WHAT CHANGED? Children vs Time, Sanity & Money

I grew up listening to stories of our fore fathers who had several kids. Then men used to beat their chests proudly because of the number of children they had. The children helped in the farms, with house chores, fetched water e.t.c. I can recall when I read ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe; I fell in love with the idea of having a large family.  In Africa, one of the most celebrated occasions is a newborn’s naming ceremony and mothers take pride in going to stay with their daughters and daughters’ in-law to help raise their grand children at least for a year. The Igbo’s took pride in ‘OMUGO’ while the Yoruba’s ‘IKOMO’. Movies far back displayed families with lots of children running around in the yards; playing, singing, eating, e.t.c. There was hardly a movie without children and having lots of children were a priority.

Present day couple especially in Lagos, Nigeria will tell you they don’t want more than 2 children. It’s like 2 is in vogue now, it could be more than that when the couple have a particular sex and want the other. I recently heard a mum tell her daughter to have the number of children she can take care of conveniently without her help because she is still working. Movies today can run for hours without any kid in sight or will have no kid at all. What happens to the chores and the work front of the present day family? It looks like we found a solution for the chores, what about the work front? What about children taking over the empire built by their parents? 

I’m usually excited when I come across couples that want to have a lot of children, one day a friend of mine mentioned that she wanted 7 kids and that she really loves kids and moreover her mum had loads of kids too, but after having just 2 kids her tune changed and she said herself and her husband have hung the boot. I said to her, what happened to the 5 children yearning to be born? Are we running away from the kids or are the kids running from us? If most of our parents stopped at 2 kids we won’t be here today. God said be fruitful and multiply. And also says’ blessed is a man that has a quiver full of children’.

I think that our generation likes to work things out logically; we are so thoughtful and that’s why we are committed to balancing nature since our fore fathers over populated it. LOL

What do you think really changed? What is our priority now as parents? Share with us.