By Debbie Olujobi

If anyone had asked me what I was like as a child I would have answered that I was an almost model child. I would have told of how I was reserved and respectful and how I was so afraid of getting punished that I hardly ever got into trouble. I barely have any scars on my body and its a testament that I wasn’t rough or prone to fights.

I always said I would have an easy time of parenting if I had children that were like me and while I do  have such children I am not finding parenting as easy as I thought. If anything I am feeling very sorry for my mother for having to deal with me. I assumed that rough children who broke things, were loud and disrespectful were the bane of families but I am finding out that children who live inside of their heads, who don’t say much and  have the attention span of a fly is just as much a challenge!

There is no feeling as frustrating as not being able to reach a person who is right there in front of you; who is nodding yes to all questions and yet is miles away in their mind! Not too long ago, a friend of mine reported me to a family member for deliberately blanking them out.

Blanking people out is simply looking at them and pointedly ignoring all they are saying; they only realise you are not paying attention when you don’t reply or blink even when they wave. At such times, I physically have to be prodded or yelled at before I am startled back to attention.

I must have been a mine field for family members to navigate as not only did I blank them out all the time, I would always burst into tears when they shouted at me or hit me to get my attention. I listened to my own voice yelling at my son to stop looking at me like that and I was thinking Karma had come to roost in my house.

To everyone there I was being unreasonable after all the poor boy was standing respectfully looking at me and listening to me. It wasn’t till I asked him to repeat what I just said that they realised he hadn’t heard a word I said. Just like his mother; he had perfected the art of retreating to a place in his mind where no one could disturb his peace.

The problem with that was that just like me, his teachers couldn’t get his attention on subjects that he didn’t like. I had just finished administering some spanking when I came to the realisation that I was raising myself. I sat down with my better half and began to confess to behaviour that were a lot worse than the ones I was yelling about and I bet he was happy to be my husband and not my father!!!

The imagination is the most powerful tool of the human mind and I have often found myself  preferring to live in its beauty than in reality. I loved reading; in a book I could escape to lands far away, be beautiful, strong and rich; everything I wasn’t in my reality. I grew up in a large family of people with larger than life personalities. I stuttered and could not find my voice so I found refuge in literature that gave me expression.

I felt inconsequential and irrelevant so I withdrew from everyone. I could never understand why my mother was always on my case; anytime I sat down to day dream she would yell at me and find me something to do, sometimes she would add to my chores or even create activities just to get me up. Many years later I understand how worrying it is to raise a child that would rather retreat to some corner than share the family fun and participate with their full attention to education and even reality.

I had always thought the sometimes unprovoked and regular physical battering I suffered as a child was responsible for my nature; in a large compound, many things happen that the parents cant always prevent. Feeding and providing for that compound means tempers are flared and many things occurred that would not be the norm. I had always thought I developed a coping mechanism of shutting people out to get away from the not always so pleasant reality. I am revising my erstwhile opinion to leave room for the possibility that this may just be a personality trait.

An abused child either grows up to be an abuser or a defender and preventer of abuse. In my case I would say I was the latter so I am as certain as can possibly be that no abuse occurs in my home. Yet here I am looking most times into the blank gaze of a child that would rather create comics in the exercise books meant for the maths homework.

I am pretty sure I am raising a genius who will probably write a best seller judging by the intelligence thats very easy to see. What I need to figure out is a way to maintain and nurture the creativity while keeping his feet firmly planted in reality. It shouldn’t be a problem; after all I am familiar with the tell tale signs of floating from reality; I still do it.

I will be employing not only patience but constant prayers, I shall also be begging God’s forgiveness for all my mother’s frustrations over me. I now know that her life wasn’t a picnic in many ways; it couldn’t have been, she was raising me; just like I am.