I caught my mother stealing from my savings since I was 15

I grew up in Awka, first son. From when I was 15 I started saving money from doing small jobs for neighbours, washing cars, running errands. I kept the money in a wooden box under my bed. I had about 35,000 naira saved by the time I was 17. Then one day I noticed the notes were less. I counted again. Someone was taking 500 naira here, 1,000 naira there.

I set a trap. I put a hair across the box lid. Came back from school and the hair was broken. I asked my siblings, my father. Nobody knew anything. Then my mother called me to her room quiet quiet. She said, 'My son, I am sorry. Your father does not give me money for food sometimes. I take small from your box. I will pay you back.'

I did not know what to say. My mother is the one person I trust with everything. Since that day I stopped keeping money at home. I opened a bank account at 18 and never looked back. The shame was not hers alone. It was the system that made a mother steal from her child so the family could eat. I have never told anyone this story until now. Some wounds you just carry.