One day my mom was going through some of her old stuff & stumbled across my nursery school results. At the time, I was in SS2. She threw them at me & jokingly said "look & see how much of a dunce you were"

Fammmm

I went through about 6 report sheets & my highest position

was 28th out of 36.

The teacher's remarks were nothing to write home about.

Now, at some point in nursery school, we moved towns so I switched schools. I was to get into primary 1 at the time but because the new school determined that the school I was transferring from was

below standard, they asked me to start from nursery 3.

I was no good in class. Failed all tests, kept poor exam grades. Twas so bad that after the 1st term, the school decided I had to drop back down to nursery 2 cos obviously I wasn't grounded & hence found it hard to catch up

Guess what? I smashed the entire nursery 2 right out the waters. They were shocked.

Ok so this boy that's too good for nursery 2 but too poor for nursery 3, does it mean we have to create a special nursery 2.5 class for him?

Stay with me....

I completed nursery 2 & stepped up to nursery 3 again. Issues restarted. Failing tests, not concentrating, failing exams.

My mom, being a teacher, put in extra efforts at home to help me. My dad chipped in too.

Now here's the thing. At home, I grasped all I was thought; but

the very next day in school, if the same thing was thought, I'd fail the follow up test woefully.

My mom decided to take time off work to observe me in school without my knowledge but with the teacher's collaboration. She wanted to know if the teacher was even teaching the

right things.

Mom did this for a week. She'd sneak into class through the back door & sat just by the door watching throughout. She did this for a week.

She noticed I wasn't stubborn or playful, but she noticed I was disturbed & not concentrating.

At the end of her one week observation period guess what she found? LMAO

There was a life size paper mache crocodile displayed just by the blackboard in class with black eyes & gaping mouth. I was afraid of it & so I always looked away from the board to avoid

seeing the crocodile.

I couldn't tell anyone cos I mean I was a child lol.

The moment Mom made the teacher remove that crocodile ehn, nwanne m salů öků! Everything was fire from that point on. 1st position was permanently mine

Stay with me.....

I kept up the brilliance all through primary school. Lol hell I smashed M.A.N mathematics competition & it's likes. I passed exams for & got admitted into "gifted school". Boy was on fire

I got into sec school & smashed first term. 3rd position.

However, I had just got

my first real taste of freedom away from the near regimented upbringing we had at home. Gradually, I fell off. Mom was gentle. Dad was gentle. They talked, they cajoled, they encouraged.

Listen, at some point I started to take advantage of the fact I was their "priced jewel"

I kept losing my textbooks. Mom had to replace almost my entire uniforms & texts every term cos I always lost them all. I would go home at the end of the term with an empty box. Going back to school, I would demand 8 sets of provisions cos standards
They'd negotiate it down

to 6 sets which I'd accept grudgingly. Lol remember this was the same boy that had just misplaced all his uniforms & nearly all his texts & parents had to have them replaced. My audacity kept growing lol.

I'd still expect stuff to be sent over on visiting days oo. Ah!

Momsy would hop on a bus all the way from Nnewi to suleja just to make sure I was alright cos I was so young and so far away from home. Little did she know I wasn't even interested in seeing her. All I cared about was that she found a way to send my provisions over without coming

herself cos that would mean me having to endure a barrage of advice & admonitions & stuff. Tsk. I just wanted to live freely & soak my kpako flakes in peace & skip classes to play P.S in the hostel & break bounds to town to flex

Despite all the love & provision they made for me, I continued to behave like a proper agbaya.

Mom got really frustrated & one day she paid an unannounced visit. She had planned with my guardian. She came in on a Sunday & lodged at the guest house without telling me LMAO.

The next day, Monday, I stabbed classes
Tuesday, I left school at break time to sneak into the hostel & did not re-emerge.
Mom observed my nonsense life for a week until Thursday. Chai. Then on Friday she stormed class. The moment I saw her through the window, my many

transgressions flashed before me. After a brief discussion with the teacher that was in class at the time, she moved in & demanded to see my notes.

Fam none of my notes was halfway to being up to date. As usual, I had already lost a few texts.

Mom got furious.

She went out

and came back with a cane. She lavished it on me lol.
I had started keeping afro then as per style in vogue. She took me out of class & had the school barber give me a shiny skin cut!
I felt ultimately humiliated! Ah a whole big boy like me?

I began to resent my mom after that

Nothing she did made me smile anymore no matter how hard she tried. I became really stubborn.
When SSCE came around, I sat down & asked myself questions. What if I failed? I'd have to go back to nnewi & register in a local school to rewrite SSCE? A whole me? The gifted child? Ah

Long story short, I knuckled down & put in efforts & passed my SSCE.
In all the time since then, a lot has happened. Guess what I will tell you though; that in wanting to blame parents so much, we fail to realise that we also have responsibilities as children.

There was absolutely no justification for my behaviour besides wanting to be among the big boys & rocking sagged pants & keeping afro; things that were even against the school rules!

My continued rebellion would only have ended in regrets for me.

Now, understand that you cannot draw conclusions from a 100 secs video of a balding late middle aged man disciplining his children; children who he had done everything in his power to put in good positions. You do not know what that man has had to endure for the better part of

their teenage years. What you see there is an exasperated man.

Remember also that nobody is born with a parenting manuscript. While we blame our parents so much, remember that while we grow, they're also growing in parenthood.

Remember also, that there are just plain ass bad

children who don't give a hoot about your efforts & just wanna hang by the block in sagged jeans & blow blunts cos bad company.

Never talk about shoes you haven't walked a mile in.