Gen Z children abroad are losing our culture and it's breaking my heart

My daughter came home from school last week and asked me why I always 'force' her to speak Yoruba when we call her grandmother in Ibadan. She said it in that proper British accent, arms crossed, eyes rolling. I just looked at her and remembered how my own mother would have dealt with that back home. Let's just say the conversation would have ended differently.

See ehn, I understand they are growing up here. They have British friends, British schools, British everything. But when I hear them say 'mum, can we get pizza' instead of asking for amala and ewedu, something inside me just sinks. My son once told me he doesn't like jollof rice because it's 'too spicy'. I almost wept. This is the same child whose grandfather was a farmer in Oyo State.

I know some of you will say I'm being too hard. That children should adapt to where they live. But tell me, how many of us actually teach our children our language, our proverbs, our respect for elders? We are so busy chasing the British dream that we are losing the Nigerian soul. My daughter is 14 and she can't even greet properly. When I was her age, I could recite my lineage. Anyway, I don talk my own. Are we raising British children or Nigerian children who happen to live in Britain?