As Told By Ada: It Was Very Much Me Playing “Mummy”

As Told By Ada is a Culture Custodian weekly series exploring the unique and often chaotic experience of navigating life as the oldest daughter in a Nigerian household. Over the course of these mini therapy sessions, we give you a peek into the ups, downs and lingering effects of growing up “the first”.

I had a good sense of freedom when I was a kid, but I was painfully shy. I only fully started coming into myself in my teenage years. I would have friends, but I was always very self-conscious and overly aware of my existence, my body and myself — it made me withdraw a lot of the time. 

I feel like that came from issues with my own body image as opposed to issues with forming relationships, and that was heavily on my mom. In many ways, she made me feel very conscious of my body and how I looked, but at the same time, she made me feel very loved. I think she was lowkey projecting her own body image struggles onto me, even though she tried not to.

I would say my dad was a huge “mom-supporter”, so whatever my mom said was the law. My dad was definitely the chill one, but I have a great relationship with both of them — they support me, and I support them. 

I have two brothers. One is about two years older than me, and the other is four years younger than me. 

Being the only girl and a big sister, my mom made an extra effort to make me feel special. She made sure to compensate for the fact that I didn’t have any sisters by acting as both my sister and best friend.

When we were younger, my older brother and I didn’t really see eye to eye — we were definitely the kind of siblings to be fighting every day. My mom would punish us and ask us to face the walls, and it was just a lot. Our relationship only started getting better when our entire family was stuck in the house during that COVID lockdown era. Before that, when we were younger, I was really mean to my brother despite being really shy. My brother was actually quite nice, now that I look back, but we were just never on the same page. 

Now that we’re older, I’ve started to realise that my family members are actual people outside of myself and that we all have different personalities. My younger brother is like my child. I’ve loved him since he was born, and I don’t have many crazy experiences with him. There’s the occasional fighting but he’s a child and I can’t really be fighting with a child. The one place my older brother and I could see eye to eye was on my younger brother’s matter. We both loved him so much; he actually made us get closer. We’re all grown now, so we’re all really close.

I would say growing up, I was more aware of being the only girl than of being the oldest girl. A big reason why my older brother and I did not get along was that I just felt way more mature and responsible than he was. My parents directed at me a lot of the pressure that he should have carried.   He was just so playful and chill and frankly, irresponsible that there were many instances where I had to pick up the slack or cover for him. Those were the moments that made me aware of my position. 

With domestic things, as much as my mom tried to make sure that everyone pitched in, they still very clearly fell on me. I could do these things better than my brothers could, so my parents just thought they might as well ask me to do them instead of having to teach my brothers. My older brother has probably only boiled rice twice in his entire life. 

The way my family operates, the vibe isn’t really as traditional or as borderline abusive as a lot of Nigerian households can be, but there is still the Igbo-ness of it. Taking on more responsibility than my brothers wasn’t necessarily a huge, overwhelming thing, but it did make me aware of the fact that I was an eldest daughter pretty early on — mind you, I had an older sibling. 

When we had long holidays, my brothers and I lived together without our parents. It was very much me playing “mummy”. I was absolutely in charge. 

In fact, I think most of my consciousness around being the oldest daughter comes from my older brother, not even my parents. He was just so relaxed for so long. My younger brother is very centred and levelheaded so I never really had to baby him. But with my older brother, I almost always felt parentified, especially because he was always up to some shit when we were younger. I used to snitch like crazy. My mom was almost always stressed about something he had done and because I was close to my mom, it would rub off on me. 

I don’t want it to be like I’m just bashing my brother, because I love him to death, but oh my god!

Even when we’re out of the house, he’s asking me what we’re eating and what we’re doing. Till today, I have to make an effort to force him to do things himself instead of just doing them for him. 

Even around my birthday, just a few weeks ago, it was the same problem. My mom’s birthday is the day after mine, so I was in Lagos stressed about getting both myself and my mom birthday cards, while my older brother was in the same house doing nothing. I don’t want to have to plan my own birthday, but even beyond me, why didn’t he organise getting my mom cards or presents? It’s because the norm is that I arrange everything. 

In an Igbo household, the Ada is very important, yes, but so is the Di Okpa (oldest son) and I always tell my brother he really can’t claim that title without facing the responsibilities he should be carrying. 

If there ever was a situation where I refused to take on all of the responsibility that was put on me, even if the rest of my family was shocked, my mom wouldn’t be shocked. She was very aware of the pressure that was on me. I tend to put my foot down from time to time, but because I grew up in a relatively calm household with little chaos, I didn’t really have much to fight against. It was all quite calm for the most part.

I feel like my parents did their best with balancing everything and making us all feel equally loved. We’ve been asking who their favorite child is for years, and they have never slipped up and said a name. If I had to leave a message for one of my parents, it would be for my mom. She was definitely very nitpicky with how I looked and how I was “supposed” to look, which made me much too conscious of my body much too early. 

That’s the one thing I would say she shouldn’t have done. There was no need to police my clothing sizes and things like that, but I do think she did that from a place of love. I don’t think she hated me or was trying to reduce my self esteem, but those little comments parents make always leave a negative mark. 

That sense of responsibility still shows up in everything. It’s very hard for me to let people do things for me. You would think I would love to relax and let other people take the wheel, but I’ve just witnessed so much bullshit that I’m generally very hard to impress. 

I have very high expectations of people. I expect people to show up the same way I do. I think I’m still quite understanding, but because I’m so intentional with everything, I’m quick to hit someone with a paragraph. I will always let someone know if they’ve done something that upsets me. I’m very aware of my boundaries for sure. 

What I’m really trying to do these days is surrender and let things go. I think it can be a bit difficult for me to give up control (because; oldest daughter), and I’m working on it. That overt sense of responsibility can sometimes be a burden. Burden turns into worry and worry turns into anxiety and anxiety turns into a whole other thing and you just end up in a weird place with yourself. This is why I’m so big on learning to relinquish control. 

I know I want children. I don’t know how many, but I know I want a girl. I hope I don’t have any boys. Parenting is already hard enough without having to raise boys. What am I even supposed to do with them? I have such a great relationship with my mom, I want to replicate that and also see my mom be the grandmother of a little girl. I think that would be adorable.

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