Growing Up In A Polygamous Family : My True Life Story

The story you're about to read was not written so you can pity me but I just felt like sharing it.

My name is Ewuoso Olusesi and I am a black handsome young Yoruba boy. Lol. Here is my story.

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My growing up was not all the fairy tales kinda growing up that most of y'all experienced, where you have a one happy family that consist of a father, a mother and God knows how many children. Mine was kind of different I grew up in a polygamous family where we had a father, two wives and of course plenty children in my case we were 10. I'll try to tell the story as much as I remember it and I might be missing out some main characters in this story like my blood brothers and sister that is children that were made by my dad and mum. The reason is that this is my story and not theirs so when they want to write their stories, they are free to leave me out too. So let's do this.

I remember I was living peacefully with my mum with my younger brother. My dad was not living with us then. He comes home once in a while. Well I thought it was the nature of his job that made him leave outside. He comes once in a while. This particular day my dad came home and he was like he wanted to take me to go live with him. Well I was happy I wanted to change environment and I've heard about the place he stays and it sounded more like a city though the place I was staying was not a village but im sure his place was better. I cannot remember my exact age then, but I remember I just concluded my nursery school.

I was very happy, not sure I slept that night. The next morning I followed him. Little did I know that I might have made a very big mistake by following him. It was when I got there that things started getting clear to me I met other people who were later discovered that they were my brothers and sisters. I met and the older woman who of course was my step mother. I was a small boy then, so I did not know what hatred felt like. At first when I got there, they seemed nice to me little did I know that all were just fake. My dad enrolled me in a school in ABEOKUTA where he lived. My first regret was that the school did not allow me proceed to Primary school instead they asked me to repeat Nursery two. At first I thought I was not brilliant enough that I realised that it was the policy of the school. Well that apart.

Months passed by and I noticed something unusual in the house I noticed that a guy and a lady together with me always feel very different from the rest of the family. I did not know why this was but as usual I later found out that the woman of the house was the mother to the other children while the guy and the lady are my siblings from my mum. It was here that things started getting clear to me.

I want to try as much as possible not to bore you with my story so I might be jumping to the pains in this story which are things that I passed through living in that house.

While growing up with my mum I felt that motherly love sometimes when going to school she baths me, clothes me, prepared food for me to take to school and all but it was different when I go into that house. The woman there didn't bother about me why should she bother she's not my mother and she has her own children to take care of so I started missing that one thing in my life motherly love. There was nobody to console me when I was crying, nobody to go meet if I needed to eat biscuit, nobody to bother If I was beaten by mosquitoes or not.

I sure some of you will be like what about my father. Well my father stays out mostly, comes back in the evening so he does not have time and sort from they, I figured he liked the other part more. Maybe it is because my mum is the second wife, I don't know but it was obvious he cared less. The only thing he cared about was my education. Talking bouh buying gifts for me and all was a dream that will never come through.

I know what they called toys not because my dad bought them for me but because I was taught in school.

Talking bouh house chores damn I suffered. Though I was not the one cooking but I wash plates that everybody uses to eat in the house. I can't go to school if I don't wash the plates. It was supposed to be a roster kind of thing but believe me my name appeared every time on the invisible roster.

When I ask things from my dad, he doesn't always have but when my step brothers or sisters ask he always gives. I really suffered in that house. I couldn't near the television. I don't get to decide what I want to watch. I cannot even sit in their midst while they watch their movies. I'll go sit gently at the dinning table and watch from afar.

All these pains were much. It was not only the fact that I do a lot of house chores but because I was being treated like a maid in my father's house just because my mum is not there.

During holidays I do go to my mum's place and never felt like going back to my dad's place but my was always telling me that it was almost over but it felt like it was never going to be over. I don't get to choose the type of food I want to eat, I don't get to ask for more if I was not satisfied. I don't know if you will feel these things cos it did not happen to you but my brothers and sisters, it was hell on earth.

The king of the sufferings I went through was when my dad started a pig farm in the compound.

......to be continued