Family feuds make for great soap operas

A few weeks ago, Helmut Kohl, one of the legendary German leaders passed away. Following his death, we were subjected to some rather interesting drama between his step-wife and his children. Shortly after that, we saw Lee Hsien Loong, (current Prime Minister of Singapore and son of the great man himself Lee Kuan Yew), explaining to the entire nation about some family dispute over some house he inherited from his dad.

It was somewhat comforting to realise that even the more progressive and organised families are not spared from ugly spats and disputes. Here in Africa, family feuds are commonplace and usually make for interesting soap operas - I mean who can forget the epic Kirima and Karume fights! Even our beloved Madiba was not spared.

While these fights are entertaining to the public, they are usually emotionally bruising for those involved. The road to family feuds is usually paved with good intentions and today, I would like to shed light on some of the intentions.

Good intention

The first good intention comes from parents. On most occasions, one parent becomes the defacto decision maker, with power to make and break any of the family. These mamas and papas make all decisions about the family and its resources. Unfortunately, most of them use this power with impunity, choosing to direct it to the child or children they like.

Just like in politics, the child who gets the most attention is the child who tows the line of the powerful parent and who has mastered the art of family sycophancy. These divide and rule parents use very random reasons for selecting their preferred child.

Sometimes they show mercy and favour to those children whose names they like, whose looks they like or who show promise in terms of academic excellence or wealth. The annoying thing is that these same parents try to spread the false propaganda that they love all their children equally - that is not true.

Parents love their children differently and with different intensities, with the only constant being that they love their children unconditionally. Those children who are the flavour of the parent love this attention and while some are gracious about it, many use it to become little tyrants wielding power over their siblings.

For some strange reasons, the children who are out of the favoured circle spend all their lives and fortunes trying to wiggle their way into the parent’s heart - usually with little luck. In fact some become dysfunctional just because their daddy or mummy did not shower them with the right colour of love.

So, beneath all those family portraits that we see of picture perfect families lies jealousy, animosity, coalitions and divides. All it takes is usually the demise of the lead parent for all these emotions to erupt into the surface, taking the form of nasty fights and embarrassing squabbles. Favouritism by parents is usually the lead cause of all these messy inheritance battles that we see.

Stepmothers are another major cause of family chaos. Not much has changed since the days of Cinderella’s evil stepmother; most stepmothers are selfish, gold diggers and the experts at driving wedges between families.

Many men get into polygamous relationships for what they consider good reasons - usually to get more sex, to expand their asset base and standing in society.

On the other hand, women who get into polygamous marriages do so to become the Number One in the relationship by controlling the resources and by controlling the man.

Even those who become stepmothers after marrying widowers are no different. They invest a lot of time in using all manner of wiles and replace the ghost of the departed wife often with disastrous consequences.

Stepmothers actively seek to drive wedges between families so that they can curry favour that ensures their future and that of their children is secured for generations to come.

What makes it worse is that men are usually too blinded by love to realise that their dear step-wives are causing mayhem to their families. At the end of the day, the true testament of a man’s success is how well his family fares when he leaves this earth.

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