Hello Africa,
Did you see last week’s Letter to Jil titled “Baby Mama”? Today, Uncle Leke continues to explain to Jilette the grave consequences of having a child at a young age and out of wedlock. He goes further to explain the practical steps she can take to put her life and vision back on track. It is not the end of the world, you know. Read on….
1. Dear Jil, thank you for delivering last week's letter to Jilette. Well, I'm Oliver Twist now. Can you deliver this too? #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
2. "Dear Jilette, I'm going to be lying to you to tell you it's going to be easy and everything's just going to be okay. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
3. That's a big lie. It's not going to be easy. I'm not going to feed you false palliatives. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
4. Having a child at such a young age and out of wedlock has consequences. You're 19+ #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
5. Things are never going to be the same again, even with your friends. I want you to come to terms with that. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
6. You were a young girl. Now you're a young mother. The age of innocence is over. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
7. I do empathise with your situation. But sympathy is not what you need. Not going to do you much good. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
8. What you need is to become strong, adapt to the realities and get your life back on track. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
9. You MUST complete your education, or you're going to end up with two strikes against you. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
10. Being a young dropout single mother limits your career prospects, restrains your possibilities. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
11. You've got to complete your education. You can't afford to be half educated. There's no half certificate. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
12. Now, how you'll make that possible depends on what you're made of, how determined you are. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
13. I wouldn't be writing you by the way if I didn't think you weren't made of sterner stuff. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
14. It's going to take significant effort but it's going to be worth it. That will become obvious soon enough. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
15. Don't allow time lapse. It becomes less compelling and more difficult as the years go by. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
16. Your Dad is quite disappointed I can see. Men don't really know how to relate to these things. It's difficult. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
17. Your Dad is coping with shame and disappointment. There are all sorts of emotions coursing through him: #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
18. Anger, frustration, disappointment, pain, fear, love, outrage, infuriation, impotence, botheration… #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
19. He's asking himself where he went wrong. Raising up girls can be terrifying for men. It's on account of incidences like this. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
20. There's hardly a father who's not prayerful at heart about his girl. Some back up prayers with Rottweiler’s. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
21. The more they love their daughter the more fervent the heart prayer. That's why disappointments are devastating. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
22. One father threw out his daughter in anger. She slept at the bus-stop that first night. So powerful are these emotions. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
23. She never recovered. She's not been home since. The offspring is a teenager now. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
24. I know it's the tradition to quickly arrange a marriage in this kind of circumstance. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
25. Families resort to such solutions in a vain attempt to cover up a bulging stomach or confer legitimacy on the offspring. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
26. It's almost like "regularisation" of the pregnancy or status. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
27. And sometimes it's punitive: you impregnated her, well marry her! #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
28. Sometimes it's a transfer of anger: since you want to be a father then take on the responsibility of a wife! #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
29. But these marriages are mechanistic sociological contrivances. Only compounds issues. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
30. Coerced arrangements are foundations for grudge marriages. And marriage requires maturity. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
31. The ability to impregnate is no proof of manhood or maturity; it's just proof of virility. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
32. It would have been a different thing if marriage was already on the table before the incidence. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
33. But trying to amend a mistake with yet another mistake is in my opinion not the way to go. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
34. To bind two young lives with legal fetters of iron around a totem of error is an error. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
35. You can't cement over a child or pregnancy just to cover shame. The cracks will appear down the line. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
36. Despite such cover attempts through hastened matrimony society still calculates and subtracts. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
37. They calculate date of delivery relative to date of marriage. They use arithmetics of gestation for gravid calculus. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
38. It's the mathematics of hypocrisy at which every buttinsky is adept. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
39. "Didn't she get married just last October?" It's a rhetorical question. Comes stuffed with righteous pretentiousness. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
40. "Oh, may be the baby is premature!" comes the conspiratorial self reply, a smile dancing mischievously inside the cheeks. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
41. Of course she doesn't believe the baby was born premature. She's just being gracious with condemnation. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
42. And a few mean people will stylishly make the point to your face, and in front of others. I'm sure you've experienced that. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
43. I'm sorry but that's one of the things you'll have to endure. Life is not pretty. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
44. Some people perversely relish misogynic pain. The German word is schandenfreude. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
45. The English word is epicaricacy. It's from three Ancient Greek words: epi- upon, kharis- joy and kakos – evil. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
46. The word is also used for grieving at the fortune of others. That lesson awaits you down the line. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
47. I'm just saying marriage is not your priority right now. Your priority is putting your life and vision back on track. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
48. As for your parents you have to come to terms with their disappointment, just as they need to come to terms with reality. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
49. Your mom being a mother will understand better than your dad. Go to her and apologise for disappointing her. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
50. You need the support of your family to accomplish this feat. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
51. You'll need to approach your dad in private and with respect. Apologise for bringing him grief. Tell him you didn't mean to. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
52. You need his moral strength to face the world. And when a father backs his daughter, O my! #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
53. The consequences are not going to go away though. Society never forgives. You have to live with that. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
54. And you can't take it out on the child. He's innocent- just a biological consequence of adolescent amorous ardour. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
55. You have to find your joy in your son, to love him. And God has ways of turning things around. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
56. Irrespective of man's judgment God turns things around. He specialised in redemption remember. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
57. He parts hither thither the red sea of man's condemnatory voyeurism- the scarlet sea of your objurgation and excoriation. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
58. Stretching out his rod of authority he creates a way through the pool of the watery turbulence of your tears. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
59. He congeals the sea floor, transporting you on the mule of faith. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
60. The naysayers will stand on either side in exclamatory wonderment at the courage of our wonderful heroine- the very you! #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
61. Don't be afraid. The waves will not crash upon you. They are held in abatement by the benevolence of the God of a 2nd chance. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
62. There is a land of promise on the other side of the lachrymal deluvian divide. Start walking in that direction. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
63. Walk in the direction of the promise of your life. Breed determination. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
64. The vision is only delayed by a kemspeckle intercalation of jettatura. Luscition cannot see your glorious future.* #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
65. I am waxing prophetically lyrical this morning at the potential of your life, the testimonial that is to come. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
66. You're still that young woman I believe in, that I'll always believe in. #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
67. I remain your loving Uncle LA." #Letr2Jil ©Leke Alder. talk2me@lekealder.com
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
68. *[Kemspeckle- conspicuous; intercalation- insertion; jettatura- bad luck; luscition- poor vision] #Letr2Jil
— Leke Alder (@LekeAlder) October 19, 2013
Uncle Leke and his high-sounding English words… Anyway, hope you learnt something. If you know anyone who is going through this situation right now, don’t hesitate to share.
Enjoy your weekend.
