My mother is a woman, but she's just a girl, do you know how hard being a girl is?

She raised me the best she could, and here I am, an able-bodied twenty-year-old undergrad biblical accurate corporate slave, a rebel, and a feminist who also happens to be queer. Let's just say I am an anomaly, a child most Nigerian parents would take for deliverance. Oh, and speaking of deliverances, I have been to quite a handful myself. The one that stood out to me the most was the second to the last one I attended. I was whipped with palm fronds and was asked to go bath in a stream, it happened in a white garment church somewhere in the heart of the Pacesetter, Ibadan as it famously called. 

I digressed a bit, excuse my poor self, that was quite a funny memory, I might tell you in totality soon, but for now, let's talk about how I hate being the first child of my separated parents. The background story sounds like a cliché Wattpad story where the good girl fell in love with a rich bad boy, except this time the good girl was not some poor girl who waited tables after school, she was well to do, a business administration major in some polytechnic in a Nigerian city. The boy was a chain-smoking football-playing chocolate-skinned bearded five-foot-nine Yoruba Demon who has terrible daddy issues. Now, you get the picture, no?

I  am glad I am the first child, at least my brothers won't have to witness the terror that was once my mother, standing at a solid five foot and eleven inches, a slender perfectly shaped dark skinned beauty who scared me shitless. That was a lie, I didn't meet my mother when she was a slender woman, not to be pompous, but I vomited wealth on her and she became thick, as yoruba elders would say. 
Growing up was fun, I spent the first six years of my life with my paternal grandparents playing with mud, tyres, and catapults which would eventually land me in trouble with our neighbor, Mommy Paul as we fondly called her, heaven knows where she is now. My mom would visit now and then with provisions, candies, and new clothes. That was also the era she got me a pink plaid skirt I loved it so much I wore it till I couldn't. 

At age 7, I moved in with my mom, I was so excited to move into a fancy flat where I could get my room, running water, a garden, and live happily ever after. As you would have guessed, happily ever after belonged in Disney movies not this dimension. This move marked the beginning of my seemingly endless problems, my mother was pregnant, she gave birth, and we celebrated with a blue and cream-coloured Asoebi. Reality dawned, and I was a big sister, I learnt how to change diapers and apply Agnesia baby powder. I would repeat that two more times, as she had two more sons, I would learn to back a baby and hold another while simultaneously flagging down a bus, I would learn to curse and haggle prices with conductors and market women, and I would become a mother. 

My mother’s new husband was never around, it was just me, her, and a foster child who was in his late teens. 
My first memory of violence was when she broke a lamp on my head, it was light blue, and I was on my knees, aged eight. I picked a call I wasn't supposed to, nobody told me my neighbour’s husband’s call couldn't be picked up by a stranger, so she reported me to my frustrated mother who had been stuck in traffic for hours. My second memory of violence was when she whipped me with a metal-studded belt that scored my neck ever so profoundly I couldn't bathe without wincing for days.

Puberty set in I was done for, old pervy men ogled at me, and young idiotic uncultured boys cat-called me. I hated every moment of it, I hated attention, but that was unavoidable with puberty. My right breast budded in primary three, and girls would make fun of me for having one breast and a chest, little did they know that would soon be their fate too. My mother didn't notice I was becoming a woman, she didn't notice so much that an eleven-year-old me had to purchase my first bra myself after teachers started complaining. The bra was white with green leaves, I would buy 3 more bras before my mother finally notices one day Sunday after when I refused to let our laundry woman wash my beloved bras, the precious things I bought with my hard-saved lunch money. 
I got my period at 12, I was almost thirteen. I was wearing black leather pants when I felt a sharp pain in the lower part of my stomach. My mother never discussed period with me prior, she was a busy woman who left home early in the morning and returned late at night or the next morning. Although we had been taught puberty in my basic science class and I knew what the blood meant, it was still traumatizing and I cried until my mother returned. She told me to get new underwear and Always ultra-thin sanitary pad from across the street, she showed me how to place it, and we had THE TALK and that was it. I had to figure out the pain relief drugs on my own and how sanitary pads are not one size fits all. I had a heavy flow which means ultra-thin was not for me, but I wouldn't know until hours later when blood destroyed my school uniform and I couldn't stand up till the closing hour when my friend borrowed me her cardigan and we went to the pharmacy opposite our school. 
My mother is a hard-working woman, she was busting her ass to put food on our table and pay bills a girl like her shouldn't have to pay alone, she was just a girl.  I have accepted my fate as a trial kid, and I am happy that she is a mother to my brothers. 

Violence was her solution to everything, broke a plate? Whip, didn't lay the bed to satisfaction? Whip, too much salt in the food cooked by a preteen me? Whip, my brothers destroyed something? Whip. It got so bad I asked my granny if I wasn't her child, I am, but she's also just a girl.  So I forgive my girl for missing all the important milestones in my life so far, my girl was too busy working to provide for our family of five, her husband excluded. 

My girl now has enough money to lead a decent life, my girl never misses my brothers’ PTA meetings and school parties, and my girl now sits at the dining table to teach our sons their assignments like I used to. My girl no longer tells lies to her children on Open Days that she is a street away from their school as she did to me, my girl doesn't miss our sons’ notable childhood moments as she did most of mine.  
Some of you might ask, “Where are the husbands in all of these?”. Let's just say my girl has awful taste in men, she likes fine boys and fine boys are not necessarily husband materials, but at least they gave her beautiful kids.