Let’s respect our parents
SHOCKING cases of children disobeying and being abusive to their parents are on the rise.
The Bible says children must obey their parents so that they can live longer.
In our African tradition, it’s a taboo to lift one’s finger against their parents.
It’s sad when children give their parents sleepless nights through their bad behaviour. They actually deserve better.
On a daily basis, we run stories about children tormenting their parents either by their violent conduct or just outright disobedience.
Some children even have the guts to insult their parents and call them all sorts of names. It’s heart-rending to hear children branding their own parents witches and wizards.
So many parents are applying for protection orders against their children for such labelling.
This is totally unacceptable, whatever the circumstances.
In yesterday’s edition, we ran a sad story about a Budiriro father who doesn’t see eye to eye with his son.
The father won a protection order against his son who had developed a tendency of physically and emotionally abusing him.
The situation had gotten out of hand, prompting the father to seek legal recourse.
The violent son was also accused of destroying his father’s property and disturbing his peace.
As strange as it may sound, this matter should have been resolved at family level had the son humbled himself.
But sadly, the matter spilled into court and the son’s unhinged behaviour was laid bare before strangers.
Children need to respect their parents to avoid embarrassing disputes like the Budiriro cases.
The fact that that such cases end up going to court is a sign of a sick society where the family system has virtually broken down.
The family structure must be the foundation of a strong society. Once the family is broken down, then that particular society is doomed.
Courts should be dealing with more serious issues and not to adjudicate on trivial matters like children being rude and abusive to their parents.
What kind of society are we building with disobedient children? If a child can’t respect their own parent, what more others. It means that child simply lives a delinquent lifestyle.
No wonder crime is at all-time high in this country. We have to fix the family fabric in order to build a strong society and nation.
Let’s reclaim all values of Ubuntu, and not allow a notorious minority to gain the upper in the fight for decency.
Let’s not live movies lives. Those characters are unreal. It’s just acting for entertainment, but unfortunately when one fails to comprehend, they adopt these strange characteristics, which naturally causes a culture clash in Zimbabwe.
Our children should top abusing drugs. This is the one fight the nation must win without fail for us to win the war against crime.
Drug and substance abuse are fuelling the violent behaviour of our children and increasing their propensity for committing crime.
If not stopped now, we risk creating a whole generation of delinquents.