A couple of months ago, renowned televangelist and “relationship expert” Rev. Funke Adejumo, advised women on the etiquette to follow for their first meeting with prospective in-laws. “Advise” might be a misleading term for the tips she gave, because although one can be advised wrongly, we tend to associate “advise” and “advice,” especially from people with a certain level of authority, with positive and constructive guidance. However, the pastor/relationship expert goofed big time.
I have tried to be charitable and imagine that cultural expectations and her own background might have influenced what she considers good manners—such as kneeling to greet and not getting up until being asked to—but the other tips she was doling out were so ridiculous that no amount of being charitable on my part could make them any less so. For instance, she advises the young woman hoping to be proposed to not to “take a big present. Take something small, a basket of fruit or a wrapper for mama.”
Perhaps it is an indication of how out of touch she is with reality that she thinks a wrapper is “something small.” What would be the “big” present then? A car? The problem with advice such as this is that it doesn’t make sense because “big” and “small” are relative. If you want to take a gift to your partner’s parents when you finally meet them, take whatever you think they’d appreciate. Your partner knows their parents well, so ask him/her. Or take nothing. Your call.
She also advises these women meeting their prospective in-laws for the first time to be as soulless as a piece of unmoulded clay. “Sit in the chair closest to you.” “Turn your eyes to look around, not your head.” “Answer briefly when they ask you questions.” Don’t give your opinions on anything. Don’t have an opinion, in fact. If any of my sons brought home a girl who seemed determined not to be herself, who would not hold my gaze as we talked, with whom having a conversation was like pulling teeth, it would both irritate and disappoint me. I think we—my husband and I—have raised them to find strong women attractive. I have always been able to have nice conversations with their girlfriends. And if they have an opinion contrary to mine, I expect that they express that as respectfully and as forcefully as my sons do to their dad and me.
Telling young women to pretend to be ignorant and demure is baffling. To what end? So that their partner’s parents think they are “good” girls? Who says all shy girls are “good girls”?
And the most ridiculous of all was her advice to not finish the food they are served. “Go home and drink gari.” What kind of prospective parents-in-law would judge their son’s girlfriend or fiancée on whether or not they finish their food? Food that then has to be thrown away in a world where people are starving. Why encourage such wastefulness?
What is to be gained by pretending not to want the food you’ve clearly accepted? Better to refuse to eat then. In fact, if you join us for a meal, you are likely serving yourself, and it is only good manners to finish what you put on your plate. It is a lesson my children have carried their entire lives. And one I have carried since boarding school when our principal drummed it into us: “Waste not, want not.” Do not take more than you can finish, and what you have on your plate, you eat. If it’s a buffet, it is better to take small servings and go back multiple times than to pile your food high and eat only a little of it.
I don’t know who this pastor gives relationship advice to, but I am concerned that she’s using her authority and the pulpit to pass off her misguided personal notions of how to behave like “a good girl” (rather than how to be one) as valid advice to vulnerable young women. I’d rather she focused on marriage as a partnership and that she spoke to both young men and women on how they could be better, stronger partners for each other in a world where selfishness is lauded as a modern virtue.
