Clash of Love

The love fostered between a child and mother during the months of gestation exhibits itself in various ways after the birth of the child. But none is as heartbreaking as the defiance a child exudes or as fascinating as the audacity in a mother's modus of discipline. We could point to the "wooden cane" and koboko made especially for the purpose of teaching sense.  But mothers would have none of those. They have mastered the art of improvising certain tools that many of us have almost forgotten the actual use of these domestic items. Slippers, broom, their hands and the garri turner. The skill with which mothers implement these weapons of mass instruction dwarfs a skilled knight's use of his sword. The arsenal is not restricted to these four. As the need arises mothers are ever prepared to use anything on their child to pass an object lesson.

Once I was sent to buy pepper of Twenty Naira. It took me two hours before I returned from that errand, what should ordinarily take minutes. Where had I gone? What might have happened? That was the panic. A search team was sent out but returned without me; I actually eluded them. By the time I returned with pepper in hand, the food was ready and everyone had eaten - pepper had been purchased to complete the cooking. My mother requested the package. As I handed it over she gripped my wrist, pulled me close, held me down and motherly squeezed every bit - every single bit - of those red balls in my eyes. I say ‘motherly’ because no one else can possess the skill with which she squeezed those red balls and it is one she have never used in all her years of cooking, before nor after that incident. That skill was impulsive. You never know what would be the weapon but they always have it figured out. How they do it is left to divine revelation but the impact is always made. 

One could question the possible danger in this seeming brutality. But mothers need to be as daring as a child's obstinacy. It is an even match, and I have never heard of any fatal injury inflicted by a mother's improvisation. The opposite seem to be the case; we come out unscathed and sensible. In my case, albeit the hotness I felt in my eyes for about a week, I could see clearly. The panic caused by a child's stray is a rude return for a mother's natural sensitivity to whatever happens to her child. Imagine what went through my mother's mind during my two hour absence. Those wild thoughts were harsh on her given the triviality of what kept me away for that long - ball, I went to play ball. What mother would not be ruthless with such conflict of feeling thus stirred even if she knows the error was rather innocent? If there's any mother who wouldn't, the strange meaning of unlove will be read to it; because the ruthless reaction is rather unconsciously the expected one. A child is aware of a mother's soft spot and is wired to take advantage of it, putting it to the test to be certain of its sensitivity and developing a tough skin for the repercussions. To even up, a mother have to zero her mind on any device it takes to tamper that skin but with a delicacy and finesse that excludes fatality.

"Merciless" describes the beating a proper African mother would give her child. The word is apropos if your definition of motherly love borders on tenderness. But for those of us whose standard for merciless is a soldier's treatment, we beg to differ. This difference is vindicated when you consider the magnitude of the child's offense. On the whole, every mother's discipline is commensurate to the child's error, irrespective of the tool of correction. Because, what would kids not do to earn their repercussions. 

It is ironical to consider this face-off as love. But the entertaining heroics shared between these two occupies a good part of the fond memories both have of each other; and the smiles when the tales are told years later, even if repeatedly, is unsurpassed. Maybe second only to the smile on a mother's face when the child comes out the womb. Either way, the smiles speaks to the love.