Before we got married, and even after we married but before we started having children, my mother-in-law and I were very close. We had a good relationship. Sometimes, when she needed money to add to her stock, I would loan her some, and she would pay me back later.

Every Sunday, after church, we travelled to my in-laws’ house to eat together as a family. She would even give me some soup to take home.

When our first child was born, we named him Nunana, which means Gift in the Ewe language. My mother-in-law was angry. She wanted us to name him after her husband. According to her, Fantis name their children after their parents, but personally, I don’t like naming children after other people.

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I want my children to have their own identities. I wouldn’t want my children’s destinies tied to hers or anyone else’s. When a child starts showing certain traits, people will say, “You are behaving like the person you were named after.”

Besides, we had already named him and obtained his birth certificate, so there was nothing she could do about it.

I returned from my mother’s place, where I gave birth, and made it a point to start interacting with my child in Ewe. We lived in Takoradi, where almost everyone spoke Fanti and Twi, and I didn’t want my own child to lose my dialect. I didn’t want us to travel to my hometown only for my people to question my parenting style. You know how children behave. Sometimes, when you are in public and want to tell your child to greet someone, you don’t want the person to hear you prompting them.

My mother-in-law said no. I didn’t have any right to speak Ewe to my child because the child was Fanti. She also insisted that we couldn’t call him by his name. We should use her husband’s name for our child. Meanwhile, my father-in-law didn’t even care about it.

I called my son Nunana, even in her presence. At first, my husband wanted to agree with his mother and go along with it, but I stood my ground. I asked him a couple of questions, and that ended the tomfoolery.

“When we were going through financial struggles, who was there for you? I was there. I stood by you, and nobody even knew we had problems. Who pays the children’s school fees? Who feeds them? Has your mother ever fed us? Has anyone in your family ever fed us? When the children fall sick, has anyone given us money for hospital bills? No.

“So, why do you want to side with your mother? When we go to bed, is it your mother you sleep with? The Bible says a man must leave and cleave.”

It did the trick. She accused me of turning her son against her. She even brought up old matters. Apparently, my husband had wanted to become a Catholic priest, but I came into the picture and took that dream away from him. She then circled back to my refusal to name our child after her husband.

According to her, the children were not mine but theirs because they were Fantis, and Fantis are matrilineal. If Fantis are matrilineal, then the children are even more mine because they would belong to my side of the family. So, what exactly was she afraid of?

She had to be begged before she made an appearance at our second child’s naming ceremony. She threatened to make my husband disown his own child. She complained to my mother-in-law. I turned a blind eye to it all. I just stood my ground and didn’t let her run my home.

My father-in-law was the main reason I kept visiting their house, even after all the trouble my mother-in-law was giving me. After his death, I saw no reason to keep going there. I stopped calling her, too. I never set foot in that house again. I figured it would make her happy, but she has made complaints about me to my husband.

Some months ago, I got a part-time vacation job and had to travel out of town, so the children went to spend their vacation with her. When my husband brought them back after school reopened, I gathered from their conversation that she was still holding on to this issue. Whenever the younger children called their elder brother Nunana, she would tell them not to mention that name in her house.

My kids are currently with my own mother in Accra. I have received a permanent job offer from the company, and letting the children stay with my mother-in-law would create problems for me. So, for now, the children are staying with my own mother in Accra, behind my mother-in-law’s back. While I figure out this new job, my kids will stay with my mum, attend school there, eat Ewe food, learn Ewe, and speak Ewe.

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So, Adez, please stand your ground. This is not something you should divorce your husband over. Sit him down, open his eyes, and ask him one or two questions. Let him understand that he is no longer living with his mother. He is married to you. Usually, this kind of behaviour comes from parents who are not educated, so I am quite surprised that, in your case, your in-laws are educated and still behaving like this.

How can you sit in your own home and be told not to speak your own language to your own children? How do these people understand the meaning of mother tongue? There is no language that is superior to another. We are all one people.

—Melvina

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