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So there's this thing I believed as a child that I still laugh about till today, growing up, our parents used to warn us never to swallow the seeds of any fruit, any fruit at all, Orange seed, watermelon seed, guava seed, did not matter what it was, the warning was always the same, "don't swallow it o, it will grow inside your stomach" and as a child, I took that warning very, very seriously.
I don't know if it's just my parents or if this was some universal Nigerian parent thing, but I know for a fact I wasn't the only child who believed this, I remember eating watermelon with so much caution, picking out every single seed like my life depended on it, because in my head, it kind of did, Imagine walking around with a whole watermelon tree growing inside your belly, that was genuinely terrifying to me as a kid.
I used to picture it so vividly too, llike one day I'd just wake up and my stomach would start growing branches, leaves sprouting out of my belly button, maybe even fruit hanging off me somehow, I never really sat down to think about how ridiculous that sounds, because when you are a child, your parents word is basically law, If they said it, it must be true , no questions asked.
So I lived my early years being extremely careful with seeds, watermelon was the worst offender because of how many seeds it has, but I was careful with everything, oranges, guava, even pawpaw sometimes, though that one has fewer seeds so it wasn't as stressful, I would sit there, patiently picking out every seed before I even thought about enjoying the fruit properly.
It wasn't until I got older, maybe somewhere in my early teenage years, that I actually started questioning it, I think it was during a biology class or something, learning about digestion, and I remember thinking, wait a minute, nothing can actually grow inside a human stomach like that. Stomach acid alone would deal with any seed long before it even had the chance to think about sprouting, that is when it hit me, my parents had been playing me the whole time.
Looking back now, I actually find it funny rather than annoying, I don't even think it was some evil scheme to lie to us, I think parents just say these things to keep their kids cautious, to slow us down a little, especially with something like seeds where choking or swallowing something wrong is an actual real concern for a small child, It is easier to say "it will grow inside you" than to explain digestion to a five year old who barely understands basic sentences.
Now anytime I eat fruit with seeds, I sometimes think back to those days, laughing a little at how seriously I took it, I still don't swallow seeds on purpose though, old habits die hard I guess, but at least now I know it's not because there's a tree waiting to sprout in my stomach. It's just one of those harmless childhood lies that somehow stuck around longer than it should have.
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