My London son just asked me to pay him for helping in the kitchen

See ehn, my second son, the one who was born here in the UK, the other day he finished eating and I asked him to help me wash his plate. Small thing abeg. He looked at me and said, Mum, that's not my chore. I'll do it for two pounds.

Two pounds! My dear I just stood there looking at him. In Ibadan when I was growing up, if my mother asked me to wash plate, I would run to the well before she finished the sentence. Not because I loved it, but because the back of her hand was faster than my legs. These children here have turned family into business. Everything is negotiation. I tell my husband and he just laughed, said I should pay the boy and teach him about money. Na wa oh.

Sometimes I wonder if we are raising children or training future CEOs. My mother never paid me for anything. She said the roof over my head was payment enough. Anyway, I don talk my own. Who else has a child that charges them for basic human kindness?