" I am highly disappointed in you. I thought you were an obedient child not knowing that you are a hypocrite". My mother's words pierced me and I was boiling with anger. The type of anger that could make me give my mother a dirty slap.

My name is Kate, the first child of my family. I am 24 years old and I have a boyfriend.

"Mummy I am in a serious relationship with him. We are not playing and he is serious with the relationship too. We even plan on getting married. He...." She didn't allow me to finish... 

"Shut up your mouth, you are still a small girl, you don't know anything about marriage, you are not even supposed to be talking about relationships or marriage" she said. "Then when is the right time?" My tone of voice was a bit higher this time.

"Focus on your studies, you are still a small girl, girls that marry at your age don't know what they are doing"..

I didn't answer her again rather I went to my room and began to cry because I was really fed up about this whole situation. I couldn't help but go down memory lane...

When I was in primary school, I began to gain little knowledge of what relationship was all about, even dating and marriage but I couldn't ask my mother to explain more because I felt she would beat me (and I'm happy I didn't). So I cunningly asked her "mummy is it bad to talk to a boy?" 

"Yes, it is very bad to talk to a boy, you can only ask for pen or if he is more intelligent than you and you are not clear on a particular topic, then you can ask him questions regarding that topic" she replied.

I carried this mentality through out my secondary school but I broke the barrier anyways and now my relationship is threatened by my mother.

My mother never say me down to educate me about sex, dating, when men will be asking me out or about marriage and if she hears me discussing it with my sisters, she will always reprimand us and tell us that we are still children, we should stop talking about relationships that a child of God shouldn't be talking about those kind of things.

She never told me how to react to advances from men but she always told me to run away when men stop me on the road or report any boy to my teacher if he tries to start a conversation with me. I will ask her why she said this but she will not tell me the reason, she just said that I should obey her.

I don't seem to understand all these. Whenever I go for youth seminar in church, we are always told that men will start coming at my age and that we should not make mistake in chosing the wrong man to get married to.

But my mother always says that as a christian, I am not supposed to be talking about relationships or marriage.

Why is my mother acting differently and saying that I'm still a small girl? I am really confused right now. When is the right time to start talking about relationships or marriage?Please what do I do? Is this how all African mothers behave?

Based on true life events