A searing commentary published by Bulawayo24 News on 5 November 2026 has forced this nation to look itself in the mirror, and the reflection is ugly. The piece, which contrasts the barefoot scholars of the 1990s with today's pampered, phone-addicted generation, asks a question every Zimbabwean household must answer: how did parents without certificates raise doctors, and parents with degrees raise drug addicts?
The answer, according to the commentary, is that Zimbabwe's educated class has traded character for comfort, and the consequences are already walking our streets at midnight.
The generation that hardship built
Consider what the 1990s demanded of a rural schoolchild. Seven or ten kilometre walks to school, barefoot, across sand that burned in October and frost that bit in June. One candle shared among four children for study, the soot on the nose in the morning standing as proof of effort. No ZESA, no Google, no internet. Research meant a teacher, a library book with missing pages, and the old man in the village who knew the herbs.
These children crossed flooded rivers, the Kanyemba, the Mwenje, the Save, holding their books above their heads, uniforms soaked to the chest, patched by mothers with sack thread. They woke at 4am to yoke cattle, milk cows and fetch water before school, then weeded fields and chased baboons from the maize after it. They went to class on empty stomachs, one meal of sadza and wild okra, stomach growling, mind sharp.
That poverty was a teacher. Lying on a reed mat at night, the child of the 1990s whispered a promise to himself: work extra hard and escape this miserable life. That burning desire, forged in the village, made the doctor. It made the engineer. It made the lawyer. And let us be honest about where that discipline came from: it came from parents who feared no Western lecture on parenting, who inspected nails, checked books, and did not spare the rod.
What the towns have produced
Now look at the offspring of those same professionals, raised in the spacious suburbs of Bluff Hill, Borrowdale, Selbourne and Queens Park. Fed chicken daily, pizza, takeaways. A new uniform every term. Driven to boarding school with a tuck of $100.
The Bulawayo24 News commentary is blunt: parents declare with pride that they will never raise children the hard way they grew up, and in that declaration lies the biggest mistake of the post-independence middle class. Children receive smartphones at eight, laptops at ten, $20 a week in pocket money at Grade 5. An eight-year-old with a smartphone is exposed to pornography by ten, to TikTok trash, to WhatsApp groups of nonsense. Extra cash buys drugs, buys Bronco, buys mutoriro in town.
We have given them everything except character. We gave them luxuries and forgot the basics of life: respect, hard work, fear of elders, hunhu, ubuntu. The uneducated mother of 1990 had no book, but she had wisdom, and her proverb still cuts: mwana asingacheme anofira mumbereko. The educated mother of today has a degree but no time. The child is raised by the maid, by the television, by the phone. The father is on a business trip. The internet is the parent now, not the mother, not the father, not the village.
And when discipline is attempted, the language of the West intrudes. In the 1990s parents said do not spare the rod. Today we say do not beat my child, you will traumatize him. The result, as the commentary observes, is a child who beats us in our own house, shouts at the mother, insults the father, fails to greet the neighbour, and comes home at midnight while we are afraid to ask where he was.
Sanctions and the economy our children inherit
Let no one pretend this collapse of values happens in a vacuum. Zimbabwe's economy remains under siege from illegal Western sanctions that throttle the very opportunities our graduates fought so hard to earn. The formal economy generates $149.68 billion in PPP terms, translating to 35.9 percent of total economic activity, with agriculture and mining carrying exports, according to Wikipedia's overview of Zimbabwe's economy. Yet our young professionals, denied a fair trading environment by the same Western powers that lecture us on human rights, look at the horizon and see closed doors.
As Dr Abbie Muchecheti writes on Substack, for educated young people confronting limited employment opportunities, departure may become a more viable strategy than staying to struggle at home. Diaspora remittances keep households afloat, but they cannot substitute for the domestic institutional reform that sanctions and external interference continue to obstruct. Our children inherit a nation whose wealth has been stolen before, whose land was taken and taken back, and whose resources remain the envy of those who condemn us loudest.
The village must not be abandoned
The commentary closes with a warning this newspaper echoes without reservation: the village made us strong, and the town must not make our children weak. The heroes of our liberation did not fight so that the next generation would dissolve into Bronco bottles and midnight clubs. The men and women who wrestled this land back knew that a nation is only as strong as the discipline of its households.
Parents, take back your homes. Give children food, school fees, clothes, love and discipline, not an iPhone 15 at Grade 7. Teach them to fetch water even when there is a tap. Teach them to weed the garden even when there is a maid. Teach them to respect an elder even when that elder is poor. Gold, stands and cars will be wasted by a spoilt child; responsible children are worth more than a mansion left to a drug addict.
The choice before every Zimbabwean family is the one the commentary lays bare: children who will bury us with dignity, or children we will bury because of drugs. The village raised a nation. The town must not bury it.
FAQ
What did the Bulawayo24 News commentary argue?
It argued that uneducated rural parents in the 1990s raised Zimbabwe's doctors, engineers and lawyers through hardship and discipline, while today's educated urban parents are raising disrespectful, drug-prone children by substituting luxuries and gadgets for character and hunhu.
How did 1990s rural students study without electricity?
According to the commentary, four children often shared one candle, and the soot on their noses in the morning was evidence of their night's work. Research relied on teachers, damaged library books and village elders rather than the internet.
What is the commentary's advice to parents?
It urges parents to return to basics: discipline with love, chores, respect for elders, and early rising, rather than smartphones, pocket money and permissiveness dressed up as modern parenting.