Family banter

in The Ink Well7 hours ago

Its so crazy how couples could hold a full conversation with themselves just with their eyes.
Let's say, a visitor came by to visit and after the welcome hug. Just by looking at the wife the husband can communicate to the wife that she should go bring the bottle of wine in the fridge.

Experiences like this were very dominant in my family. Either for warning or for assignments, but we all do get the signal when it comes.

My siblings and i once made a mistake. An honest mistakewhich took a wrong turn and my Father gave us a look that we all understood immediately.

That particular morning, we were still in primary school. We always woke up by 5am to prepare for school.
The order was after brushing and taking our bath, we head to the sitting room for morning prayers.

We woke up from sleep and we all passed my Dad without greeting him. He waited for a while to see if any of us would correct ourselves, but no one did.

My two brothers and i were seated outside, we showered in turns.

My Dad came out from the house and looked at the three of us one more time and nothing still happened.
"Onward," he called. "Bia ebea". Tranlated "come here."

My elder brother followed him patiently to the sitting room. I didnt know that at first until it got to my turn.
After few seconds, he came out.

I was the real observant one, so i suspected something strange had occured. My brother was real strong so he covered it very well.

That morning i got the signal of what we did wrong from my immediate elder brother. He wasnt as tough as the first boy.

We never for once skipped greeting my father after that morning.

My parents were very chill.
But my Dad had a strict personality, but now we all see that it's not him being strict, its just how he is.

You know that thing we African children do. When you are seeing an action movie in the sitting room and your Dad comes into the sitting room, you all get up and leave.

He didnt chase you away but we just knew he was going to put on the news and we never enjoyed the news.

Finally, my mum gave birth to a girl and it was obvious she was my Dads favorite.
You know parents always want to assure their children that they see all of them equally but we all know that's not true.

I never even saw my Dads soft side until my sister was born.

Then we used to ask her to help us beg our Dad for things because we knew he would listen to her easily.

My Dad caught the signal and one morning during our devotion, he decided to address the matter.

He started with the fact that we always left the sitting room whenever he entered.
There and then he made it compulsory to watch the news it the house.

So what my brothers and i did was when he came into the sitting room. We would change the channel to the news. We would sit for like thirty minutes, then one after the other we would start leaving so not to make it obvious.

Finally my Dad gave up on that.

On the other matter, always asking my sister to go ask my for stuff.
Well, we also found a way around that.

We asked our sister to accompany us while she still does the asking. We just want what we want we didn’t really care who did the asking as far as we go the stuff we wanted.

It's so funny how my mum really didnt meddle in the banter between our Dad and us. She just kept a neutral ground.

Thanks for stopping by🥰🥰

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An interesting and relatable story. Such significance holds in most homes here though growing up, it seems it is scrutinization if we were scold when we did something wrong.

And for the ones who where treated prefrecially who we lobby to as link to get something done in our favor like the female.

What I would not forget is the News either, the boring program that will make us doze up watching it. Thanks for expressing such concept. Greetings.