From time immemorial, fathers with children from more than one woman fight hard to make their children see one another through the strength of their bloodline and paternal heritage. They believe if they can achieve this, the children will bond as one and love one another genuinely. They believe this is for the good of the children as they would form a formidable team in future based on the sheer strength of their numbers and their willingness to walk in unity.

Mothers however never encourage this, they want only the children who were carried by their wombs and suckled at their breasts to work together. They deliberately plant a seed of suspicion in the heart of their children against the children from the other women and ensure that the lines of demarcation among the children are very clear. From generation to generation and throughout cultures and history, the force of suspicion and division has almost always won except for a few exceptions. Children who try very hard to relate with their step siblings are seen as traitors by their mother and the other siblings from their mother. This trend can only be changed deliberately by the fathers.

You must not just die and leave a will with the instructions “be united”. You must be deliberate about integrating your children into each other’s lives and making them responsible for one another. I know a man who would take off with all his children to a farmstead in Ibadan for three months every year just to ensure that his fifteen children from three different mothers bond without their mother’s influence. Years later, as the children began to get married and own businesses, they seamlessly employed and worked with their siblings without any reservations that siblings who didn’t bond together would usually experience.

Being born of the same father is a blessing, it is not a curse! Africans especially have this inordinate suspicion of their siblings from different mothers and would rather help a stranger than help them if given a choice. This is not a good way to think or process life. Your father’s seed is not something to despise! I met a chartered accountant who was offered a great job in a company and he said he will be turning down the job because one of his father’s children from another mother is the MD of the company and he does not want to be in the same space as this MD because he wants to keep himself out of the radar of “those people”.

It shouldn’t be that way at all. While I understand that mothers have their peculiar relationships with the father of their children and this is often projected on the children they are nurturing; the children should mature and not allow such projections to colour their decision making or how they see the children of the other women. I have always believed that if we will change the world for the better, we must learn to observe it with the unstained lens of our neutral observation and engagement.

It is not Christ’s way to keep us in perpetual bondage to the actions of our parents We have inherited a legacy of love, trust, grace and fellowship in Christ. We must live in the truth of this.

-GSW-