“I Was Too Harsh”—Mercy Aigbe Gets Honest About Parenting Regrets
At the premiere of her new film My Mother Is a Witch, Nollywood star Mercy Aigbe took a vulnerable step—opening up about the tough lessons she’s learned as a mother.
Standing before a crowd, she shared what many African parents rarely do: she made mistakes, and she’s learning to do better.
“I was really strict with Michelle,” she admitted. “Looking back, I was harsh. I won’t sugarcoat it. But I believed I was doing what was best at the time.”
The actress reflected on how distance and time helped her see her parenting style through her daughter’s eyes. After sending Michelle to study in Canada, Mercy recalled a moment that shook her.
“I kept calling, and she wouldn’t answer. I got worried and reached out to her friend,” she said. “When Michelle finally picked up, I asked her what was wrong, and she said, ‘Mum, I’m traumatised.’ I asked, ‘Trauma? What do you mean?’ And she reminded me of the day I hit her on the head with a bucket.”
View this post on Instagram
Mercy paused, her voice filled with emotion. “At the time, I brushed it off. I even thought, ‘She’s just being dramatic.’ But the truth is—I wasn’t thinking about how that moment stayed with her.”
She said that moment forced her to reflect not just as a parent, but as a person.
“I’ve realized we, as African parents, don’t listen enough. We don’t say sorry. We hide behind ‘discipline’ when sometimes, we just don’t want to admit we were wrong.”
For Mercy, the film isn’t just a story—it’s a mirror. “We’ve got so many adults walking around with scars from childhood they’ve never talked about,” she said. “This film challenges us to open up, to heal, to start saying things like, ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ to our kids.”
She ended with a simple, powerful truth: “I’ve apologized to my daughter. If I can do it, other parents can too.”
