Mum was a disciplinarian though not in the physical sense – as to the latter at best she might use her slippers, but the truth was she was no dab han… - Beatrice Aboyade

If mum asked you to clean her bathroom, you were best advised to go over it with a fine toothcomb. Her eagle eyes would unfailingly spot that area that you’d carelessly – or perhaps lazily – overlooked and she’d make you clean it to perfection. I got my eye for detail from her. We would grumble under our breath and wonder why she was nit-picking. Today, I’m grateful.

My mother was strong-willed, but calm and patient. And I, well, I was just plain old stubborn and impatient to boot. There were some, uhm, memorable fights, but generally she was the calm to my storm.

Without consciously realising it my mum was my first female role model. Seeing her just get out there and doing it meant I never once thought of myself as a disadvantaged female. She gained her Ph.D in Literature in English after her first three children were born. She became a professor (one of the first five female professors in Nigeria) and reached lofty heights all of which I took for granted and thought was the norm; indeed, as I grew up and entered the world of employment it was a rude shock to realise that the reality was far different for many women. By then it was too late for me to think of myself as anything but able, unhampered by the little detail of being female. For that I am thankful.