I know the story you published on Monday is our story, yes.
You didn’t mention our names but we know it is our story and if indeed you practice true journalism, you should have contacted us for our own version of events. People who read that story will be judging us and cursing us as bad children.
They say old people don’t lie but our father did not tell you the whole truth in the story you published.
My siblings and I agreed we should contact you and tell you our own side of the story.
It is true that we sent Gladys out of the house, yes and I will tell you why.
Like daddy said, he had two wives, two wives he maltreated for years, two wives he left to cater for their children, education, feeding, clothing…name it. Our mothers were responsible for our upbringing, not our father. He was there to make the women conceive and afterwards, the wives were left to raise their children. Ask him how much he paid for our school fees or what schools we went to. He won’t be able to tell you.
So, as we grew, we decided our mothers had suffered long enough under the tyranny of this man and we decided to take our mothers to care for her, since the man who calls himself their husband, did a poor job of it!
Even to us his children that he claimed he suffered for, who did daddy suffer for? How did he suffer for us? A man who left our upkeep to our mothers? He was more interested in going to parties and having chains of girlfriends that he flaunted before our mothers. He cannot boast of having paid for one child’s school fees from primary, secondary and through university; ask him to name the child he committed himself to for that long.
I am not saying he never paid our school fees at all, I am saying, when he did, it was just for one or two terms or cumulatively, say two years of our lives, from primary, secondary and university. All of us are graduates and it was our mothers who paid the fees. Our mothers, not daddy! Quote me!
Now, why did we send Gladys out of the house?
For sometime now, daddy had been complaining we neglected him and it is funny, for a man who didn’t pay the price, I wonder how he can be complaining his kids are not doing anything for him. It is funny. To think that we pay his rent and send him monthly allowance and so in his mind, we owe him more. No, we do not!
So when his complaints became like a demand, we ignored itat first but when this corornavirus thing became something we knew had potentials to hurt us, with an aged father who has people we are not even sure of how they go about their businesses, we told him; one, this pandemic has affected all our incomes, to those abroad and those of us here. Is that not a fact?
Second off, what we send to my father should not only feed him but remain for the following month; we send him N100k monthly and we also pay his rent.
What amount of food will a man in his late 60s eat that he would finish N100k per month alone? You do the math and come to think of it, how much are we all making? We too are trying to get by; we all have families, we all have our own needs; we have our mother’s too to care for, so daddy complaining that N100k was too small was him being an ingrate because he didn’t even spend N100k on any one of us per month when we were growing up or what its equivalent was back in our growing up days!
That being said, we decided that with coronavirus affecting the elderly, we didn’t want to be summoned that our father was ill and we have to start contributing money for his care, so we said, Gladys and her children, who we know work in the market where all manner of people converge, should go away for some time. Yes. We agreed that, for our father’s sake!
And we also know he was asking for more money because of Gladys and her children. Tell me, if you grew up with a man, who neither fended for you nor was there like a father the way he is suddenly being a father to children that are not even his own and to make matters worse, he wants us to sponsor it, tell me, in all honesty, how would you feel?
Oho!
So, we decided to send Gladys packing. That’s what we did. Daddy said, henhe, we are evil children, we are this, we are that, no, quite the contrary, we are taking care of him more than he took care of us and that’s the truth; we are taking care of our children now, so we don’t end up like our dad. We will continue to send him his allowance, not a penny more!
Please when people tell you stories like this to whip up sentiments, please, find the other side of the story, that story daddy told is not a true reflection of what happened! Thank you
(Series written and edited by Peju Akande and based on true stories)