Breaking Family Cycles

Being the first in your lineage

Family cycles can be daunting, mostly because they are hardly ever positive. Growing up, my mother often said that family cycles are etched into the skin of every child in the family.

One common example she often gave was that of someone who got pregnant out of wedlock or someone who impregnated a woman. She would say that, most times, the daughter would experience that same reality, and the son would go on to make another woman experience it too.

At the time, I didn’t believe any of those things. I thought it was just another misogynistic African theatric. That was until I began to see these patterns unfold in real time. I would watch a distant family member move in with another relative, perhaps because they had become orphaned, and for a while, everything would seem normal. But as they grew older, things would slowly begin to go downhill.

They would develop an obsessive attachment to men who clearly did not have good intentions for them. At some point, I genuinely began to wonder if some of them were cursed, because why did they all place men at the center of their lives? What was this idolisation of emotional and sexual intimacy all about—one that was so misleading and ultimately sabotaged their future?

It never made sense to me. And I was certain it wasn’t true love. Because what kind of man who genuinely loves you would leave you with a pregnancy and just run away?

Most of the time, these people would eventually begin to voice their desire for freedom. They would say they wanted to move out and fend for themselves, and their relatives would grant them their heart’s desire by letting them go.

My parents, who took a relative in because she wanted to leave our hometown, never believed in tying anyone down. If you felt like travelling somewhere else or choosing not to further your education, they would let you be. So when M told my mum that she wanted to be independent—after bringing multiple men into our home to touch her—my mother let her go.

I didn’t feel uneasy about it at the time because I believed M genuinely wanted independence. She was relatively young, but I didn’t see that as a bad thing then. I thought she had goals and aspirations. I mean, if you grew up in abject poverty and missed opportunities because of it, wouldn’t you want something different for yourself?

M moved out of our house and started working at a restaurant. I was genuinely happy for her when I heard the news. Then tell me why my mother called me yesterday to tell me that M is pregnant!

Why? How? By whom? With whose child? Oh my God.

Apparently, she returned to the village for her father’s burial shortly after relocating, met a man there, got involved with him—and now she’s pregnant. Mind you, this girl never believed in using protection.

Girl, these men don’t care about you. I promise you!

Anyway, I felt extremely sad for her because she had, and still has, so much potential. But half the time, in situations like this, people end up reliving the same poverty that once left their parents helpless. For the women, the men who impregnate them often don’t even have solid plans for themselves. And for the men, they mostly abandon the women and leave them with their own mothers, adding extra burden to women who are already struggling to survive.

My mother later told me that the exact same thing happened to M’s parents. Again, I don’t want to believe in the idea that this type of family cycle exists, but after so many experiences, it’s hard not to.

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Aside from all that, if you come from a lineage where many people have had a particular illness (or several illnesses), there’s a high possibility that you’ll live with a quiet fear, one that eats at you unconsciously.

You begin to worry that one day you might inherit that same cycle. Maybe it’s fibroids, hormonal imbalances, diabetes, cancer—name it. The thought lingers at the back of your mind, persistently. And you do everything in your power to avoid it: changing your lifestyle, exercising regularly, taking supplements for different purposes—the list goes on.

Sadly, you might do all of this and still end up in the very pit you spent your entire life trying to avoid.

Ugh! It’s a stupid thing, honestly.

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I genuinely think some things in life are mysteries. There are many things that lie beyond our control and reasoning, yet we try to make sense of them by forming theories that cater to our observations.

Family cycles can be frustrating because, most of the time, you spend half your life trying not to relive your mother’s or grandmother’s realities, only to wake up one day and realise you’re slowly slipping into them. Sometimes it’s the result of poor decisions; other times, it’s simply life.

Like I said, I’ve never really believed in family cycles, except it’s heredity, but I’m beginning to question my stance on all of it. I’d also like to hear your thoughts. Do you think family cycles exist? If yes, do you think people try hard enough to avoid it?

But really, what is it with these babes and their drive for useless men?