| My Mother in-law Is In The Trunk! |
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| Friday, 17 March 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A Response to Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde An undiscerning reader of Mrs. Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde’s article, titled “African Mothers-In-Law And The Cycle Of Abuse” will be forgiven if such a reader comes away with the impression, albeit false, the impression created by Folasayo, that, African women are monsters! Whether such African women are mother in-laws, sister in-laws or aunt in-laws! African women, as a general rule, gladly torture other African women giddily, and gloatingly, just for the mere fact of such other women’s marriage to their sons or brothers. No exceptions! African women as presented by Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde, (hereinafter referred to as, simply, Folasayo), and if you take Folasayo’s words for it, African mother in-laws are monsters in laws! And thanks to African men, African women monster in-laws, got the way they are, abuse, torture, brutality and all, tortuously, in a brutally honest way. All African women are victims of abuse from African men, and heck, abuse victims tend to become abusers of others, themselves! But consider this foregoing statement made in a recent book review in The New York Times, about in-laws and mother in-laws, who incidentally are not Africans, but in connection with the universality of the subject. Dividing the Man From His Mother," the "tug of war between a mother and daughter-in-law over a man is an age-old phenomenon, the stuff of sitcom jokes and Greek tragedy," her take is so fresh and witty one hardly notices the clichis inherent to the subject 'I Married My Mother-In-Law,' edited by Ilena Silverman; A Fine Old Conflict, Review by PAMELA PAUL http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/ And what do we make of all these? Why was Folasayo singularly focused on Nigerian, African mother in-laws? Dr. Phil McGraw just had series of shows about monster in-laws right here in the Is it not the case that there are virtues and vices among all humans? Wherever the sun rises and set, and wherever humans live, the human condition tends to exhibit itself! My mother is an African mother in-law! I was raised with three other siblings we were comprised of two boys and two girls and my experiences growing up and ever since, are night and day compared with the gory, highly emotive melodramatic tale foisted upon us by our gifted embellisher in-chief, Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde! Let me begin by declaring that I am a male feminist and if Folasayo was a man? I would have called her a male chauvinist pig and misogynist for her offensive generalizations against African women (mother in-laws) I detest Folasayo’s sweeping generalizations regarding African women, of mother in laws, sisters in laws and aunt in laws etc. The generalizations in her article did not bother to consider the facts, or even possibility that, for every bad African mother, sister or aunt in laws that you made evil through you skillful presentation, there are equal numbers of excellent African mothers, sisters and aunt in laws! If you are an African lady, someday, you will become a mother in-law in the natural course of events, so, we expect Folasayo to catch this pervasive pervading virus that turns all African mother in-laws into monster in-laws? In reading Folasayo’s piece, you are tempted to conclude that drama is her favorite catch-phrase, as she repeatedly, used drama as a catch-all term for all the hell she claims African mother in-laws unleash at whims! Drama aptly describes Folasayo’s melodramatic commentaries about all African mother in-laws, Folasayo engaged in very generous generalizations, she, as if factually, described all African women as some sort of monolithic homogenous lot, without differentiation of class, education, refinements, taste or even a scintilla of individuality! According to Folasayo, African mother in-laws are innately evil, all African mother in-law regal in torturing their daughter in-laws, it is something African mother in-laws’ genetic marker! Evilness is in the DNA of all African mother in-laws! No doubt that there are some obnoxious, cantankerous and vile mother in-laws in Folasayo’s article is replete with hasty broad brush generalizations that would convince an undiscerning reader that African women invented evil and pure wickedness! The stereotype of African mother, sister, and aunt in laws, clearly shows I have friends here in The truth is that, there are I personally know many Nigerian and other African mother in laws, and that makes me wonder, about the mother in laws for which these generalizations has been fomented Folasayo’ss article is written as if there is nothing advantageous or beneficially useful in African mother in laws! And I will like to meet her, her mother, and if she has sisters? I volunteer to marry one of them, as a useful social experiment, to enable me understudy her mother, as my in law of course, I will determine if she is an in-law from heaven, or to conduct some empirical analyses upon real data, to determine whether Folasayo’s mother is she like the rest of African mother in-laws such as the ones in her article? Or is that other African mothers are just bad, but not Folasayo’s mother, my mother in-law to be? It now appears to be the vogue, the popular thing to do, to say African things and Africa are economically, socially and culturally unsustainable, and if Africans and Africa desire progress and development, there is no need to even bother? My recent experiences indicate a crescendo, or watersheds of movements toward a complete rejection of all scintilla of African anything, as a Nigerian man tells wife not to cook fufu or akpu and craw fish, which he asserts, stinks up the house and his breath, causing him monumental embarrassment in America! Meanwhile Chinese Kimshi is made and sold, right here in Recently, I attended a seminar organized by the American Jewish Committee, AJC for short, under the of Nigeria in Diaspora Organization (NIDO), during which Nigerians attendees learned the rudiments of political organizations, lobbying for better national image, political, economic engagement, diplomatic representations of national interests through lobbying US Congress, the presidency and other political and economic leaders in the United States. The seminar opened my eyes to how everything we gripe about regarding Nigerians’ apathy to political, economic and diplomatic benefit of Nigerians in Diaspora, to Folasayo overplayed her own her in her melodramatic swipes at all African women or African mother in laws, sister in laws and aunt in laws. This is made more embarrassingly so, in her narration of her Nigerian man date incident. At some point, Mrs. Dele-Ogunrinde appeared pointlessly condescending, such as when she wrote: Her only pride and joy is now going to re-channel all his love and attention to you and she is not going away easy. If he also happens to be her retirement plan as is the case in LOT of African situations, you have to be bridle lest you meddle with the flow of cash. So you see, you’re fighting against lot of odds. Haba Madam! Does her generalization vary with education of the mother, sister aunt in laws? Does it vary with income?, or was she just writing to inform the world that Africans are poor and needy, with sons as retirement plans and all? What a newsflash-splash she has! I want to be married into Dele-Ogunrinde's family, and foreswear to protect my wife against attacks and torture from my mom and Mrs. Dele-Ogunrinde's mom, African mothers in laws both! Here below is an excerpt of a recent book review piece in The New York Times regarding mother in-laws. (There Are Other Mother In-laws) outside February 5, 2006 Given how callous, scheming, selfish and altogether exasperating in-laws can be, there is little conversational sport more gratifying than badmouthing them. While denouncing family members to the outside world is rife with peril, vilifying in-laws who serve as a kind of proxy family is not only socially accepted, it's encouraged. There's only one catch: the in-laws themselves, and often the spouse, can never get wind of what you're saying. Even in our tell-all age, the only safe way to discuss certain in-laws is when they're dead. Herein lie the conundrum that Ilena Silverman, an editor at The New York Times Magazine, faced while compiling her anthology, "I Married My Mother-in-Law." When she contacted writers about contributing, "many said they'd love to read a book about in-laws, they just couldn't write about their own." As she explains, relationships with in-laws were "fraught enough; who wanted to ratchet things up by taking it public?" So it's a considerable feat that Silverman pinned down enough writers and worthy ones at that to assemble an absorbing, often affecting, collection of essays. Though authors like Amy Bloom, who offers a vicious post-mortem on her lesbian partner's parents in "Dead, Thank God," operate at an advantage (divorced writers also have license to savage, and the one pseudonymous writer, in an essay called "My In-Laws Made Me Do It," rips her former in-laws rightly as "not simply eccentric, but bred-in-the-bone cruel"), some of the best writing is more nuanced. Martha McPhee's wistful essay about never meeting her husband's dead parents, Matt Bai's beautifully written "Family Without Stories" and Jonathan Goldstein's hilarious account of his emotionally needy father-in-law are standouts. Tom Junod's contribution about the improbable friendship between his reckless, indulgent parents and his cheap, modest, prudent in-laws also made me laugh aloud. The book comes complete with a pair of glittery writer-couples. The Harrisons, Colin and Kathryn, deliver strong essays, each dealing with death, though in very different ways. Michael Chabon describes the loss of a father-in-law in an early divorce. And though, as Chabon's wife, Ayelet Waldman, writes in her counterpart, "Dividing the Man From His Mother," the "tug of war between a mother and daughter-in-law over a man is an age-old phenomenon, the stuff of sitcom jokes and Greek tragedy," her take is so fresh and witty one hardly notices the clichis inherent to the subject. Nonetheless, there's a formulaic diversity to therapeutic anthologies like this one a kind of something-for-everyone-ness, whatever your sociopolitical identity or emotional sore spot. We've got the lesbian daughter-in-law, the interracial couple, the clash of classes. There's the cross-cultural barrier, the political rift, the early misunderstanding since overcome. The ideal in-laws, the terminally ill in-laws, the downright crazies. Still, Silverman doesn't rely on vinegary screeds, and that makes the book especially worthwhile. Many of the relationships described are affectionate, some even loving. In-laws are, after all, our half-chosen families the source, and often reflection or amplification, of those we love. While Colin Harrison's father lies on his deathbed, Kathryn Harrison writes: "I don't know how much my father-in-law has given me in the years since I married his son. . . . Here's what I do know. I love him, unreservedly." Pamela Paul is the author, most recently, of "Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families."
As you can see from The New York Times piece above, bad mothers-in-laws are bad, whether African, Europeans or Americans are same. Mother in-law is in the trunk or boot! is an American car sticker! Folasayo, went overboard in too many instances in her article, for instance, she claimed that African mother in-laws, actually hate potential daughter in-laws before they set eyes on them! As when Folasayo states “those who even before meeting you have their gun barrels loaded!” Isn’t it, the case that there are bad husbands, bad wives, bad daughter in-laws, bad father in laws in every culture? Isn’t it equally the case that there are immature husbands in every culture? Isn’t there a universal precaution to be observed by all and sundry going into holy matrimonies or any meaningful relationships for the long haul? As a general principle, no mature man or woman should allow anyone to plow over or bulldoze their spouse verbally or physically, no mature and reasonable spouse should tolerate such idiocy, but why would anyone pretend that human foibles and sun rise are limited to Africa? And why would Folasayo and some other African women in the Diaspora pretend to want the selfish benefit of mother in-laws as babysitters, but careless about corresponding obligations of the wellbeing for mother in-law baby sitters? I take the view that no one can nurture your child better than you, not even mothers of the spouses! You must make your mistakes and learn along, as you raise your child, but heck, my mother I trust more than ten babysitters! Financial costs are not everything in childrearing! I read Folasayo’s article with consternations as the article was simply another unneeded pile-on, pile-on unto the already large and heavy heap of stereotypes that have been dumped on Africans over extended period of time, African women this time, were take severe beating from the hands of a daughter, not a husband. Folasayo’s article neglected to inform her readers that there all sorts of negative stereotypes and unedifying pejorative references to mother in-laws in America where Folasayo lives, unedifying references such as ones on car bumper stickers “My mother in-law is in the trunk” or T-Shirt proclaiming similarly offensive sentiments about mother in-laws, and so are some books and television sitcoms on the vileness of some mother in-laws. In the face of all these, why the undue hyperbole and extreme exaggerations by Folasayo, regarding the unthinking wickedness or evil of African mothers, especially the in-laws among them? Paul I. Adujie
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Posted by Robot| 16.03.2006 22:42