In search of the perfect family
When Seun Ogunmodede got married ten years ago, her sensibility was coloured by the belief that there is a perfect family. Hence she never made any effort to make things work. She thought things would fall into place without any effort at all. Alas, she was wrong.
The Nigerian family is a rapidly changing institution. Some people may have grown up in the stereotypical Nigerian family – two parents and one or more children, with a father who worked outside the home and a mother who stayed home and cared for the children and the household. Today, as more women are getting into the workforce, there is believed to be an increase in divorce rate, leading to a growing number of single-parent households.
Marriage counsellors have observed that increasingly, more families are now headed by single parents, who are divorced, widowed, or never married. According to them, this has forced affected children to live in foster families, uncles, aunties or their grandparents. Statistics have also shown that in more than two thirds of families, both parents work outside the home.
Toun Kolawole says she was shocked when her daughter once asked her why her aunt and husband no longer live together. “Why do people get divorced?” “How come Tolu’s mother and father don’t live together?” “Why does Tolu’s father live with another lady?” I was shocked by all these questions,” says Kolawole.
Psychologists say it is very common for children to ask these kinds of questions because of their inquisitive nature. For them, it also means families are so important to children hence parents need to be able to answer such questions with more than mere slogans or quick replies.
By asking these questions, explains Tolu Oni, a family counsellor, children are trying to understand two things about families: the different structures that families can take and the changes in structure, lifestyles and relationships that can occur.
“Any group of people living together in a household can create and call themselves a family. For example, to share expenses a divorced mother with two children may live with another divorced woman with children; together, they may consider themselves a family,” explains Oni. She adds that a grandparent who lives with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren may become an integral part of their family. The variations of family structures and definition are almost endless, but they have certain qualities in common, family members share their lives emotionally and together fulfil the multiple responsibilities of family life.
Banke Oguntoye, a parent, says there is a myth about the nuclear family, which has become a universal phenomenon. The nuclear family is generally defined as a family group made up of only a father, mother, and children. Although most people tend to think that this particular family structure has always been the dominant one that is not the case.
The nuclear family is a relatively recent phenomenon, becoming common only within the last century. Before then, the “traditional” family was multigenerational, with grandparents often living with their children on farms as well as in urban environments, typically with other relatives living nearby. The nuclear family has evolved in response to a number of factors: better health and longer lives, economic development, industrialization, urbanization, geographic mobility, and migration to the suburbs. These changes have resulted in physical separation of extended-family members and in progressive fragmentation of the family.
She also explains that family harmony is the rule, not the exception for some people. Although family life is often romanticised, it has always been filled with conflicts and tension. The best solution is to learn to resolve conflict through effective communication. Divorce should be the last option. “Difficulties between spouses are commonplace, with disagreements arising over issues ranging from how the children should be raised to how the family finances should be budgeted. Husbands and wives also often struggle with their inability to sustain romantic infatuation beyond the first few years of their marriage, thus having to learn to maintain a relationship in which partnership and companionship may become more important than passionate love,” she adds.
According to her, parent-children conflicts are commonplace too. As parents assert their authority, and children try to assert their autonomy appropriately, strife is inevitable. While we often expect families to be above the chaos that exists in the rest of society, that outlook places unrealistic expectations upon the family. In the real world, families are not always a haven, since they, too, can be filled with conflict. Although stress and disagreements are common, they can be destructive to families, especially when conflict gets out of hand. Families are under constant stress, being pushed and pulled from many directions, often without the support systems of extended families that may have existed in the past.
There is also a myth that the stability of a family is a measure of its success. Change is a part of life says Adeola Bankole, a single parent. “Death, illness, physical separation, financial strains, and divorce are some of the events families have to adjust to. Consequently, stability shouldn’t be the only measure of a family’s success. Many families function quite well, despite frequent disruptions. In fact, one important measure of a family’s success is its ability to adjust to change. Daily life is full of stresses that constantly demand accommodation from family members.”
ANNE AGBAJE