EVERY generation has its teachers. The difference is that today’s teachers are no longer found only at home. They now live on phone screens.
A girl wakes up and checks her social media before speaking to anyone in her family. By the time she leaves for school, she has already watched videos on beauty, relationships, success, fashion, and what a “real woman” should be. She has received lessons from people who know nothing about her values, her struggles, or her future.
That is what happens when the voices at home grow silent.
Many mothers still provide food, clothing, school fees, and everything money can buy. Many no longer provide what daughters need just as much. They no longer provide conversations.
No one should mistake talking for scolding. The two are not the same. Many daughters know what it feels like to be corrected. Far fewer know what it feels like to be guided. There is a world of difference between issuing instructions and sharing wisdom.
Life has changed. Mothers are carrying burdens their own mothers never imagined. Jobs are demanding. Businesses are struggling. Bills keep rising. Survival often takes priority over everything else. Exhaustion has become a permanent member of many households.
The tragedy is that children do not pause their growth because their parents are tired.
Every stage of a girl’s life comes with questions. Some are about friendship. Some are about the body she is growing into. Others are about love, pressure, rejection, ambition, money, or the fear of not being enough. Those questions will always be answered. Silence does not remove them. It simply hands them over to someone else.
The internet has gladly accepted the job.
Social media has become the modern village square, except that nobody knows who the elders are. A teenager receives relationship advice from someone chasing followers. She learns confidence from carefully edited photographs. She measures beauty against impossible standards. She mistakes attention for love because nobody has explained the difference.
Many of the voices speaking to our daughters are loud. Very few are wise.
The consequences are no longer hidden. Cases of online exploitation continue to rise. Human traffickers no longer wait at motor parks. They now recruit through direct messages. Fake job offers arrive with polished logos. False promises of scholarships, modelling contracts, and overseas opportunities are packaged so well that even educated adults sometimes believe them.
Young girls are expected to detect deception in a world where deception has become sophisticated. That expectation is unfair if nobody has prepared them for it.
Womanhood is not something a girl discovers on her eighteenth birthday. It is built little by little through everyday conversations. A mother who speaks honestly about self respect, dignity, boundaries, education, and financial independence gives her daughter something that no expensive school can guarantee. She gives her judgment.
Judgment is becoming one of the rarest qualities in our society. Information is everywhere. Wisdom is becoming scarce.
This conversation is not an attempt to place blame on mothers. Fathers have responsibilities they cannot delegate. A father’s respect for women quietly teaches his daughter what respect should look like. Families function best when both parents become active participants in raising confident children.
Communities also have work to do. Teachers, religious leaders, relatives, and mentors should never assume someone else is having these important conversations. Many girls are surrounded by adults yet still grow up emotionally alone.
Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of our time is the belief that providing a child with comfort is the same as preparing that child for life. Comfort is important. Guidance is essential. One feeds the body. The other protects the future.
A daughter may not remember every meal her mother cooked. She may not remember every dress she wore as a child. She will remember the conversations that gave her courage when life became confusing.
Every girl will learn what it means to be a woman. Society will make sure of that. Friends will teach. The internet will teach. Experience will teach. Success will teach. Pain will teach.
The real question is whether her mother’s voice will still be loud enough to be heard above all the others.
- West is a seasoned journalist and development practitioner with over a decade of experience in media, human rights advocacy, and NGO leadership. Her syndicated column, The Wednesday Lens, is published every Wednesday in News Point Nigeria newspaper. She can be reached at bomawest111@gmail.com.