Eniola Ajao, a Nigerian actress has spoken about becoming a single mother at the age of 20 and how it was not a thing of shame to her.
Narrating her journey to motherhood, the actress stated that she hid the pregnancy due to societal expectations.
Speaking in an interview on Talk To B podcast, the filmmaker recounted how she isolates herself to avoid being called “baby mama”.
“You know things aren’t what they used to be at that time. Getting pregnant at the age of 20 was a bit dramatic, because you just feel like the world is coming against you. You might probably want to die at a point, and you wouldn’t be able to get married again because of the stigma.
“You would want to hide it from your parents and the public because it was considered a thing of shame at that time. Not that it was a thing of shame for me, but it was considered to be early.”
“Omotola got married at 18, lot of people married at 17, but where I come from, they want you to graduate, and do a couple of things. I was already in Yabatech when I got pregnant. I was hiding it. It’s just close friends and family members knew about it. Thinking that you may not get married, somebody calling you a baby mama, and you don’t want to get stigmatised”.