Is The Health Of A Nation A Reflection Of The Health Of Its Families?

Family is the basic unit of society. Therefore, it goes without saying that society is a composition of families. Hence, a morally ill society is a reflection of morally ill families. When we talk of social evils like corruption, injustice, misuse of power etc. more often we shift our focus to leaders forgetting that leadership is just a title; these people are children born and bred in our families.

For instance, whenever a leader is exposed on issues of integrity or rather lack of it, we descend upon them with hate and criticism; we demonize them and even ostracize them. What hypocrisy! We adopt holier than thou attitudes and forget that we too are hanging on the same integrity scale; the only difference being, we’ve not been placed under an auditor’s lens (Almost every human being is or will be a leader at some point in their life. Whether you’re heading a nation, a religious body, a learning institution, a home etc. as long as someone is looking up to you for guidance, provision, protection or direction, you’re a leader).

(Back to our selective thinking) I must admit that it’s proper for a society to demand accountability from its *celebrated* leaders but hey! before you remove the speck of sawdust from your brother’s eye roll out the log in your eye first. What I mean is, take a keen look at your life and do a self-assessment. If you’re placed on the integrity scale, would you pass the test? Then look around your house. Those young fellows running around in your home without a care in the world will soon occupy positions of leadership in our society. Are you playing your role as a mentor/trainer/role model to ensure they grow into men and women of integrity? Or will they end up being shouted down by their subjects like you’re doing to your current leaders now?

So before we go shouting from the rooftops about how so and so is corrupt or greedy let’s put our house in order first. Solomon taught, ‘train a child in the way (s)he should go and when (s)he’s old (s)he’ll not depart from it.’ If you play your role well, you can rest assured that even if your son/daughter involuntarily finds himself/herself sharing an environment with a crook(s), they will come out clean.

One thing I can tell for sure is that as long as the moral fabric of our families has decay issues; it’ll continue to reflect on our political, economic and social arenas. Because the people steering the wheels in those places of influence are not human imports from other planets; they’re our very own sons and daughters. 

This only means one thing; the buck stops with the parents/guardians. Introduce a third party, delegate the responsibility of molding your children's character to those third parties and the outcome will utterly frustrate you.

Parents/guardians stop blaming teachers, peers, religious leaders, media and political leaders for the moral woes plaguing your children. Arise and instill moral values in your children with the same commitment you have when it comes to putting food on their table. It’s your responsibility to bring up wholesome children, stop delegating some bits to third parties. It’s a shame how you toil so hard to fill their tummies/nourish their bodies yet do little or nothing to stock up their moral banks with values. Morality is a core aspect of a society’s health without which the risk of succumbing to decadence is unavoidable.

So I challenge every member of our society to spare the time they use dissecting their leaders and complaining about their failures and use that time nurturing and instilling values in their own children. Take a moment and evaluate your children’s behavior. Ask yourself how you’ve contributed to certain behaviors. If you note wayward behaviors in them and you’re convinced they’re as a result of influence from maybe peers or media, then you’re biased. The only reason they’re behaving so is because they lack a particular virtue hence the vice. A vice can only occupy a void that was meant to be occupied by a virtue. So suppress the vices by instilling values.

If all of us purpose to roll out the logs in our eyes and succeed in doing it, then we can rest assured that we’ll enjoy our old age in a safe and just society. 

It's your call, parents and guardians.