There is a not so subtle and soft tyranny in the way advice arrives at birth: packaged in lullabies, handed down at weddings, tapped onto foreheads at funerals. In Nigeria, elders are repositories of history, culture, and survival. They teach customs that keep communities intact, and they often carry scars that make their counsel sharp and sincere. Yet being raised under the constant hum of “do as we did” can produce a different inheritance: the expectation that the older generation is always right.
In this article, we try to look straight at that tension. We try to name the ways parental authority and ancestral wisdom can become cages, exploring the particular burdens carried by children who grew up through trauma, and mapping practical steps toward claiming freedom while keeping dignity and cultural memory intact… Walk with me a bit…
The Comfort and the Cage of Elders’ Wisdom… Elders are celebrated gatekeepers. In Nigeria, they are called on to settle quarrels, bless partnerships, and narrate origin stories. Proverbs travel with them like a second language. “If a child washes his hands he could eat with kings” teaches that discipline brings dignity. “It takes a village to raise a child” insists on communal responsibility. These are true and beautiful.
Wisdom can however become questionable when it becomes the only language allowed in a home. What begins as guidance hardens into decree. Choices that deviate from tradition or existing knowledge are met with worry that reads like judgment. Ambition becomes arrogance; grief becomes drama. The problem is not that elders speak; it is that they are sometimes heard as the only authority on how to live.
Parents as First Prison Guards and First Liberators… Parents are the first authorities we meet. Their voices shape our boundaries, our shame, and our sense of possibility. For many Nigerians, parental instruction is less of guidance and more along the lines of survival training and unquestionable directives: “marry well,” “respect your elders,” “don’t bring trouble to the family.” Those directives protect families in uncertain environments. They also teach children to prioritize family safety over personal truth.
When parents weaponize culture to control rather than to protect, their lessons turn coercive. Demands that erase preference or choice; of partner, career, faith, or identity. It can then feel like being spoken into the wrong life. And because parents hold economic, emotional, and social power, breaking away is not a drama-free act; it is an act of survival against the very people who taught you how to survive…
The Quiet Weights of Trauma in Childhood… Trauma leaves luggage; childhood trauma and unhealthy backgrounds is luggage you must carry before you have learned to walk. In Nigeria, trauma can be structural — poverty, displacement, political instability — and intimate — domestic violence, emotional neglect, or rigid silencing… Children absorb more than words. They absorb tones, the looks that freezes conversation (the MUM look), the withheld praise, the way anger lands on small bodies…
These are some of the common burdens: Hyper-vigilance, people-pleasing, trust deficits, shame as currency…
Trauma is not moral failure. It is a wound that organizes behavior around avoiding more pain. When adults tell survivors to “forgive and forget” without reparative safety, they repeat the same harms that they most likely also went through...
When Tradition Masks Control: There are Nigerian sayings that illuminate this problem with wry clarity: “The child who knows how to wash his hands would eat with elders”… Another common wisdom, “What an elder sees sitting down, a child would not see even if he climbs the highest mounts” exposes how public authority seeps into private lives. Tradition often sanctifies rules that were designed for different times and ages…
Examples where tradition slides into control:
Insisting on a marital choice because “we have always married our kin” while ignoring consent and opinion...
Using spiritual or cultural explanations to dismiss psychological pain…
The resulting factors are such that tradition can become an instrument of harm, not a shelter from it…
Humor as a Survival Tool
The typical Nigerian raises humor/sarcasm like seasoning... A laugh can puncture tension and expose absurdity. Humor lets survivors name cruelty without being crushed by it. It helps families talk about the elephant in the room — the uncle who “gives advice” but never asks how you are — without turning every meal into a tribunal…
A laugh does not minimize harm; it humanizes the conversation and opens space for honesty. Our wit is a pressure valve: it releases steam so that the body — the family — can breathe.
Claiming freedom from parental prescriptions is both courageous and strategic. It is possible to declare autonomy while still honoring what is good in tradition…
Name the weight: Begin by identifying what you inherited that no longer serves you. Remove those things that don’t serve your interests. Put words to rules that feel like shackles.
Set micro-boundaries: Start small. Carefully deflect or decline to discuss an intrusive topic at family meetings; keep your financial decisions private until independence…
Translate decisions into cultural language: Explain your choices (if need be) using shared values, frame education or entrepreneurship as bringing honor and resources back to the family.
Find relational allies: Seek one elder, cousin, or aunt who understands your path and can advocate for you within the family structure.
Create economic breathing room: Financial independence reduces leverage. Plan micro-savings, side hustles, or community cooperatives that align with your skills.
Seek healing outside the family if needed: Counseling, support groups, or spiritual leaders who respect your autonomy provide repair without betrayal.
Practice ritual of separation: Small ceremonies — a conversation, a letter, a family meal where you state new boundaries — can signal change without unnecessary debacle or spectacle.
Freedom from parental authority is not a rejection of legacy; it is a refinement of it. It asks: which parts of our story protect future generations, and which parts replay old hurts? A daughter who leaves a harmful marriage because they learned to value her life and dignity from family teachings is not disrespectful. She honors the deepest aim of those teachings.
Elders deserve respect, yes, BUT they do not deserve blind obedience where that obedience risks safety or sanity. Although our culture rarely balances respect and negotiation, it sometimes teaches community and communication. Our proverbs also encourage both courage and humility. A useful adaptation is: “If a child learns to wash his hands he could eat with kings, but the child must also learn to cook his own food.”
If you grew up holding the world together because the adults around you were broken, your survival skills are impressive and increasingly costly. You deserve a hug for the toughness that saved you and compassion for the ways those skills make intimate life harder now.
You are not the problem; you are just adapted to a difficult environment.
Grief and anger are valid; they are currency that should tell you what to repair.
Boundaries are overdue kindness to yourself and to the family.
Healing is not about calling out elders’ wrong; it is about making your life right.
To conclude,
The older generation is not infallible. Their wisdom should be a map, not the territory. Parents were the first ones who taught you how to live in a world that often made no space for your softness; they were also the first ones who may have made your space smaller. Freedom from them is a dignified and sometimes necessary step toward becoming whole.
Leave the village only if you must. If you can, bring some of its songs with you. Laugh at its absurdities. Keep the proverbs that nourish you. And remember that carving autonomy in a culture that values collectivity takes both courage and care…
May the hands that wash themselves find a pot to cook in, and may the pot be large enough for new stories.
Grand-Pa, Father, Son,
DUKE🕊
Is this a compliment, Lara... I fear you're losing your powers... 😌
Truer words have never been spoken🤌🏽