The Unbelievable Misfortunes Of Being Raised By A Step Mother

Author: Nalubegwe Eve

What kind of a mother would force a child to use their tongue to clean the kitchen floor?

My name is Nalubegwe Eve, and this is my story.

My father and mother met in high school. They were the “two love birds” in high school. This is because my mother conceived me while in high school just as any teenager.

Despite my mother getting pregnant, my father was never shaken by the fact that his girlfriend was expecting a baby! He even dropped out of school to take care of her.

This must have been real love between these two souls. Which teenage boy would drop out of school to take care of his pregnant girlfriend?

Unfortunately, Bridget passed on while she was giving birth to me.

I wish I had ever had a chance to see this beautiful soul that held me in her womb for nine months.

In the early 1990s, as a baby the world had grabbed me off my mother. However my father was very ready to take on this motherly mandate. Never was he willing to hand me over to his mother nor the late “Bridget’s mother” my maternal granny despite the fact that they always asked him to hand me over to them.

He was so determined to see me grow. Am told he always put me on his back even when he was going to do his usual casual jobs. Guess what he managed to raise me up till I was no longer an infant and I was now a teenager!

Some of my fresh memories with him are when he always picked me from per-primary school on his bicycle.

At the age of thirteen while I was in senior one, he was advised to marry someone since he had been lonely for quite some time. I was of course unhappy about this idea wondering how I could catch up with a stranger as “my mother,” Dad was hesitant but with time he took on the advice and got himself a wife.

Nantumbe was the wife he got himself. This lady with big eyes came along with her kids who were slightly older than me. I had heard stories about step mothers, my friends describing them as creepy creatures that no child could ever want to encounter.

My instincts about Nantumbe were never wrong! With time she had proved to be the worst of women I had ever encountered on earth. She always shouted at me whenever she called me.

Guess what, my heart always trembled and filled with fear could slowly and calmly respond, “ Wanji maama” literally meaning yes mum. She always threw insults at me and subjected me to lots of abuse including one that I was ugly! Which teenage girl would ever want to be referred to as ugly?

In My father’s home I became responsible for every mistake and misfortune that befall us as a family! Poor girl what would I do? I became a maid of the home despite the fact that her children were always present at home, they never did any home chores and all the work was left to me.

I was the one to wash their uniforms after we came back from school together, it was me to wake up early in the morning to fetch the water that we were to use the whole day alone, prepare food before I could leave home for school when the rest of the house was still enjoying the early morning sweet sleep!

I kept wondering if my beloved father that had showered me with all his love in the past was noticing what I was going through. I guess he wasn’t noticing my pain because my step mother always treated me well when he was around.

All hell broke loose one unfortunate evening when I was cooking beans for supper and they slipped off the charcoal stove and poured on the ground. Guess what?

My so called mother told me to use my tongue to clean the kitchen floor where all the beans had poured! I resisted but with some little beatings, I was already into action doing as she had ordered. I write this as tears run down my eyes!

Sooner than later, Nantumbwe wasn’t at any time willing to bear me staying with her and “her family” and she told my father that I had matured and he had found me a suitable marriage partner, this was during my senior four vacation when I had just turned seventeen.

I was a brilliant girl and had always crowned over my class with good grades despite the hardships I was facing back home.

My father was proud of me because I was so brilliant in class unlike her children one of whom had suffered from cerebral malaria and so he was mentally incapacitated and the other child wasn’t interested in studies.

When I was expecting good results from the examinations and I had kept seeing my dream of becoming a doctor come closer, my step mother found me husband.

I cried out for help but all this was in vain as my “superhero” DAD couldn’t save me from this trouble. His eyes had been closed by this selfish ugly woman that wanted to see my life end in disaster.

She indeed succeeded when Farouk the village fishmonger came home with three goats, ten hens and five kilograms of sugar as bride price to my parents for my hand in marriage.

They gladly gave me away! I kept crying to my father not to let me go but it was all in vain.

Farouk took me to his small house where we started staying together. He subjected me to all forms of sexual abuses against my will. But poor Eve what could I do? So one fateful day I was listening to the radio.

I tuned a channel that had a program talking about girl child rights, I listened carefully and they were advising all girls below eighteen going through abuses to report to police, I didn’t think twice. I immediately rushed to the police and reported what I was going through.

Police with the help of a local NGO helped me, sent me back to school to pursue a diploma in midwifery and today I am a fully qualified midwife upgrading to becoming a doctor. I advocate for girl child empowerment and fight for their rights. Stepmother abuses amongst families in Uganda should stop.

I wish all step mothers would treat their “husband’s children” well; family would be a better place to be.

I argue the Ugandan girl child should stand together and fight this bad behavior from step mothers, Perhaps it could be a solution to some of the girl child problems. Why burn us, why not give us food simply because you are not my biological mother? One day it might be your child.

#let’s treat each child equally whether legitimate or not.