You may just be the black sheep because you questioned the collective wisdom or because you did not agree with the conventional way of talking, breathing or even wearing clothes.Īs an example, as an African child, we have our Ankara clothing materials. Soon, I realized that one did not have to be a bad person or do bad things in a family of saints to be considered the black sheep. If I disagreed with my siblings, I very often found that she took their side. With my sisters, they would spend hours talking and laughing, with me, we struggled to find anything to talk about. My poor mother, the moment I became a teenager, it was like she did not know how to interact with me. I did my own things and damned everyone else. If my nose wasn’t stuck in some book, my head wrapped up in some dream so I rarely was present in my environment. I comforted him by reminding him that he had options.

Matter of fact, she gave words to the very fear that I carried in my heart ever since my daughters’ father heard it was a girl and exclaimed -Īnother girl? My father’s name has ended! Would you have preferred to have birthed a boy this time? She asked me in the same breath after learning the gender of my second child.īut I do not hate my best friend. According to my best friend - the one I have had for over twenty years, the one who is American, the America we here in Africa think is the beacon of gender equality,- yes that America, and yes - that my best friend.

My mother didn t raise a quitter