Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
THE dictionary defines a compass as: “a magnetic or electronic device used to determine the cardinal directions” of, say, a ship on a voyage at sea or that of an aircraft in flight to safely reach their destinations under the controls of a captain and of a pilot and/or co-pilot.
Just as the examples sighted above of a ship on a voyage and that of a plane in flight to their respective destinations compasses are indispensable to families particularly in Zimbabwe at present with youths, and no doubt some adults as well, wallowing under the abuses of drugs and substances which cause them to lose direction as can happen with aircraft in flight and ships on voyage without compasses to guide them.
The abusers of drugs and substances are potentially future leaders of this country and so one shudders to think or imagine just how our great nation can be shepherded into a brave new future by people whom illicit drugs and substances have rendered directionless as in the case in point right now with the Government authorities virtually engaged in helter-skelter ways to try to put things under control.
In the prevailing circumstances it is no exaggeration by this communicologist, to suggest that parents and other relatives have dismally failed to play their roles as moral compasses in the home.
Some fathers have been content with only working and providing food, clothing and financing the education of their children but leaving their sons to navigate their own ways into the future when the man also ought to have played indispensable roles as moral compasses by ensuring as compasses that their sons followed principles of right and wrong in their behaviour as responsible citizens.
Which suggests the avoidance of criminal activities such as theft, violence, drug abuse in adherence to legal statutes as responsible citizens.
Wives as co-pilots of their families should also play their moral compass roles by, for instance, guiding their daughters to shun immoral, criminal and other anti-social activities such as prostitution and all of which are unbefitting to people expected to grow up, get married and raise families as responsible mothers in society.
To sum up the above topic which deserves nationwide discussions to find solutions to challenges bedevilling, and threatening to derail this country’s young generation from playing indispensable future roles in our Zimbabwean society, parents should regard themselves as commissars responsible for moral education in their families.
Online Reporter