Falayi’s ‘Sam Goes to College’: When parents promote gender imbalance at home
By Godwin Okondo
SAM Goes to College, a novella for young adults written by Foluke Sijuwola Falayi and recommended by Junior WAEC, mirrors contemporary social reality where adults run a rat race while using their children to achieve unfulfilled personal ambitions. It exposes the pretense of parents who send their children to certain schools with the sole purpose of showing off to friends and families, not because of passion for quality education, but for materialism and to make a statement that they have arrived even when they are struggling to make ends meet.
The book also reflects society’s love for the male gender and its preference over the female gender, as the beginning of gender imbalance in society. While it may look as if the society has gotten over which gender their children should be on account of awareness campaigns being created, on a closer look, that’s just on the surface. Male child preference is still a dominant issue among couples. In real terms, educated and uninformed, men and women alike who have female children still wish they also have male offspring even though they may not give it verbal expression. There’s an unspoken desire, a yearning that gives birth to partiality when there’s a male among many female children, just as it happens in Tari’s household in Sam Goes to College.
Sam is the only male among Tari’s five children. Sam is her king and all that matters; he is surrounded by four girls, Elizabeth, the eldest child, followed by Tonye, a brilliant and outspoken girl who comes before Sam and the last girls, Seyefa and Kemelayefa. Tari, a hardworking widow, would do anything as long as her only son is happy regardless of how the other children feel. She would buy two packs of groundnut, give one to the boy and the other for her four daughters to share, not giving a thought about how they feel. But the advocacy spirit in Tonye makes her confront their mother, referring to her action as an act of ‘injustice’.
Tari prefers Sam to study all hours for his exams while the girls are engaged in various chores and stay with her in the kitchen. This is the mentality among many Africa parents, that whatever level of education or height in society a woman attains, she belongs to the kitchen, and therefore inferior to the men. It is not surprising therefore that Tari doesn’t pay attention to the focused, brilliant and determined Tonye who loves school and is determined to excel in academics with or without encouragement from her mother.
Tari, in trying to show to the world that ‘she belongs’, opts for a secondary school with high fees when it is glaring she can’t afford it with her petty trade. She goes to seek help from her brother Karibi, even if it will get him into trouble with his wife Enai.
Tari covets Paul’s school, the school the Reverend Father’s son attends. Paul is a friend of Salikhe’s finally admitted. But a man’s behaviour is just like smoke that can’t be hidden. Tari slaps a teacher on visiting day for punishing Sam, her only son. Amen College, though established for the rich, is disciplined enough to know when a parent oversteps the bounds of decent behaviour. Sam is expelled. This brings shame to the young boy, her mother, the sisters and their uncle Ekiyor, who shares same compound with them. Ekiyor and Karibi, however, overlook the behaviour of Tari and rise up to restore Sam to school, but Amen College refuses pleas. Tonye then takes up the gauntlet and begins to teach and train up her little brother, coaching him to pass an exam for another school while denying herself the enjoyment of her eldest sister’s wedding.
The inordinate quest for materialism and living above one’s means are some of the key issues Falayi addresses in Sam Goes to College. She takes a flak at parents who live by comparing themselves with others who may have higher means of income for their lifestyle. For Tari, who wants to belong by all means, it is clear she aims high above her station in life and reaps the unhealthiness such lifestyle brings. The author also argues that gender inequality starts from the home where male children are the preferred sex of children every parent wants to have. Gender balance, the author argues, should start from the home otherwise it never yield any good result.
Children and parents alike will love Falayi’s Sam Goes to College as a reading material for its life lessons. It comes recommended.
