The JOYS of Motherhood

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. Buchi Emechta does a great job of describing both the joys and hardships of motherhood, especially for Nigerian women in particular. By the end of the novel,
I felt horrible for Nnu Ego and her husband, Nnaife. The end of the novel was very ironic. In their culture nothing was held at a higher standard than becoming a mother, and it was an even higher honor if those children were sons. The importance of children can be demonstrated in the novel when Nnu Ego's first husband is glad she is leaving. He says, "Let her go," he consoled himself, "she is as barren as a desert" (39). A wife was not worth much if she did not have children to carry the family name on. After Nnu Ego leaves and marries Nnaife she does become pregnant and throughout the novel nine children with seven that survive. However, even with all these children, she does not feel honorable most of the time, and ironically, her husband does not feel lucky at all by the end of the novel. The children have not been a blessing, they have broken him and he feels that they will kill him before he is ready. It is interesting to think if it would have been drastically different had the family moved back to Ibuza, where things were much simplier. Nnaife was a "modern" man when compared to the men of Ibuza, but when his family matured, he retreated back to his traditional Ibuza values. I feel that this was the beginning of his downfall. He had worked so hard his entire life, and had pressured his oldest son Oshia to be the best man that he could be, yet by the end of the novel he was blaming Oshia for killing him and not taking care of him. The son, though, felt that the best way he could take care of his parents was by studying hard and going to school so that the could eventually make all the money in the world. He had developed this idea from both his parents, yet he was scolded for it when acting that way himself. Both he and Nnu Ego had raised these children in a modern, urban like setting. The children had not been exposed to the traditional values of Ibuza, which both their parents held inside them. When the children matured and got older it seemed like they disappointed their parents more often than not. This was because they did not understand the importance of taking care of your parents in old age, and marrying within your tribe; they did not understand the importance of traditional Ibuza values that their parents had because they had not been broughout up that way for most of their life. Nnanife thoughts about his matured children are expressed when the novel states, "Why, he had thought the woman's children were a blessing to him. Now he was beginning to see that they were a curse" (25). It would be interesting to see how much joy the children would have brought had they been raised with the traditional Ibuza values.