My Moral Code - Dressing with Dignity

I was 16 when I decided that I was never going to go indecently dressed on the streets. My aunt, who was the first person to travel to the States in my family, was fond of returning to Nigeria once a year with gifts for every single child in the family. When I was turning 16, she decided to come to Nigeria a week before my birthday.

When she told my mother she was coming that particular week, I was so excited because I knew my aunt was definitely coming with something that would make my birthday that year worthwhile. The day she landed at the airport, I went with my mother to pick her up and she seemed excited to see me as well. She even told me that she had gotten a gift for me, causing my anticipation to rise even higher.

Later that evening after we dropped her off at her hotel room, I asked my mom what she thought my aunty had gotten for me and she said she was sure it was an outfit for my birthday. I was beside myself with joy.

My aunty didn't come to our house until it was 3 days before my birthday. Because we all suspected that she would get me a dress, I asked my mom not to get another dress for me, rather, I wanted her to get me a shoe.

The day she finally came around, most of the children in my family who were around Lagos came to our house to get their own gifts from her. My mother prepared the local Yoruba vegetable soup known as efo and pounded some yam for the adults while we the children ate eba with the soup.

My aunty came along with a bottle of wine so we all were allowed to have a sip after our mounds of eba. She engaged her siblings in a series of conversations while we the bigger children went to the room to discuss what we could possibly get as gifts this year.

The previous year I had gotten a nice pair of pink sneakers and the year before that, a Calvin Klein wristwatch.

About an hour after we ate, my mother summoned all of us back to the living room. My aunty had started unpacking the items she brought from the car she rented to drive around Lagos. We went to help her get some of the things excitedly, and then she began to hand them out when we had gotten everything out of the car.

She handed a full doll set to my youngest female cousin, a football to my younger brother, a nice pair of loafers to my older brother, a beautiful jewelry set to my mom for my sister (since she wasn't around), and a three-piece suit for my younger brother.

When she took out a small bag and handed it to me, my mother winked at me excitedly and asked me to bring it over. I hung around itching to collect the bag from my mom and tear it open myself but she was soon able to take the gift in the bag out so I became calm.

It was a shiny, red dress.

I hugged my mother excitedly and wanted to take the dress from her to try it on but she refused saying the excitement would have died down by my birthday so I went to keep the dress in her cupboard like she suggested.

On my birthday morning, my mother did her usual routine for each child. She came to my room with a bottle of anointing oil and prayed for me then she asked me to shower and went to prepare the breakfast of pancakes which I had ordered specially.

After having my bath, I took the red dress from my mother’s wardrobe and tried to turn it inside out to understand how the dress was but I couldn't. The dress was so small, it looked like something that was half-finished.

My mother asked me to go ahead and try on the dress and when I did, there was a huge frown on my face. The dress had a slit from mid-thigh where it stopped and it was strapless. I felt like someone who was not putting on anything at all.

My mother noticed how displeased I was and pleaded with me to just wear it to my aunt's house since she asked me to come over later in the evening. When I put it on with the pair of black shoes my mother had gotten me, I was looking generally weird.

Throughout that day, I kept getting stares from people. Someone at iyana-ipaja even asked my mother why she allowed a child to dress that way when we were coming back from my aunt's house. I felt completely uncomfortable and embarrassed because the dress was short, transparent, and revealing.

After my birthday, I made a decision never to walk on the streets half-clad ever again. No matter how stylish or expensive, if the dress or outfit did not cover me properly, I wasn't going to put it on to leave my house.