My daughter asked me why I send money to Nigeria every month

See ehn, my 14 year old daughter came to me yesterday and asked me a question that just cut me deep. She said, Mummy, why do you keep sending money to people in Nigeria when we are the ones struggling here? I just sat there looking at her. This child was born in London, she has only been to Nigeria twice in her life. She doesn't understand the concept of family in our culture.

I tried to explain to her that in Nigeria, family is everything. That my sister who stayed back helped raise me before I travelled. That my mother would not survive without the money I send. But she just shrugged and said it's not fair that we have to work so hard while other people enjoy our money. I wanted to cry. These children are growing up with this Western mentality that everything is transactional. They don't understand that when we say we are going to send money home, it is not charity. It is duty. It is survival.

Na wa oh. I am raising British children who will never understand what it means to be Nigerian. And it breaks my heart. How do you explain to a child born in Peckham that her mother's salary is what keeps her grandmother alive in Ibadan? How do you make them see that we are not just individuals, we are part of something bigger?