Society has neglected its future by letting the youth be its guide.
Not so long ago, the young were shaped and guided by the community. Those were the times when if a child made a mistake in the vicinity of an adult, the adult would correct them verbally or by a beating.
We then started by banning corporal punishment in schools and discouraging it at home. This was the first mistake towards being a lost society.
Children started believing that making mistakes and walking scot-free, without any consequence, was their fundamental and most important human right.
You punish a child by beating them then you stand to be answerable either to angry parents or angry neighbours. This mistake then translated to broken and spoilt children who end up being miscreants— because they are used to getting away with mistakes.
Now we are crying and complaining that the young generation is corrupted, forgetting that we created the mess. We now want to start remoulding clay that is already dry and broken.
We should go back to the ways of our ancestors in terms of instilling discipline to tame the dragons of our future.
If we have not been able to handle the mistakes of this generation then let’s start healing the future of the future. “Usipoziba ufa utajenga ukuta (If you don't repair cracks you will rebuild the wall)” is a Kiswahili proverb that should be considered a national slogan.
If we let our children steal from our homes then we risk creating robbers and white-collar thieves. If we continue to bribe children to do something, forget about fighting corruption.
