By Patricia Uyeh

Veteran actor, Richard Mofe Damijo is gushing over his daughter as she turns 14 today. The loving dad took to Instagram sharing a rare photo collage of her and wrote:

“My baby, my sunshine, For hero-worshiping me, Thank you.

”For loving me wholeheartedly and unconditionally, Thank you. For not understanding why people want to take pictures with me but you let them anyway, Thank you. For sharing me with many others, Thank you. I look at you and I thank God everyday for gifting you to me, because there is no doubt how special you are.

”Daughter dearest, I have only one worry. I worry about the difference between your generation and mine and wonder if I will ever be a good enough parent for you.

”Yea, I want to be the cool dad you want me to be, you know the one that would let you have your 14th birthday party at a condo, let you have all your friends to the party. Let you wear whatever you wish to wear and let you stay out till 11pm… Well, darling you have to forgive me because that’s never going to happen.

” As much as I’d love to be really cool and all, it is way more important to me that you grow up with deep seated values that are, Christian and African, then when you’re old enough you can decide what you want. So for now, as the quintessential African dad and correct Urhobo man, I just have to Censor your friends. Create a curfew. Censor your outfits.

”Curtail your access to social media… So no, you still can not have an instagram account this year or even next and just so you know, even a 3.8 gpa would not be good enough to make me change my mind.

”You see baby, unlike your generation that thinks it’s cool, my generation looks beyond what’s cool, so I choose what is right and appropriate.

”Yea, I understand you think it’s weird and not cool and not fair but hey baby, I just cant help myself because I am just an Urhobo man that sent his daughter to the US and would rather she turn out right than be a cool dad, so again, Thank you for loving me unconditionally and I love you from some place deeper than the bottom of my heart.

”Happy 14th birthday my baby dearest, God bless and keep you always. Daddy.”

Image credit: @ mofedamijo