The Annoying Relative

There is a popular saying in African culture that " it is a community that owns a child" . The responsibilities of training a child on the right path and way of life is not only limited to the nuclear family but it extends to the extended family as well. Relative has very vital role to play in a child up bringing, while other will seems easy on the children other may seems harsh or hard but both are for the betterment of the child. Sometimes the importance of an harsh uncle or aunt is seen and felt in the later days of life, but at the time of instilling the disciples, training and correcting the wrong doing of a child, it was also being felt by the child as hatred and dislike, as such resulted in labelling the relative involved as a bad aunt or uncle.

Every extended family has that one person who be it an uncle or aunt which plays this role and love showing up every possible time to make excessive complained about and effect some corrections on the children.

We had one and believe me we never liked her because nearly everything we do seems wrong on her sight and that somehow leave a trail of frustration on us. Our family was never an exception. Her name was aunty Itoro.

Any relatives that tampered on our freedom was a burden to us. And Immediately I stumbled on this question her name ran straight to my mind. Aunty Itoro was so burdensome, but thanks for her actions because it actually yielding a positive result in our today's life. She was always so annoying and lousy, she would complain about nearly every thing, when you play she will complain, that you are playing without reading our books, when you sleep even at night still complaining about sleeping too much, she will went as far as using water to wake us up at the middle of the night to read because she was a teacher.

The worst part was always our study section with her, (I will still thank her for those actions), when we are back from school and we met aunty Itoro at home, deep inside us we knew we are finished, she will save us food and announced to us. " You guys should eat fast, then after that you enter house and rest, when you wake up starting from the eldest you will come and tell me what your teacher taught you today in school" by then I was in Primary 2 and they elder brother was in Primary 3 with my sister in primary 4. It was always cried upon cried .

We hated her for that but she was always so happy about her actions. It is equally now that I knew the values of such relatives. They are of advantages and you know some disadvantage must follow. Like fear, hatred, lack of freedom.

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As children that we were back then, we were ignorance of her good works on us but we saw it as hatred on us, as such we returned the same to her but she never cares maybe she knew that we were only but innocent children who will letter live to appreciate it later in life. The fact now still remains that she wasn’t evil or cruel. In fact, she was even happy that she normally corrected us even when our parents will be telling her to let us be. She was loud, nosy, unfiltered, and always overstayed her welcome as we were always praying for her to return. She will always showed up unannounced, and she love farm work, that was the worst part.

We detest aunty Itoro because it was a burden to us back then due to her attitude. Immediately she visited we knew that our freedom is over and sometimes beating. But for uncle Imo was a joy to behold, as such it we loved Uncle Imo and always which for his visit, because he will come with a lot of gift , clothes and other items.

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It is very true. Some relatives over step their boundaries. I have this Uncle Uwem . My father's youngest brother who keep coming to our house to complained about our eldest sister upto the point that my parents start believing him and started hating my sister. They stop caring and buying things for her just because Uncle Uwem told them that she was seeing man and be getting gift from the man. My father beat my sister to half dead, and nearly throw her out of the house because my dad was such a disciplinarian. We cried beg and pleaded on her behalf before he tendered mercies, just for us to found out that what our Uncle reported was actually false accusations.

That particular incident would have resulted in tearing our beloved family apart, and living my sister stranded on the streets possibly to be corrupted.

Relative who love discussing about another person's home are capable of tearing such family apart. It is therefore necessary that relatives should not overstep their limits, they should intervene in spouse arguments and misunderstanding, some family issues should be kept out of extended family because they may likely took side.
It is therefore advisable that relatives should respect nuclear's family decision and stay out of decision making.

Thank you all for reading, thank you @bossj23 for organizing this amazing contest. Am using this opportunity also to invite my Steemian friends to this great contest @nsijoro @sahmie @ruthjoe @okere-blessings @arella1 @sadaf1