All my life, my dad has never told me he loves me. And I never actually sat down to think that was strange, or that he did not love me. Not hearing those words is normal in the environment I grew up in. And for many African children, it is almost certainly the same, those three words were simply never part of the air you breathed growing up.
Many African parents express love loudly, just never in those words. When you did something that made them proud, they may say “well done,” or “you’ve tried,” or “that’s my child.” But “I love you” never quite made it out of their mouths.
And that raises a question many African children quietly wonder about: Does that mean they do not love you?
Where Does This Come From?
If you have ever sat down to wonder why your parents never said they loved you, or questioned whether they ever did, it helps to get to the root of it. There are a few things worth understanding.
Culture
Across Africa, countries differ in language, food, traditions and ways of life. A Yoruba household in Nigeria looks different from an Amhara household in Ethiopia, but beneath all those differences, there are certain things that bind many African families together. And one of them is an unspoken agreement that some things simply do not get said out loud.
In her book The Spirit of Intimacy, Sobonfu Somé explores how African relationships and family life are deeply shaped by cultural expectations and community values. She describes how in many African communities, love is not a private matter between two people or between a parent and a child. It is something that exists within the wider community, expressed collectively rather than individually.
In that kind of structure, singling someone out to say “I love you” can actually feel out of place, even unnecessary, because belonging itself is the statement. That is a cultural framework that many African children grow up inside without ever having the words to describe it. Love was never meant to be announced. It was meant to be lived within.
Generational Roots
If your parents belong to the Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, or even the generation that followed, it helps to understand the world they grew up in. These were people raised in an era where the primary goal was to please their parents, follow tradition, and pass down exactly what had been handed to them. There was no internet. No social media. No window into how families in other parts of the world were being raised. If their own parents never said “I love you,” they had no reason to believe it was something that needed to be said. It simply was not part of the script they were given, and they passed that same script down to you.
Focus on Survival
For many African parents, especially those who lived through economic hardship, political instability, or even war, life was about survival first. Putting food on the table, keeping the family safe, paying school fees, and maintaining discipline were the priorities. Building an emotional vocabulary was not something people had the luxury of thinking about. Love was shown by showing up, by sacrificing, by doing. Words felt secondary to action, and in many cases, unnecessary altogether. As my mum often says, “actions speak louder than words”.
Emotional Suppression
Beyond culture and circumstance, there is also the reality that many African parents were actively taught to suppress their emotions rather than express them. Men were taught not to cry, though this is still being taught today. Women were taught to carry their struggles silently. Vulnerability was not modelled or encouraged and would even be considered a disgrace, not just to yourself but to your family as well. So when it came to raising their own children, they did what they knew. They loved deeply but quietly, because that was the only way they had ever seen love done.
Also read: The Truth About Being a Firstborn in an African Home
Why Do African Parents Struggle to Say I Love You?
Because they were never taught to. And it is very hard to give something you were never given yourself.
But there is also something else worth naming. For many African parents, saying “I love you” does not just feel unnecessary, it feels strange and uncomfortable even. When a word or phrase has never been part of your vocabulary, never heard in your home growing up, never modelled by the people who raised you, it does not flow naturally; that is just the truth. It can feel forced and awkward, like a phrase spoken in a language you understand but have never actually spoken out loud.
It is encouraging that something is shifting. This generation of African parents is slowly beginning to look different. Exposure to other cultures, particularly through social media, Western media and the growing conversations around therapy and emotional intelligence, has opened a window that previous generations simply did not have.
They are watching how other families communicate. They are seeing what it looks like when a parent tells a child they are loved openly and without hesitation. And many of them are choosing to do it differently, to say the words their own parents never said, to have the conversations their own childhoods never made room for. This is a significant shift, and it’s happening one family at a time.
Conclusion
When questions like this come up about African parents, it always helps to approach them from two angles: the environment they were raised in and compassion. They are human, they carried what they were given, did the best they could with what they knew, and loved in the only language they had ever been taught.
That does not mean the impact on their children was not real. But understanding where it comes from makes it easier to hold both truths at once, that your parents loved you, and that they struggled to say it.
And the next time you find yourself wondering why African parents struggle to say I love you, remember that silence is not always the absence of love.
Author: Chinasa Lovlyn Nwachukwu is a mental health coach and writer with an MSc in Psychology, passionate about raising mental health awareness across Africa. Growing up in Nigeria, she writes from lived experience, exploring the cultural and emotional dynamics that shape mental health in African homes and communities.
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