Your six-year-old is quietly colouring at the dining table while you and your spouse “discuss” whose turn it was to buy fuel for the generator. Voices rise. A plate slams. The child doesn’t look up, but you catch the way their crayon pauses mid-stroke. In that split second, your marriage stops being private. It becomes their first classroom on love.
Here in Nigeria, where family is everything and “what will people say” still echoes from Ibadan compounds to Lagos estates, we often think our children only hear the words we direct at them. They don’t. They absorb the temperature of the home. And some temperatures, my friend, leave scars that no amount of school fees or new shoes can heal.These are not small things.
These are the marital excesses that quietly teach our sons and daughters exactly what they should (or shouldn’t) accept in their own future homes.I’ve grouped them into four real-life battlegrounds every Naija parent will recognise.
Not because we’re perfect — we’re not — but because we can do better the moment we see the damage.
1. The Words We Weaponize
Excess 1: Full-blown shouting matches
You’re not “just arguing.” You’re teaching your children that volume equals power. Little Tobi in Surulere started yelling at his teacher the same week his parents’ generator fights hit new decibels. He wasn’t being rude; he was copying the only conflict style he’d ever seen.
Excess 2: Name-calling and “you this, you that”
“Useless man,” “Lazy woman,” “You’re just like your mother.” These phrases don’t vanish when the kids leave the room. They lodge in their hearts and become the inner voice they’ll one day use on themselves or their partners.
Excess 3: Sarcasm and eye-rolling as defaultThat “Nne, abeg, who asked you?” delivered with a smirk might feel like small spice in the moment. To your daughter, it’s proof that disrespect can be wrapped in humour and still land.What to do instead: Step outside, send the kids to watch Jenifa’s Diary reruns, or simply say, “We’re upset right now. We’ll finish this talk when we’re calm.” They learn that love can pause without breaking.
2. The Emotions We Dump On Them
Excess 4: Badmouthing the other parent
Telling your son “Your father is the reason we can’t pay school fees this term” doesn’t make you the good guy. It splits your child’s loyalty in two.
Excess 5: Using children as messengers or spies
“Tell your daddy his food is ready — if he can come down from his phone.” Or “Ask Mummy why she’s always coming home late.” You’ve just turned your child into a pawn in adult chess.
Excess 6: Threatening divorce or separation in anger
“I’m packing my bag tonight!” screamed in front of wide-eyed children plants terror they can’t name. Many adults I know still flinch when their partner raises their voice because of that one sentence they heard at age nine.
What to do instead: Protect their emotional safety first. Save the heavy conversations for after bedtime or when they’re with Grandma. Let them see you disagree and still choose each other the next morning.
3. The Money Wars They Shouldn’t Witness
Excess 7: Bitter fights over every single expense
School fees, NEPA bills, “Why did you buy that Ankara?” — when these become daily theatre, children learn that money is always scarce and love is conditional on it.
Excess 8: Complaining about in-laws and their financial demands
Aunty from the village needs money for burial. Your mother needs hospital bills. When you drag these into the open with eye-rolls and “Your family again!”, your children internalise that extended family is a burden instead of a blessing.
Excess 9: Comparing spending habits publicly
“You spend like a Lagos big boy while I’m managing like a market woman.” Your son hears this and starts believing men must provide perfectly or they’re failures. Your daughter learns women should keep quiet about money.
What to do instead: Have money talks in whispers or on evening walks. Show your children that finances are a team sport, even when the team is struggling. Teach them “We’re figuring this out together” instead of “Your father/mother is the problem.”
4. The Silent and Cultural Landmines
Excess 10: The long silent treatment
Three days of “Pass the remote” and nothing else. Children watch the tension thicken like evening harmattan dust and learn that love can freeze without explanation.
Excess 11: Cultural or religious one-upmanship
“My church does it this way,” “In my village we don’t do that.” When these become public power plays, kids feel they have to choose sides between Mummy’s culture and Daddy’s.
Excess 12: Oversharing bedroom or intimate frustrations
“Since you started this your new job, you don’t even touch me again!” Even if said half-jokingly, it plants confusion and shame in young minds who are still trying to understand what marriage actually is.
What to do instead: Keep the bedroom in the bedroom. Show affection appropriately — hold hands during family prayer, laugh at each other’s jokes, dance to that old Fuji song in the parlour. Let them see warmth, not just the absence of war.
