Nollywood legend Patience Ozokwor, popularly known as Mama G, has set the internet on fire with a hard message to wealthy parents and spoiled children.
Speaking on the Femi Babs TV podcast, the veteran actress said the fastest way to ruin a child is to shield them from every struggle.
“The fastest way to destroy a child’s life is to say you don’t want them to suffer the way you did. I’m not saying you should allow them suffer, I’m saying you should allow them to struggle and go through the process,” she said.
Ozokwor painted a picture many Nigerian families know too well.
“Imagine having 20 houses in different states and when you’re gone, they may start fighting over your property because they don’t know how you struggled to get those things.”
Her solution was blunt. Keep what you own. Make the next generation earn theirs.
“You need to keep the things that you have and let them know they have to go get theirs. That’s why some rich people start selling their things at some point while they’re still alive.”
If they don’t, she warned, the children will grow up thinking luxury is the default.
“Let the children know the pains of life. Not all the pains, but the little they know will remind them that they’re still privileged. But if you pamper them, they don’t come out to be anything.”
She reserved her sharpest line for her own home.
“I told my son, ‘My house isn’t yours, go and work for your own.’”
The clip, shared widely on social media, drew praise from users who called her wise and said children need that mindset early. Ozokwor, 67, has three biological children and several adopted ones. She was widowed in 2000 and has often spoken about raising her family through hardship after her husband’s long illness.
Her point landed in a country where inheritance battles regularly tear families apart after a parent dies.