Nancy Friday is regarded as one of the IT women of female sexuality. She has been read by many women who have cultivated a consciousness of their sexuality and personhood. Many of my friends have not read Nancy Friday. I would not have read My Mother, Myself: The Daughter’s Search for Identity but for the used books dealers I patronised when I was an undergraduate in Lagos State University. I have two trunks full of books ranging from Charlotte Bronte to Virgil. Throw in Toni Morison and Jacqueline Wilson. You never know what you will come out with if you go into my trunks. You may never come out. It is the magical wardrobe into the world of Pooh, Narnia, Hogwarts, Life after Life, Necessary Losses etc. My library will be extremely hard to rebuild should I lose it. I would like to say my library is a testament to eclecticism. It is not. I bought what I could buy for N50 or N200 at the bend down bookstore because I loved reading and my taste for good and insightful writing found that good books came in many garbs. Perhaps, I am too much like the duchess of whom Robert Browning poetised: “She had a heart too soon made glad.”
I think my mom would think so too. I have stayed in nine Nigerian states across different geopolitical zones and if you ask me about any of them, I have beautiful things to say. After a while, my mom simply said, ‘it is everywhere that is good to you.’ The world is my home.
I read Friday’s My Mother, Myself again recently and I was left feeling like I got an epiphany. The book is a little unusual because it does not tell you your mother is a goddess or a jewel. No. Friday tells you your mother is probably a klutz, not your regular Madonna and that is all okay. Your mother does not have to be perfect, she only has to be true and to show you how to be true.
The book is full of gems such as:
“The primary rule is always that a mother can’t go wrong, ever, by encouraging her child after age one and a half to be as individuated and separated as possible. If she was not as good a mother before as she would like to have been, she must get over her guilty desires to overcompensate, and place herself on the side of the child’s developing.”
It celebrates in one breath the vastness of possibilities that is inherent in how a mother loves her child. It is possible to love too much or to love wrongly, which is equally as dangerous as loving too little. Friday makes me realise that you can love and not like a person, and the duplicity is always apparent to every participant in the drama at a subconscious level.
There are so many things mothers give to their children and from Friday, I have learnt that the best gift of all is the permission to be and to grow. The permission to get burnt and know it is okay to get burnt and to learn from it. I learnt from Friday that the best gift a mother can give her child is her imperfection and the refusal to be sneaky about it. You own yourself and you teach your child to own yourself.
There are so many things mothers give to their children and from Friday, I have learnt that the best gift of all is the permission to be and to grow. The permission to get burnt and know it is okay to get burnt and to learn from it. I learnt from Friday that the best gift a mother can give her child is her imperfection and the refusal to be sneaky about it. You own yourself and you teach your child to own yourself.
I also learnt from Friday that our mothers or primary caregiver are the biggest models of love we receive in our early years. She can make or mar your love relationships for life. If your mother teaches you love is pain, then you swallow so much hurt in your love life because you believe that is what love is about. If she puts you down, then you promptly lie on the floor and become a doormat lifelong. If she teaches you that love is conditional and can be withdrawn as swiftly as it takes you to make a mistake, you will always walk on eggshells.
Simply put, I learnt from Friday that Mother is home. When we set out for life, it is setting out from home. There is a freedom that comes to be and to explore when home is real. I use the word ‘real' because the beauty of home is not its perfection but its ‘realness’. There is a freedom to give and to receive love. It is a gift to be able to do both.
Many people know how to receive love but haven’t found the freedom in giving love. The misfortune of many is that they haven’t been shown what love really is. So they go along life and collect costume jewelries, hoard them because they never saw the real thing. John MacArthur wrote, “Federal agents don’t learn to spot counterfeit money by studying the counterfeits. They study genuine bills until they master the look of the real thing. Then when they see the bogus money they recognize it.”
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Natural Hair is like Parenting
Two years ago, I went and did it. I cut my hair. I had been growing my relaxed hair for ten years. It was full, it was okay. If my hair had been a lover of mine, my break up text would probably have been as clichéd as ever: ‘It is not you, it is me. I just need to find myself' or something equally unoriginal.
So, since then, I have been on what they call a natural hair journey. The name itself strikes me as ironic. Why don’t we speak of a natural *insertanotherbodypart* journey?
Anyway, in recent days I have found that the natural hair journey is very similar to parenting. Let me explain:
When you cut your hair newly, many people will describe you as ‘cute’. Some of them will mean it, some of them won’t. The ones who think it is not cute will probably not tell you. Just as many people won’t dare tell you they think your baby is not cute. Some of them will simply think: better you than me. They can admire it on you but it isn’t their cup of tea.
You will go crazy and spend tons of money on natural hair products. You have less than an inch of hair. You will not care about this fact as you picture yourself with a head full of afro two months later and buy all the products that promise to make your afro pop. The same way you buy cute oversized shoes for your baby and splurge on cute newborn clothes that baby won’t even get round to wearing.
You will overcompensate in your style. Sunglasses, more accessories. More make up. You don’t want to look like you are out of it or something. Sounds like what I have known some new parents do.
Babies eat a lot. Or, scratch that. There are many opinions on what you should be feeding your baby. Natural hair too. It eats onions, honey, okra (I kid you not), beer, egg, olive oil, coconut oil, almond oil, avocado oil. In short, cook for two. Or cook for a diva house guest because natural hair eats even more than you do. The list is endless.
It will get lots of compliments at first. Beautiful twist outs that remain where you arranged them like cute newborns in the bassinet.
Babies grow. Hair grows. Babies probably don’t always grow as you picture. Same with your hair. As it grows, it enters a crazy phase. It will begin to throw tantrums. It will look something like the terrible twos. You will be tempted to loc' it and maybe throw the key away. Some days you will look a refugee. You will get tired of questions such as ‘Won’t you make your hair?’ or ‘you still haven’t made your hair?’ when you think you are rocking a #TWA. I call this the terrible twos of natural hair. Your hair at this stage is pampered and to say the truth, not very well-behaved. In fact, it is a brat.
7. It will behave like a teenager. It will talk back at you. You go on Instagram and see better behaved hair and you ask, ‘but why can’t you be like so and so?’ It rolls its eyes at you and goes on playing its own 12 years a slave gig. It isn’t the fault of your hair, it is your fault for not catching it at Instagram worthy stage. Even the best of 4c hair has its bad days.
8. Finally, you call a truce. You are too tired of all the fuss and expenses. Your new bffs are the ones who just run water through their hair and rub in shea-butter. People see your hair outside and go, ‘wow, cool.’ They don’t know about the tantrum your hair threw back then, the screaming matches… what do they know? They don’t know the battle before you and your hair finally spoke the same language.
Someone will see your ‘fro popping and go get her big chop. Someone, like all those people who go, awwn, I can’t wait to have a baby- as they picture shared cuddles while they look serene…
TL;DR: You will probably have an aggressive love relationship with your 4C natural hair but in the end, you will call a truce and get along better.
So, since then, I have been on what they call a natural hair journey. The name itself strikes me as ironic. Why don’t we speak of a natural *insertanotherbodypart* journey?
Anyway, in recent days I have found that the natural hair journey is very similar to parenting. Let me explain:
When you cut your hair newly, many people will describe you as ‘cute’. Some of them will mean it, some of them won’t. The ones who think it is not cute will probably not tell you. Just as many people won’t dare tell you they think your baby is not cute. Some of them will simply think: better you than me. They can admire it on you but it isn’t their cup of tea.
You will go crazy and spend tons of money on natural hair products. You have less than an inch of hair. You will not care about this fact as you picture yourself with a head full of afro two months later and buy all the products that promise to make your afro pop. The same way you buy cute oversized shoes for your baby and splurge on cute newborn clothes that baby won’t even get round to wearing.
You will overcompensate in your style. Sunglasses, more accessories. More make up. You don’t want to look like you are out of it or something. Sounds like what I have known some new parents do.
Babies eat a lot. Or, scratch that. There are many opinions on what you should be feeding your baby. Natural hair too. It eats onions, honey, okra (I kid you not), beer, egg, olive oil, coconut oil, almond oil, avocado oil. In short, cook for two. Or cook for a diva house guest because natural hair eats even more than you do. The list is endless.
It will get lots of compliments at first. Beautiful twist outs that remain where you arranged them like cute newborns in the bassinet.
Babies grow. Hair grows. Babies probably don’t always grow as you picture. Same with your hair. As it grows, it enters a crazy phase. It will begin to throw tantrums. It will look something like the terrible twos. You will be tempted to loc' it and maybe throw the key away. Some days you will look a refugee. You will get tired of questions such as ‘Won’t you make your hair?’ or ‘you still haven’t made your hair?’ when you think you are rocking a #TWA. I call this the terrible twos of natural hair. Your hair at this stage is pampered and to say the truth, not very well-behaved. In fact, it is a brat.
7. It will behave like a teenager. It will talk back at you. You go on Instagram and see better behaved hair and you ask, ‘but why can’t you be like so and so?’ It rolls its eyes at you and goes on playing its own 12 years a slave gig. It isn’t the fault of your hair, it is your fault for not catching it at Instagram worthy stage. Even the best of 4c hair has its bad days.
8. Finally, you call a truce. You are too tired of all the fuss and expenses. Your new bffs are the ones who just run water through their hair and rub in shea-butter. People see your hair outside and go, ‘wow, cool.’ They don’t know about the tantrum your hair threw back then, the screaming matches… what do they know? They don’t know the battle before you and your hair finally spoke the same language.
Someone will see your ‘fro popping and go get her big chop. Someone, like all those people who go, awwn, I can’t wait to have a baby- as they picture shared cuddles while they look serene…
TL;DR: You will probably have an aggressive love relationship with your 4C natural hair but in the end, you will call a truce and get along better.
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