During a recent episode of The Nancy Isime Show, Hermes Chibueze Iyele, popularly known as a former Big Brother Naija contestant, opened up about the profound impact of his mother's absence in his life. Joined by his fellow colleague Phyna, Hermes shared his personal experience of being raised solely by his father and the challenges he faced growing up without his mother present.
According to Hermes, his father did an outstanding job raising him and his siblings while always emphasizing the importance of not harboring any hatred towards their mother. However, he expressed deep sadness when witnessing other students' mothers attending Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meetings while his own mother never showed up.
Impact of Mother's Absence on Hermes' Life
"One significant thing I think affected me a lot was not having my mum around. A lot of people really think that me looking for my mum [when she went missing from a psychiatric centre], with all the love that I did, she was so present in my life. No. She was absent my entire life.
"My entire life was just longing to... I will be in school. I will see people's mums come for PTAs and whatnot, and I will just feel like, Oh! My God, my mum is so pretty if she came here now, I would probably have like so many more friends. It never happened.
"The silver lining for me, why I really still have love to give, is my dad. And I think something happened in the Big Brother show, I think we were sitting in the dining room, it was an argument about how men could not.
"Someone said men could not take care of children as much as women would love and take care of them. I felt really attacked by that because my dad raised me. He did an absolutely great job. He took care of really young kids. Got a bus to hustle and train us through school. It was a lot,"
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