PERSONAL CHILDHOOD WEB

"Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression."
                                                                                                  Dr. Haim Ginott.
My childhood was fun, filled with passion, memorable, peaceful and full of love. Thanks to my father, mother, grand mother and my two loving sisters.
My father represents the ideal father, firm yet caring, highly principled but sincerely compassionate, always busy as a police officer but he will always have time for us a family. We are the centre of his life as he will always say and we are so important to him. My father developed in me the strong personality, the resoluteness and commitment that make for success in life. I can still hear the voice of my father as he told me about 30 years ago that " what limit men and women in life is not the circumstances of their births or color of their skins, men and women are limited by the size of their hope and scope of their vision." Dad gave me hope, dad made me dream, dad gave me vision of a better tomorrow.
My mother is my jewel of inestimable value. She is a strong woman, hard working and industrious. Though I was not as close to my mum as with my dad, I took a lot from her, her life dispositions gave me the needed foundations for motherhood. We lived in an environment then where women don't work, they are full time housewives, my mother was different, she combined full time work with her role both as a mother and wife, and she made a great success of it. She is a kind of enigma, a trail blazer. Mother made me to value hard work, she made me to be self-independent. I developed the 'I can do spirit' through her.
Because mother was working, I spent most days of my childhood with grand mother. Grand ma always makes me feel special, loved and unique. I developed self confidence and pride in myself because grand ma showed me I am greatly valued. I still remember her home baked cake and what we called jollof rice-- so so yummy because she delicately prepared them for me. Every night grand ma would tell me a story- stories that made you laugh, stories that got you thinking and asking probing questions, I am sure I developed my knack for knowledge  and inquiry mind that time. Those stories shaped me kind of as there is always a moral lesson in them.
And yes my sisters. They were so wonderful, full of life, fun to be with. Because I am their big sister, they depended on me for many things then. In view of the responsibility this placed on me, I developed some attributes which are helping me in my career now: Attributes such as being compassionate, being willing and ready to help, having a listening ear and most especially the skill of story telling since I have to tell them stories every night. Even when I have to retell some of the stories, I have to make those stories fresh by adding new information and ideas.