Mothers are the greatest gift on the planet and we definitely wouldn’t exist without them! I love my mum to death and I got to spend the whole day with her today appreciating her. I then thought about how each person had a different experience growing up and then thought, why are African mums so extra? I thought back to all the things my mum and even other African mums say or do and thought this would apply to a lot of people and if not, It’d be interesting to learn so here is a list of things African mums do and say:

  1. You might be in the middle of something important, you might be upstairs, outside, a mile away but if they yell your name you better be there 1.5 seconds later ….and yes all they need is the remote thats 5cm away from them.
  2. You’ll send them a screenshot of an acceptance letter or a scholarship 5 seconds later they’ll call you back, “Now what is this I see?”…it’s a scholarship award mum…” EEEEH you are your mothers daughter! I knew you would make it I prayed for you” Ten minutes later all her friends and neighbors know, even the relatives back home!
  3. May God help you if you say you don’t want to go to Church.
  4. Now if you want to die try saying you don’t want to go to school, you may have Malaria, Kwashiorkor, fever you’ll be dying but you will still go to school!
  5. They’ll buy you something new and you’ll appreciate it then 5 minutes later…” Now that camera I just bought you go drop it eeeh, leave it outside so someone can steal it, in fact parade it to everyone and show the whole world you have expensive things, show them who you are but if you come back here crying don’t say I didn’t tell you.”  They could have just told you to be careful but nooooo…
  6. You’ll hand them your phone excited to show them something they’ll grab it and first judge the photo, then start scrawling through all the other photos…. finds a photo of you with a boy….”Aaah I see! so I sent you to school to run around with boys God forbid you come back here pregnant!” …. Yep I should have just kept it to myself.
  7. They always have an Android.
  8. They’ll rush you but they’ll still be the last ones to be ready and they’ll still blame you when you get late.
  9. ” So you said you want to be a musician…Aaah interesting so you want to be a musician in this house?” …. Please start packing your bags.
  10. Let’s see how many seconds you’ll last after you say you have boyfriend.

Haha yep! I just exposed most African mums but I do still love and appreciate my mum and I’ve found that most of the things she did were for my own good. So Happy mother’s day to my mum and all the other mothers out there!

Thanks for tuning in! 

Faith Jassam x.