The Weight of Being Raised Under Suspicion.

“Read the Bible if you’re depressed. Depression is a work of the devil.” I’ve heard this more times than I can count. I’ve watched myself, siblings, and cousins drift away. Become more distant, more angry. It is often labelled as rebellion, laziness, childishness, or boredom.

Suicidal ideation and teenage depression are more common than we like to admit.

Life has been heavy since adolescence, but adults often assume they are the only ones struggling. And even when children become adults, the same pattern continues. Many parents see their struggles as more valid and more real. As long as school fees are paid, emotional pain is often dismissed as attention seeking. After all, they had it “worse,” so your depression becomes framed as ungratefulness or disrespect.

But adolescence itself is already a difficult threshold. It is like a free trial into adulting. You are navigating social circles and hierarchies, rejection, performance pressure in school, failure, bullying, identity crisis, and the realisation that money talks and you do not have it, so you technically have no voice.

Except your parents have already formed an opinion about you. They have weaponised adolescence. You were a good kid yesterday, but they are convinced that from now on you will start smoking like your cousin in the city, sneak outside school to buy alcohol, or get pregnant. That you have no agency, and that all the good years of being raised well, being kind, responsible, and respectful, are not enough.

So they begin restricting and punishing you for something you have not done.

Little to no pocket money, so you don’t have extra to show off and be mean to other kids. So you don’t have anything left to contribute to buying drugs, alcohol and skimpy outfits that you’ll wear and sneak out of your boarding school on Fridays.

No phone on holidays. That way you don’t communicate with your classmates who are going to pimp you out to their older brothers and their friends. Because the internet is a bad place and also, what are you talking about with your friends outside school?

Shave your hair down, wear long skirts, no ear piercings, no jewellery. Make yourself small and ugly intentionally. That way you won’t attract bad men who will prey on your beauty and make other women jealous. That way you’ll know nothing but academic validation.

They never considered normal sex education, money conversations, drug awareness, or honest discussions about peer pressure. Why try, when it is easier to assume the worst and remove trust altogether? When you are not trusted to make responsible choices, even when you are capable of them.

So here we have an adolescent who struggles to keep up with her classmates during the holidays because she has no phone. She is friendless too, weighed down by never‑ending house chores. “You can go hang out with your friends when you’re done.” Or, “You cannot go hang out with your friends, who will look after your younger siblings?” Eventually, she stops asking, stops yearning for friendships, and accepts her fate. Or she tries sneaking out, only for the parent to find out and end up punishing her.

An adolescent who grows up with low self-esteem, having been exposed to “you’re ugly” jokes, being excluded, and feeling lesser than. An adolescent who is insecure about their body, afraid of dressing up even in adulthood, afraid of taking up space.

An adolescent who knows their parents are financially capable but can’t explain why they never have money; why nobody ever provides for them. An adolescent who grows up either equating love with financial provision or feeling like a burden whenever they need financial help.

In the end, you have a shell of a person. A child who is always tired, always angry, a child who no longer wants to live. Home is exhausting and school is overwhelming. A child who retreats into their mind, and when the mind no longer feels safe, giving up seems like the only way out.

And even when they survive into adulthood, they spend years undoing, unlearning, learning to trust themselves, not overexplaining themselves, or simply repeating the injustice in different forms.Some retreat. Some run. Most are trying to find a way to exist without feeling unsafe in their own lives;learning to make friends, to sustain friendships, to regulate, and to cope in healthier ways.

All of this while never quite feeling seen by the same parents. Saving enough to afford therapy. Hoping that maybe if they earn a little more, find someone to love them better, or do better by their own children, they might finally get over the injustice and the void they carry inside.

And all you can say is: “It was the parents’ first time living.” Do better.

More on the same topic.

The Most Disrespected Person in the African Home.

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Jun 18

“Let’s hear what the child thinks.” Said no African parent ever. Children are meant to be seen and not heard. They are assumed to have no opinions, no say, no real mind, no feelings … an assumption rooted not in evidence but in a long-standing cultural hierarchy that equates adulthood with authority and childhood with silence.