Hello everybody. This week on #NHBi was all shades of adjectives. But the one that would stand out is ‘emotional’. The sensitive nature of the topic, the personal story of our guest which was tinged with sadness and joy and just that every one aired their views passionately from each’s own perspective made for indeed an emotional and very interesting episode of the show.
Our guest was Kwami Adadevoh, @Kwamiadadevoh and Kwami got off straight to telling his story. After he got married sometime in the 90’s, apparently the issue of how many children they were going to have had not come up with his wife prior, but he had set his mind on having just one, she on having three. Where there was no bone of contention was that child bearing wouldn’t begin until 2 years after the wedding. In late 2000, she took in, months later under very unfortunate circumstances, they lost the baby. Then started the road to ‘recovery and rediscovery’ and then 6 months down the line, the wife was pregnant again. Good news yes? Not until the baby was born still born.
He broached the subject of adoption, and she was vehemently against it. As expected, it became a very tense period in their lives and marriage. Getting back to life as normal was the plan, the ghost of the lost babies hung in the air, making everything else seem anything but normal. And while he brought up adoption again and she was indeed beginning to consider it, on the morning they were set to visit one of the orphanages, wife began to throw up, turns out they were pregnant again. He says: ‘And the product of that pregnancy, dear people, is a lovely young & very pretty Year 7 student today who has a handsome year 5 brother ‘
To answer the question that the show’s topic poses, he admits he probably is not qualified to say ‘No’ seeing that he has two lovely children, but after being faced with the possibility of not having any biological kids of his own he admits that it is ‘Tough!’
Now, without thinking it through, it seems pretty normal to begin to have children after you get married. Society expects it of you, family expects it of you, and your religion expects it of you. ‘Must we have kids?’ ‘Why not, if not?’ is what a soon to be bride might retort and add almost immediately ‘abi your kini is not working ni?’
On very practical terms, what are the reasons why a couple might decide not to have children? (a) The economy (b) Health reasons (c) Personality.
On the first point, with rampant unemployment and under employment, the attendant high cost of raising a child might make one seriously consider not having children in this economy. Penny wise. At least until the time is right if it ever is. On the second point, Sickle cell anemia still ravages millions of children in Africa. If by all means you want to spend your life with a certain person, but your genotypes point in the direction of possible SS kids by all means do not have children, and let’s not even talk about HIV. Thirdly, not everyone is primed for parenthood and the notion that associates womanhood with motherhood or children with happiness is wrong and archaic.
But if you must have kids and everything about your biology or your partners says no, a viable option is always adoption that is if the questions and pressure from extended family, church members and people of the world have not driven you insane in the first place. Here are some selected tweets from the discussion.
On Children:
@femiTRIPP: In Africa children are as important as the marriage itself. If not for you both at least for the extended family
@finegurl: All in all. Children are a source of Joy. Biological or adopted. God help us all.
@tinkizee: What kind of empty life will I have if I don’t have children??forget this western rhetoric,children complete u Biko.
@hartng: We live in a society where the clock starts ticking from your wedding reception. All eyes on wifey’s tummy henceforth
On Adoption:
@hellynux: Adoption is not a shameful thing. If you can’t have yours then by all means make another person’s yours and be happy.
@amasonic: Can’t resist this: I just do hope that Nigerians’ attitude towards adoption, on a general level, improves.
@p_pope: Adoption is far more common here than we are aware of, not just made public for fear of stigma.~orphanage volunteer.
@TS_tiana: Unlike your biological kids you’re compelled to care for, adoption can be done only out of a heart of pure love. That the beauty of it.
@i_am_dayob: The Nigerian hypocrisy when it comes to things like having kids (women hiding pregnancies), adoption (stealing kids) is sickening.
After all has been said and done, it’s important to consider these important points. Happiness in marriage should not depend on having children, biological or not. And where you want kids of your own, but simply can’t, for any of the one million reasons the doctors would give, adoption is still a very open option. There are already too many uncared for children in the world for you to be bent on having one of yours by all means, exposing yourself to psychological and emotional pain, not to talk of the vulnerability one is exposed to from family members and fraudsters, whether of the cloth or of the medicine.
Another wonderful edition of #NHBi and I implore you to follow the official twitter handle for the forum @Nhbiinteractive and keep up with the blog at www.nhbiinteractive.wordpress.com. See you next week. God bless.
Caleb Olorunmaiye.
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