usually starts with conversations we love, and gradually moves to the ones we want to avoid 😂. But if there's one thing I've learned from her, it's that a family that plays together, eats together, talks together always strives and stays together (In her words). I tell myself that I will build up investments instead of business in the future, so I can have time with my family as the head of the house. I've also discovered that family time has helped us to discover a lot of things about ourselves and make us see home as a place worth coming back to no matter where we are. In these moments of bonding as a family, it's easy to say no phones around, but I think the best way to approach it is make everyone forget they had a phone in the first place. But then I fully support the phone discipline because of what my mother taught me ”Discussion is in the face”.

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 113 EPISODE 1