Served Separately, Raised Together

Growing up, my mom did everything she could to make sure our family stayed connected. My dad on the other hand, well, he had different priorities. On evenings when the only light shining on us came from the moon and the air was cold, my siblings and I would sit down together outside our compound and listen to my mom tell stories. She had great storytelling skills. I don’t know how she did it, but she knew how to make children engrossed in her stories. Since our childhood days, my mom has always been constantly looking for ways to build a sense of unity among us. Another thing she did was to make sure we prayed together every morning. Our family was close to being perfect. We did everything as a family. Well, everything except for one thing: family meals.

A family that eats and prays together stays together. My mom liked the idea of her children eating together from the same plate. She not only liked it, but she wanted it for her children. It was how she was raised. Her mom, my grandmother, raised 10 children and during their childhood days, they ate meals together from the same plate. They drank water from the same cup. Imagine 10 people eating from the same big plate. My mom often told us how they ate. They had really big plates that could contain food for so many people and that was what they always used. My mom wanted this for her children. Unlike her mother who gave birth to 10 kids, she had just 4. That wouldn’t be a lot to handle, right?

Well, things didn’t turn out the way she wanted them to and that was because my dad wanted things differently. My dad didn’t like the idea of the family eating together. He was a little picky when it came to certain dishes. For example, my mom and my siblings prefer adding locust beans to stew and soups, but my dad didn’t like that. So, we would prepare his food separately. My dad decided that we should eat our meals on different plates. My mom started serving us on different plates and soon enough, we got used to it. Now, I don’t feel comfortable eating on the same plate with my friends. Well, it depends on how close and comfortable I am with the person. But if I were to choose eating alone or eating with friends, I would gleefully go with the former.

Many times, I watch movies and hear stories from friends about how they take family meals seriously, and honestly, I would love it to have been different in my family.

As I mentioned above, eating together is not something we do in my family. I don’t even remember the last time we sat down to eat together. Coincidentally, we sometimes find ourselves eating at the same time but not from the same place. How it works in my family is that whenever the food is ready, my mom serves everyone and if you are not ready to eat, you go serve yourself whenever you feel like eating.

Well, as much as I would have loved for things to work differently, it is a little late to wish for that now. My siblings are married and no longer live with us. So it would be difficult to have a family meal together. However, I hope that when I have my own family, I try as much as I can to make things work differently.

Thumbnail is mine.

Thanks for reading.