Being raised as an heir, not a child.
In Nigeria today, people hear that your parents are well to do and instantly, their perception of you changes. You start hearing things like “big man pikin”, “what do you know about struggling”, “you can afford it now, isn’t your father rich?” the reality is vastly different.
There’s a certain level of wisdom that comes with success or commanding resources, especially as a parent and more particularly where it pertains to raising your children in this reality, I for one can’t count just how many times my father cited the children of MKO Abiola as examples for me while growing up, using phrases like “look at his children now, their father was a titan, and his children are more or less invisible”, and at a certain age, you start to understand where that “Fear” stems from for them. I’ve been fortunate to be alive while my parents were struggling, and while they’re wealthy, the wealthy have a certain fear of lack and want to put things in place to ensure that never is the case again (businesses, trusts and so forth) that is where the fear is born from, they raise children with it and push them to find their niche in life quite early on to ensure they do not become freeloaders or lack. And again, the children of the wealthy are said to have the highest probability of being lax or not having drive for life all because “My father is rich”. Growing up in that kind of environment, you start to see that being the typical “rich man’s kid” isn’t all glitz and glamour.
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Another thing is as it pertains to the phantom excess finances that people on the outside looking in think you possess, simply because your parents are well off. I was raised in a household that doesn’t just give you “free money”, you either exchange something of value for said money or come up with a viable business idea that requires investment, not “daddy I need money” and instantly you see a credit alert. There have been many times where i LEGITIMATELY had less than 1,000 naira across all my bank accounts and I can’t ask my parents for money, simply because of their saying “if I give you everything now, you’ll forever be tied to me and you’ll lose your grip on life”. I have wished that my father was like one of these wealthy people who just released money at will to their kids, in fact many times while I was struggling, but as you grow you start to move away from those feelings of frustration and anger, into more of understanding. Like my parents would say, “There is wealth that you can’t imagine available to you, only if you prove that you can handle it”.
Being raised as a first child, at least in Nigeria, there is a certain expectation of you as it regards finances, you’re expected to follow your father’s footsteps and start having wealth at a young age, I’ll argue that while that may be true for some, it’s not the case for all. If I were to count how many times I’ve heard the statement “you’re not a child anymore” while I was in fact STILL A CHILD, I’d be counting for an appalling amount of time. Thing about being one with wealthy parents, you’re forced to grow up a lot quicker than your peers and oftentimes faster than you’d like to. I can remember now just how regimented television time was while growing up, or how many party invites I had to regretfully decline because I had to follow my dad to work, or how many strokes of cane I had to take because I did bad or was unserious at school. And this is not me complaining about how I was raised, after-all, some people might read this and say “oh but you were living in luxury while all this was going on”, while that is true, I’m only stating the aspects of growing up as a child that I wasn’t allowed access to because of said fear mentioned earlier.
Basically, I’m saying from the outside looking in, it can be easy to make assumptions about someone’s life based off of the situations surrounding them, this is just an exposé on what it actually is to have parents that are well off.
