My mother was raped at nineteen, and I was the child that came out of that encounter. I was too young to remember the aftermath of my birth, but my mother told me that my father’s family and my mother’s family decided to settle things internally, and my father just gave a simple apology and promised to take care of me. He was twenty-three when I was born. When I was about five, my mum left the village with me and we landed in Kumasi for a while before finally settling in Accra. She has been the most hardworking woman I have ever seen. She used to sell anything to make sure we had food on our table. She could have easily enrolled me in a government school to lessen the cost, but she was determined to make sure I went to a private school. Life was tough back then and I have been so grateful to my mum for all the sacrifices she made to ensure I become someone in the future.
It’s a very long story, but in short, my mother’s hard work payed off. We are not very rich today, but we are far better than we were years ago. I am now an accountant, twenty-seven years of age. But I still feel like a teenager. My mother controls every decision I take. After I got the job three years ago, I wanted to move out of where we were staying because I wanted to rent a house and be independent for the first time in my life, but my mother said I was abandoning her after finishing school and getting a job. She said I was leaving her after all the sacrifices she had made to take me through school. She would murmur the whole day about how she could have left me in the village for my irresponsible father to take care of me, or how she could have focused on having fun and falling in love again. So due to this I have felt very guilty and I still stay with her in the chamber and hall self-contain we are renting.
My mother won’t give me any breathing space. Her overprotectiveness has greatly affected my social life. When I go out and come home a little after 9pm, she will complain that I am falling into bad company and I should remember where I am coming from. Meanwhile, I am not even the party type. Sometimes it’s just a few colleagues from work having a small party to destress after a long week. My friends even tease me that my mother acts like a jealous girlfriend. At work, she would call me to just say she is checking up on me. She would cook and pack it for me when I am going to work and when I tell her there’s no need for all of that, she will become very defensive and cry that she is just being a good mother and I am so ungrateful.
Over the years, I have tried to be in relationships, but my mother has always pushed the women away one way or the other. With one of them, she told her very harshly that she was dressed like a marine spirit and she was certain the lady was one. Meanwhile, she was just the stylish type. She wasn’t even wearing anything revealing. She was in a skirt suit, and the skirt was a bit tight as the official ladies wear at work. She was just from work and I wasn’t well so she passed by my home to check up on me and my mum insulted her. This was a woman I was genuinely getting to love. I knew she felt same, until my mother destroyed my chances with her. There have been some other instances like that. My mother is still young, she can also live her life and find love but she has refused to, and every time she blames me for it in indirect ways.
So with my recent relationship, we have been going steady for seven months, and wanted to inform my mum about it before the lady comes to visit in the future. I didn’t want any problems. When I told my mother I was in a serious relationship and I didn’t want any problems, she said my girlfriend will take me away from her. I told her she was my mother and there was no way anyone can take her place. She said I am still young and I should concentrate on my work for now so I can build a house for the two of us in the future. I find her clinginess disturbing. I will be 28 years in October and she won’t let me be an adult for once in my life. She won’t let me wash my clothes or even learn to cook. I feel bad that I can’t do all of these things. Yet anytime I point these out to her, she calls me ungrateful and cries on me. I don’t know what to do anymore.