Not like those of their children who later got caught up in the entangled web of industrialisation. Adah’s Ma… — Buchi Emecheta
Not like those of their children who later got caught up in the entangled web of industrialisation. Adah’s Ma had no experience of having to keep up mortgage payments: she never knew what it was to have a family car, or worry about its innards; she had no worries about pollution, the population explosion or race. Was it surprising, therefore, that she was happy, being unaware of the so-called joys of civilisation and all its pitfalls?”
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(Chapter 1, Page 15)
Then the thought suddenly struck her. Yes, she would go to school.
One might think on this evidence that Africans treated their children badly. But to Adah’s people and to Adah herself, this was not so at all; it was the custom. Children, especially girls, were taught to be very useful very early in life, and this had its advantages. For instance, Adah learned very early to be responsible for herself. Nobody was interested in her for her own sake, only in the money she would fetch, and the housework she could do and Adah, happy at being given this opportunity of survival, did not waste time thinking about its rights or wrongs. She had to survive.”
