Unlearning

A running list of things to unlearn as a Nigerian adult with sense.

Photo by Hayley Catherine on Unsplash

As one gets older, it is necessary to be introspective and, in the process, unlearn certain things that might have been ingrained as a result of societal norms. It is important to note that the process of unlearning does not start or end at a particular age, some people are lucky enough to have picked up the art of unlearning at an earlier age. For me, unlearning started in my late teenage years when I realized adults were flawed human beings that did not know everything. Although at the time, I could not call them out for being wrong, I chose to start the work on myself and hoped that they would one day be enlightened to start their own process of unlearning. After compiling my list with points from loved ones, here are some things to consider unlearning as a Nigerian adult with sense.

• If you do not have a job lined up right after you graduate, you are not a failure.
• If you do not conform to conventional ideas of employment or education but instead want to be entrepreneurial, you are not lost — you have the right to forge your own path.
• If you realize after secondary school that college/university might not be for you, you are not a failure.
• If you are not bending or breaking to do everything your parents want, you are not a difficult or wayward child.
• If as a woman, you are not interested in stereotypical feminine things, nothing is wrong with you.
• Similarly, if as a man, you are not interested in stereotypical masculine things, nothing is wrong with you.
• If you do not conform to gender norms, you are not weird — you are a trail blazer.
• If you do not aspire to marriage and childbearing, your priorities are not messed up — you are being intentional about decisions in your life and not just ticking things off a long list of expectations from our society.
• If you are not married after your first degree, you are not a failure. Heck if you never want to get married or have children, you are not a failure and it is nobody’s business.
• If you ever questioned certain Nigerian family dynamics or marriages and saw them as problematic, you were right to question them. Those situations contributed to the slow erosion of mental health for a lot of young adults today.
• If you believe in standing up to an older person who tries to force their opinion on you, you do not lack home training.
• If you think the Nigerian way of “disciplining” is horrible and at the very least questionable, you are not crazy.
• If you ever questioned part or all of religion, you are not a heathen.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” — Albert Einstein

• If you struggled with referring to a person in a position of authority by their first name when you got your first job, you are not alone. It took me a while to call my first manager by her name instead of always appending it with a Prefix like Ms.

Side note: In Nigeria, we are obsessed with titles so every adult must be addressed with their professional, traditional, or social title — at the very least, every adult must be called an Aunty or Uncle lest you are met with scrutiny.

• If you ever questioned how people talked to their service workers or people in lower social classes, you are not alone — it is outrightly wrong. Classism in the Nigerian society is a disease.
• If you ever rejected catcalling as a compliment, you were way ahead of your time and right in every sense to have despised it. It is not only demeaning but encourages situations that can lead to physical and sexual abuse.
• If you ever saw an adult do something completely questionable but due to years of repression held your opinion, and it turned out you were right, it was not your fault and recognize that even then you had more sense than the so-called adult.

Finally, as you get older, if you begin to question or condemn things you used to blindly support, you are not a hypocrite instead see it as a sign of growth. We should be worried about the people in our lives who have refused to grow or evolve — they are the real danger.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, please check out some of my previously published stories.

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