Before Us

Every generation inherits something....

My brother and I were in junior secondary school when we decided we did not want to become our parents. Not for the reason that just came to your mind.

We were concerned about what we believed were spiritual strongholds in our family, particularly as they related to achievement. We were convinced there were patterns that kept people from becoming everything they could be. I was deeply spiritual then. You can blame that on being a pastor’s daughter.

One day, we sat our parents down for a conversation. It was not unusual. We had regular bonding sessions where everyone aired grievances, asked questions and had honest conversations. That day, we asked about everything we could think of. Education. Property. Relationships. Money. The questions felt bold then, almost audacious, but our parents answered them anyway.

Looking back, I think we uncovered something neither of us fully understood at the time.

For years, I knew my dad wanted me to become a nurse. I also knew he desperately wanted me to earn a PhD. Like most children, I assumed it was simply one of those parental wishes that appeared out of nowhere and somehow became your burden to carry.

Years later, I realised it was much more than that. He believed those achievements would open doors that had remained shut for too long. What I had interpreted as pressure was in fact disguised as something else.

The older I get, the more I understand that many of the things parents insist on are rarely random. They are often rooted in their own experiences, disappointments, fears and aspirations.

While I carried that realisation, my brother carried a different one. Eventually, life happened. Those conversations faded into the background and joined the growing pile of memories we store away and rarely revisit.

Years later, that conversation returned to me while I was reading ‘Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?’ by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn.

I realised how easily expectations become inheritances.

The things we grow up hearing become the things we believe. The things our parents worry about become the things we worry about. Sometimes we question them. Sometimes we do not. Sometimes we carry them for so long that we forget they were never ours to begin with.

Patterns are funny that way. And strange.

They rarely announce themselves. They live quietly beneath the surface until something forces you to pay attention. A conversation. A book. A life event. A moment when you find yourself repeating something you once swore you would never become.

I used to listen to Sasha Alex Sloan’s Older all the time. I loved the song, but I do not think I truly understood it until my mum said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“They’re first-time parents too. They need grace.”

In a single sentence, she shifted my understanding of adulthood. My parents were not simply shaping me. Life was shaping them too.

Growing up, it is easy to view your parents as fully formed people who should have all the answers. It takes adulthood to realise they were figuring things out as they went along.

My mum often talks about her own mother. The comparison alone is enough to make me grateful that my grandmother was not my mother. She was a wonderful woman, but she would not have been my kind of wonderful.

That realisation taught me something important.

Every generation inherits something.

Some inherit dreams.

Some inherit fears.

Some inherit expectations.

Some inherit wounds.

What matters is deciding what to keep, what to change and what to leave behind.

As children, my brother and I thought we were identifying and studying patterns.

As adults, we are finally learning the people behind them and the stories that created them.