Growing up in Lagos, my family had this saying: “One broomstick is easy to break, but a bunch is unbreakable.” My dad used to recite it with the kind of gravitas that made it feel like the most profound wisdom ever spoken. As a little kid, it seemed simple enough. Family sticks together. Got it. But somewhere along the line—after puberty, overcooked Christmas jollof rice, and one too many screaming matches with my siblings about who's hogging the phone line—I started realizing this myth wasn’t just flawed. It was a load of beautifully packaged lip service.

Because let’s be real here: Sometimes, that “unbreakable bunch” hurts more than it helps.

The Gospel According to “Family First”

In my house, like in many immigrant families, loyalty to family was preached as gospel. Mom and Dad always framed it as us against the world. My siblings and I were supposed to have each other’s backs no matter what. When bullies came knocking, they got not one, but five Okoros ready to throw hands. When neighbor kids tried shaming your Payless sneakers, your brother would roast them ten times harder. And when you messed up? Well, let’s just say forgiveness wasn’t exactly immediate, but covering for each other was non-negotiable.

But somewhere along the way, “family first” stopped feeling like a rallying cry and more like a chain around my ankle. By the time we hit our teenage years—aka the era of door-slamming and diary-stealing—I realized “family” wasn’t always the warm, protective cocoon I romanticized as a kid. Sometimes, it was the very thing tearing you apart.

Can’t Pick Your Family—But You Can Pick Your Battles

I first smelled the cracks in the “one broomstick” theory during my teenage years in Brooklyn. My sister and I had this epic showdown over a pair of jeans—her bootcut denim she swore made her look like Beyoncé. (It didn’t.) I’d borrowed them without asking, and by the time I gave them back, they had a mysterious rip in one of the knees. It wasn’t pretty, folks. Throw pillows were weaponized. Whole threats to “tell Mom” were thrown out like legal indictments. Honestly, it came dangerously close to a full WWE SmackDown.

But here’s the thing: Beneath our petty fight was a deeper rift. We weren’t just siblings beefing over sartorial disasters. There were years of unsaid emotion swirling in that fight—one sister who felt overlooked, one who felt misunderstood. And in that moment, I realized something: Just because we were family didn’t mean we knew how to communicate, let alone love each other well.

It might sound harsh, but this is where the family myth falls apart. Being born into the same clan doesn’t automatically mean harmony. It doesn't spare you from conflict, resentment, or occasionally needing a break from certain relatives who think WhatsApp group chats are their personal therapy sessions. True closeness takes work—intentional, sometimes awkward, definitely hard work.

Myth-Busting: Making Peace With the Unperfect Perfect

It took moving away for college and then spending a year studying in London for me to really start unpacking what “family” meant to me. When you’re thousands of miles and an ocean away, you’re forced to reevaluate what you miss—and, let’s face it, what you don’t. Like the loud Sunday prayers at 6 a.m. (No offense, Dad.) Or the constant judgment of your love life whenever you dared to bring a date to a family function. (“Where do her people hail from?” “Does she know how to make egusi soup?” Chill, Uncle Festus. We’re not getting married tomorrow.)

Physical space clarified something major: that my family wasn’t perfect, and they didn’t need to be. The “one broomstick” ideal of complete, unshakable unity never accounted for the beautiful messiness of individuals growing at their own pace.

Take my mom, for example. She’s unapologetically Nigerian through and through but spent decades learning to adapt to life in America. That balancing act—the push and pull of identity—showed up in everything, from the neon-pink scrubs she wore to her hospital shifts to the way she insisted I stay in church choir when all I wanted was to write bad poetry in my bedroom. In hindsight, I see that she was trying to mold me into a “strong broomstick” in her eyes. What I interpreted as restriction was her version of a safety net.

My siblings? Oh, we’re still working on it. One of them recently called me out for ghosting the family group chat. (A totally valid critique, by the way, since I do spend most of it quietly lurking.) But we learn to meet each other halfway—like, I’ll actually reply if they don’t flood me with memes. Fair? Fair.

How to Rewrite the Family Story

So here’s the revised belief I landed on: You don’t have to break with your family to break away from the myths that no longer serve you. Here’s what worked for me:

  1. Separate Fact from Fiction: Just because your family believes something doesn’t make it gospel. Growing up, I was told men shouldn’t show too much emotion, because, you know, “It’s not a good look.” (Spoiler: This is nonsense.) Challenge old beliefs with curiosity instead of judgment.

  2. Set Boundaries Like Your Sanity Depends on It (Because It Does): Look, I know setting boundaries with family can feel guilt-inducing. But trust me when I say that declining every single cousin’s wedding invite or muting the WhatsApp ping doesn’t make you a bad relative. It makes you human.

  3. Embrace the Chaos: Family dynamics are messy because people are messy, and that’s okay. The sooner you let go of perfection, the more you can focus on appreciating the messy, real relationships that matter.

  4. Find Your People, Inside or Out: Growing up, I clung to the idea that only family could offer wholehearted belonging. But as I started building friendships and romantic connections, I realized chosen family is just as powerful, if not more so.

Family Doesn’t Have to Be the Bunch—As Long as You’re the Stick

So here I am today, back upstate and writing about romance for a living while navigating my own messy family ties. The deeper I dive into love and connection, the more convinced I become: The “one broomstick” myth failed me not because family isn’t important. It failed because it assumes that love comes pre-assembled.

But love—real, lasting love—isn’t assumed. It’s built. Sometimes, it’s built after countless fights over denim and phone chargers. Sometimes, it’s built after you’ve drifted apart and find yourself slowly weaving your way back together. And sometimes, it’s built entirely outside the family tree, with people who see you for who you are rather than who you’re expected to be.

Don’t get me wrong—I still hear my dad’s voice in my head every time I feel like giving up on a connection. “One broomstick is easy to break,” sure, but the part he didn’t say? Some broomsticks come back stronger after they’ve been broken and rebuilt. And if that’s not another beautifully packaged piece of wisdom, I don’t know what is.