After death and abandonment left Amelia* (20) without parents, her aunt willfully took it upon herself to raise her niece. However, her parenting also included financial and religious abuse that made young Amelia realise she had to earn her own money.  

In this story, Amelia shares what it was like growing up with a woman who provided for her but treated her as less than her own children, how she secretly started earning money at university, and why she presents herself as broke to the woman who raised her.

This is Amelia’s story, as told to Azara

When I was two years old, my mother got sick and died.

I don’t know or remember much about her. What I do know is that, according to the natural order of things, my father should have taken responsibility for caring for my siblings and me.

But that didn’t happen, at least not in any stable, loving way. He was flaky with our care — barely feeding us, barely talking to us or checking up on us. He brought his pregnant side-chick to our house, but she was as ignorant of our needs as he was. 

His neglect must have been glaring because by the time I was three, the situation caught the attention of my mother’s sister.

She begged my father to do more for us, but he refused, seemingly done with anything that had to do with my mother. 

At first, my aunt tried to leave the matter alone, but she had to intervene again when my sister died less than two years after my mother. She had been sick, and I can’t tell for sure if my father’s neglect had worsened her illness and caused her death, but my aunt didn’t plan to risk finding out.

I was four when my siblings and I moved in with my aunt. My father had no problem letting us go. He never tried to keep in touch or come back for us. But that was fine, because my Aunty was there.

My two siblings were much older than me — 13 and 17 years older— and they left a few years after we arrived at my aunt’s place, so they never became her children per se. I was the one she called daughter. 

She fed, clothed and gave me a family; her own biological children became my siblings, and she became my mother.

But while I finally felt safe and loved, our arrangement was far from perfect.

My aunt had an issue with spending money. It affected all of us, but it was worse with me. When I was seven, I broke a small thing in our house. I don’t even remember what it was, but all I know is that it did not warrant the tongue-lashing my aunt doled out.

“Have you ever made one naira for me in your life?” she yelled, which I found odd since I was just seven. But little did I know that reaction was tame compared to what I’d come to experience.

Whenever I asked her for anything that wasn’t a necessity, she angrily said, “Do you know how much I’m spending on you?” She made it a point of duty to remind me that I was an unplanned expense to her. 

In her angrier moments, she would remind me I wasn’t even her daughter. 

“You think it’s easy to cater for somebody that’s not their biological child?” She regularly yelled if I asked her for treats. “Even people who have biological children are looking for someone who will help them take care of their children, and you’re here, you’re getting everything from me.”

She defended these actions on the grounds of her religion. When she felt I was asking for too much, she yelled that I was trying to be like the children of the world and that God didn’t support waste.

By 2019, at the age of 14, I understood asking her for things was a waste of breath. Instead, I decided to refocus that energy on making my own money.

As a child, my options were limited, but that never stopped me. I would write love letters for classmates during Valentine’s Day and charge ₦400 per letter. I made roughly ₦3,000 from it in 2019, and although it could barely buy me two loaves of bread, holding my own cash awoke something in me.

That was my money. Not something I’d had to beg for and get insulted for; Mine.

Then, when I was 17, I made ₦15k from writing for an international magazine. My cousin had gotten the opportunity, asked for my help, and given me a share of her earnings. Before I could even take in the win, my aunt struck again.

I had tried to deposit the money into an account I’d opened with a friend’s help, but my aunt found out and became livid. She claimed I’d opened the account because I wanted people to send me money; that I planned to use the money to do immoral things. She then added that only greed and immorality could cause me to do such a thing, reminding me that God called us to be humble.

So, for a while, I paused my money-making attempts.

Then, in 2023, I was admitted to the university. I wish I could say my aunt’s behaviour got better, but if anything, her madness became clearer to me the moment I went to school. 

 She would send me to school with only a ₦15k allowance for a month. I might have even managed that if the provisions she bought me were enough. She would give me 8 sachets of tomato paste, a small bag of garri, and a small bag of rice. That was it. 

If I showed any sign of discomfort, she would start with her speeches about discontentment and how God doesn’t want me to waste. She would also add that God would provide, and if he hadn’t yet, I needed to wait patiently.

I didn’t agree with that, so I took matters into my own hands.

Since I had had some success with writing before, I started taking courses in creative fields: creative writing, social media management, digital marketing, proofreading, and anything that caught my eye.

Within a year of being in university, I started scoring clients and making money. Some times, I made ₦10k/week, other times, ₦50k/month. Last year [2025], I even made ₦300k in one month.

That money? Revolutionary! I didn’t think I could have so much money in one go. I haven’t made as much since then, but I’ve been making enough fluctuating income to upgrade my lifestyle.

For instance, I bought a ₦350k laptop in 2025 all by myself. I can now afford to do my hair with attachments — something my aunt never let me do — and buy whatever I like, from trinkets to clothes and food.

But even now, my aunt is still my biggest roadblock.

I’ve hidden all my earnings from her, and part of that is hiding my lifestyle. I’m one person in school, then a different person at home.

She has never seen my new laptop and still believes I’m using the problematic hand-me-down that barely comes on. Before I leave school, I loosen my hair to make sure she doesn’t see it, and even at home, I still ask her for ₦5k for a hairstyle that uses wool; then I’ll add my own money to make it better.

I’m living a double life, but really, what is double about my life? I’m not doing anything crazy; I’m just finally able to take care of myself. I’m worried that if she finds out, she’ll stop giving me money, or worse, make me stop working.

 I had to change my course in my third year because I was having school issues, so I started university all over again, and I’m now in my second year. If she knows I’m working multiple jobs, I have no doubt she’ll tell me they’re distracting me from school and will never stop holding it over my head.

I don’t know if she suspects I’m making money, but she once came close to finding out how much money I have when she asked me to put her number on my card so she could see my transactions. I almost died from panic that day. Luckily for me, another aunt can already see my transactions on that card, so I just lied that it could only be one person who sees my transactions at a time.

I’m now working on content writing, and things are looking up. My income still isn’t stable, but it’s more stable than what my aunt has given me over the years.

I plan to keep building my skills, keep working, build savings, and move out the moment I’m done with university, but I know I have to lock in. I’m already dreading how my aunt will try to manipulate me into staying at home with her instead of getting my own place.

At the end of the day, I still love her. I know without her, I would have had no fighting chance at this life. Plus, maybe her manipulation worked after all, because a part of me can’t shake the feeling I’m in debt to her.

But this is my life, and her archaic beliefs will not steal any more of it away from me. 

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