Uncultured Gen Z Became Parents. Now What?
Let me be careful here because I am not here to condemn an entire generation. Every generation has its strengths and every generation inherits the failures of the one before it.
But we need to have an honest conversation about what happens when young people who were themselves raised without strong values, without consistent parental presence, without cultural grounding, become parents.
The adoption of Western cultural values and norms can lead to a decline in the use of indigenous languages, traditional practices and cultural values. The spread of social media can perpetuate cultural imperialism, threatening the cultural diversity and uniqueness of Nigerian youth.
A generation that does not know its own culture cannot pass that culture on. A young father who never had a father cannot model fatherhood. A young mother whose own upbringing was fractured cannot give her child what she herself never received.
This is not blame. This is physics. You cannot give what you do not have.
Àgbàdo tó gbóná kò sábà tutù. The hot corn does not usually cool down quickly. What we are seeing in this generation of young Nigerian parents is the harvest of seeds planted decades ago and now bearing fruit that none of us particularly want to eat.
The Viral Effects Nobody Is Talking About
The consequences of the collapse of family values in Nigeria are not abstract. They are walking around on our streets right now.
A child raised without a father is statistically more likely to struggle with authority, more likely to engage in risky behaviour, more likely to repeat the cycle of absent parenting. A child raised primarily by social media is more likely to confuse performance with identity, more likely to make decisions based on what looks good on a story rather than what is actually good for their life.
When you multiply this across millions of Nigerian households simultaneously, what you get is a generation that is more connected online and more disconnected from the values, the discipline and the cultural anchors that made Nigerian families the resilient, formidable institutions they once were.
The result is visible. We see it in the rising rates of youth crime. We see it in the epidemic of young Nigerians who cannot maintain commitments, cannot endure discomfort and cannot imagine a version of success that takes longer than a viral video to achieve. We see it in the explosion of relationship drama on social media that an entire generation consumes as entertainment without noticing that it is normalising chaos as a relationship style.
The Way Forward
A kì í fi ọmọ bọ ajá, kí a wí pé a tọ́ ọ dára. You cannot feed a child to the dogs and claim you raised them well.
Nigeria must stop pretending that the collapse of family values is someone else’s problem. It is everyone’s problem. And it requires everyone’s response.
Fathers must father.
Not just biologically. Not just financially. Presence matters. Consistency matters. The relationship between a father and his child is not a transaction. It is a formation. Every Nigerian man who has brought a child into this world and walked away has not exercised his freedom. He has abdicated his responsibility and handed the bill to a woman, a child and a society that will spend years paying it.
Mothers must guard the home with wisdom not just love.
Love alone does not raise a disciplined child. Structure matters. Standards matter. The mother who is her child’s best friend but not their parent is setting that child up for a very difficult relationship with the real world, which will not love them the same unconditional way.
Parents must reclaim the screens.
Over 60 percent of Nigerian parents do not monitor their children’s social media activity. That statistic must change. Parental controls are not optional extras. They are basic responsibility. A parent who buys their ten year old a smartphone and then pays no attention to what that child is consuming has not given them a gift. They have given an unmonitored child unlimited access to content designed for adults by people who do not know or care about that child’s wellbeing.
Communities and schools must restore value education.
Character formation cannot be outsourced entirely to parents who are themselves struggling. Schools, community leaders, religious institutions and extended family networks must actively teach values, responsibilities and cultural identity. What a child does not learn at home must be reinforced elsewhere or it will not be learned at all.
Stop glamourising dysfunction.
Every time we share, like and celebrate content that normalises multiple baby mamas, irresponsible fatherhood, chaotic relationships and unchecked social media excess, we are voting for more of it. Our engagement is our endorsement. Choose more carefully what you amplify.
The Verdict
Ìdílé tó bàjẹ́ ni ìdílé tí ń bí àwọn ọmọ tí yóò bàjẹ́ ìgbà tó bá dé. A broken family raises children who will break things when they arrive.
Nigeria is not just losing its infrastructure. It is losing something more fundamental and more difficult to rebuild. It is losing the family as a functional institution. It is losing the values that were supposed to pass from generation to generation like a torch that never goes out.
The baby mama drama on social media is entertaining right up until you remember that there is a child at the centre of it. The absent father is living his best life right up until his son grows up without a map for what a man is supposed to be. The uncultured parent scrolling TikTok is having fun right up until their child needs wisdom they never received and cannot give.
This is not about being old fashioned. This is about being honest.
A nation is only as strong as the families that build it. And right now, far too many of Nigeria’s families are being built on sand, on situationships, on social media performance and on the misguided idea that children are resilient enough to survive anything adults put them through.
They are not. They are watching. They are absorbing. And they are becoming.
The question is: what exactly are we making them become?
Abdul’Azeez Bello writes from the streets of Nigeria, where the truth is always louder than the headlines.
My Thoughts Have No Filter.
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