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One can comfortably say that golden age mothers were simply unique. They were mothers who saw through the tiny lens of life, navigated and succeeded. They knew nothing about searching and surfing the internet. There was nothing like social media to circumnavigate life as we have today. They were barely living women who had no education, no empowerment per se, yet they swam the murky waters of life and pulled through excellently in almost all ramifications of life. Some of these women were simply farmers and traders who excelled in marriages, raised many worthy children with just wisdom. Noit that there were no challenges, it started them in their faces.
Now, the gap between mothers of yesteryear and today’s mothers is so wide. For those women, great wisdom was their watchword. Their wisdom was topnotch. They were mothers who knew when their children ate food they did not prepare. They knew when their children were about to cross the Rubicon. And they would smartly, wisely use ‘style’ to prevent things from getting out of hand between their sons and their girlfriends. I heard different accounts when I asked colleagues to share experiences of how their mothers handled their relationships with the opposite sex as young male adults.
Paul snatched it from me: “My mother never gave room to me while away time. She was not educated, yet full of wisdom especially that we were five boys only. She tied us to her waist. If we were not selling, we were in school or church where an adult eye is supervising us. With that, we were not involved in such an opposite relationship because she blocked such times with activities.
High Chief Kennedy Chimezie Nwankwo, Owelle 1 of Okija and Chairman/CEO Bigly Group told me in an interview in 2024 that his mother had 10 of them. “We are eight men and two girls, all alive and married. While growing up, my late father made it compulsory for all to go home and celebrate Christmas and New Year. It was a sacrosanct, not debatable. Even my senior brothers who live in foreign countries were bound by it. You must come with your family. How they won the battle of raising ten successful children remains a mystery till date. Till date at every Yuletide, over forty people usually gather in one compound. With eight successful happy sons and their families, we built houses including ‘Ezumezu’ where we all gathered to eat from one pot, which my mother made compulsory. Amid that crowded merry-making season, my mother would tell us the gathering was exactly what our father prayed for. The greatest joy is that we all are at peace even with our in-laws. My mother managed to achieve it with the wisdom of Solomon in her.
Again, yesteryear mothers whose children showed signs of rascality knew how to devise the means to control them. I recall speaking with Professor Michael Ajisafe, the first professor of Sports Science in Africa and former vice chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado- Ekiti (ABUAD) who told me in an interview how his mother monitored his academics while raising him. As a smart young boy whose father died early in life, I was interested in sports and academics at the same time. My illiterate mother would pack all my books to my senior cousins to verify if Michael was getting it right or not. Those ones would go through all my notes, tests, assignments and tell my mother that I was excelling academically. She did not stop until life took me away from her vicinity in the pursuit of the future.
While still talking to some other colleagues at a gathering, Ola said, as a fresh student in University of Ife then, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), before the end of his Year One, he has gotten entangled with Temidare, his ‘October rush’. During that holiday, Temi paid him a visit as a fellow undergraduate since both resided in the same area. The moment Ola’s mother saw her, the countenance of the two lovers changed. The romantic mood dissolved and made Temi take her leave immediately. Ola summoned courage and queried his mother who said, “It is for your own good.”
Nicholas added his voice. He said: “I guess mine was the most embarrassing situation for my parents, especially my mother. Becky and I were dating seriously in school. I was in my final year while she was a year my junior. In fact some students addressed us as a campus couple. I invited her to my home in Port Harcourt. She travelled from Benin to visit me. My parents welcomed and entertained her. As the night drew nearer, my mother knocked on my door and invited us to the sitting room where my father was seated already. “What plans do you two have tonight because both of you will not sleep together in my house,” my father said. I inquired if we could rent a hotel in case he thought we were about to desecrate his peaceful home with romance and sex. My father made it clear that both of us would sleep at the police station so they could bear witness just in case anything went wrong. We thought it was a joke. Before we could say jack, we were surrounded by police officers who took us away. It was horrible. Becky never spoke to me and left early in the morning from the police station. That action by my parents separated us after school resumed.
Camillus told us the story of how his mother asked his girlfriend to use mortar and pestle to pound pepper. “My social life in school endeared a lot of girls to me. But somehow I found Data, a Rivers State girl, more attractive and we started dating secretly. During one Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, she secretly came to see me and my mother met her in my room. The next minute, my mother called her to help her cook. In fact she gave her fresh pepper to pound in a mortar. By the time she finished, Data, an upper class, nepo-baby had turned red. She had never experienced that before. On getting back home, she sent me an angry text message: “I don’t blame your mother; I came to visit you and that was why she treated me shabbily. She ended it with a crying emoji.
In her telling her story, Daniella said: “Daniel and I were choristers in school. He was the student choir master while I was a frontline singer. Choir practice and singing really brought us close. It was not love at first sight, but because we were always together, this forced a friendship between us especially as both of us came from Lagos to the East to study. Back home in Lagos, he had already informed his mother about my coming. When I visited, his mother came to his room twice within 30 minutes, to ask him flimsy questions. Just before he could kiss me, his mother came again, to ask him to fix her rosary which she had cut herself and used that pretext to come to his room. Again she came back to look for her knife – in the son’s room! I saw all that as clear signs that the woman did not like my visit to her son. I quickly got up and left.
The list of boys and girls who were saved by smart illiterate mothers from engaging in improper activities, is endless. They were scrupulous mothers who did the needful to prevent their children from making grievous mistakes.
