Parenting and the Girl-Child: Issues in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Agbasimalo’s The Forest Dames

Abstract

Parenting is an intricate and critical aspect of child rearing. Children are susceptible to danger, and so need to be closely monitored and guided for survival. The girl-child is usually more vulnerable to harm and vagaries of the environment and so requires close guidance. Parenting demands specific efforts to support, protect and promote the physical and emotional wellbeing of the child. Mothers, in particular, learn to form close bonds with their daughters. However, some mothers do not respond or follow up on their girl-child in order to provide the necessary friendship for her proper development. Incidents portrayed in the texts of Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Adaokere Agbasimalo’s The Forest Dames reveal issues of mother–child relationship, indicating active and inactive parenting. Scholars have reviewed Purple Hibiscus as a cultural, patriarchal, child development or bildungsroman text, whereas The Forest Dames has been studied as a war text and as a record of history, among other discourses. Using John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth’s Attachment Theory, which posits a close parent-child relationship as a hallmark of positive parenting, this study examines the pattern of relationship between the mothers and the girl-children in the narratives. The paper specifically examines the dominant roles of the individual mothers, particularly, Beatrice and Ifeoma in Purple Hibiscus, and Dora, in The Forest Dames in securing the girl-child from impending and real dangerous circumstances around her. The paper advocates positive and authoritative parenting requiring concerted and critical efforts of mothers in determining the safety and future of the girl-child.