The lottery of birth of Robert Junior and Chatunga is getting them wasted

Some people will say it is a jack pot to be born of the rich, powerful and famous. Some would say count your blessings to have won the lottery to be of the loins and womb of the rich but other people would think otherwise. The reports in electronic media reveal that Robert Junior and Chatunga are routinely involved in neighbourhood antisocial behaviour, drunken disorderly and being a public naissance. In the past week the presidential kids had their tenancy contract to their expensive rented apartment abruptly terminated without notice following a drunken brawl on the premises of the apartments.

The behaviour of these two lads is a manifestation of the handicaps of being born in the margins of greatness and the subsequent social destructiveness of character as a consequence of influence and unlimited access to money. It is said that being a man is a matter of age, being a gentleman is the matter of choice but the ability to make good or bad choices is a matter of upbringing and childhood experiences. These lads grew up in a social environment preoccupied with them becoming highly marketable commodities, pursuing activities chiefly if they looked good, being looked at with high esteem, where they received attention from others or when they got treated as young heroes born of a hero. They appear to have had little time for the exploration of who they are as individuals or for nurturing their unique interests and talents.

They were always obstructed by the exposure to good living and an extravagant lifestyle of their parents which has become the boys' benchmark of interpreting social and behavioural norms including their relationship with money. Children are mirror images of their parents in appreciating and navigating social values and rules of natural ethics. The first family's parenting and exhibition of role modelling was and has always been that of control over others, spendthrift, superiority over others and a lack of compassion towards those unfortunate in life toiling in the poverty trap.

Robert Junior and brother Chatunga exemplify the need for them to live a life style that meets the standard of living that portrays parental life style expectations and to maintain the mantle of superiority is to the two brothers a special imperative to carry on the expectations of high esteem. This is reinforced by the collusion of their parents who are all too willing to fund these boys' prodigal lifestyle. The parents also actively bail the rather truant lads out if they run into self-inflicted problems using money that should be shared amongst all the youths in Zimbabwe. The parents of these boys are busy ZANU PF ambassadors who may have been viewed by the boys as disproportionately valuing their own personal successes, paying too much of their time to preserving ‘one centre power' far more than they valued them as their children. The boys then grow up showing elevated symptoms of detachment from their parents who were always absent away on business and therefore the boys respond poorly to parental advice and guidance.

Money, security guards and hired maids unfortunately became the main source of parenting adopted by their parents with a resultant effect of a lack of positive attachments. The moneyed boys are disturbingly preoccupied with gaining high power in their peer group by grandstanding via money, sex, and substance and alcohol misuse. Prolific addicts and users of drugs and alcohol have a potential to suffer from a mental health and behavioural disorder due to use of illicit substances and alcohol. Robert Junior and Chatunga are chasing the social dominance of the "cool" factor that is related to good looks, expensive clothes, latest car makes, living in a good apartment and showing off their wealth. If the presidential born boys can drop a cool two thousand dollars every Friday night outing they are most likely to achieve the ultimate dominant male stamp by being desired by many girls, hold all night stag parties, and indulge in illicit and casual intimate relationships.

While the Mugabe boys are having a good time in the sun shine city of Johannesburg, the city that never sleeps their father, President Mugabe addresses the obedient poverty stricken ZANU PF thoughtless youth and believers lying to them that there is life for them in ZANUPF but only as far as supporting him to return power and for him to continue to fund the extravagancy of his own children. Mugabe's Robert Junior and Chatunga is a special breed of youths. They are not required to attend the boring youth interface rallies. It's for the ‘povo' youths desperate to be given housing stands and farms that do not exist. Children born of other parents some of them small school children are frog marched to attend Mugabe's rallies and his two lads are conspicuously absent from such gathering. Why is that? During these rallies the main theme is about Mugabe and nothing about tangible and sustainable outcomes for youth development. ZANU PF youths are required as running dogs, violent youth militia, farms invaders, slogan chanters and party big wigs entertainers. The manipulative Mugabe will deliberately omit talking about youth education and tuition fees, youth health and wellbeing, youth training and employment, youth entrepreneurship and micro business financing, and youth policy and legislation during youth interface rallies. The money for youth development is diverted to fund the luxury lifestyle of his children and those of his cabal. All their children receive education overseas with lucrative education benefits, allowances and numerous grants. That is good leadership, isn't it?

It is high time for young people of Zimbabwe to demand the best for their country by thinking of themselves and think about their future at this early stage. They need to think beyond the present and be able to visualize a country where the next generation can do better than the last with a strong social and economic foundation and higher standards of living for its citizens. ZANU PF is not the appropriate mentor to lead the youth into the next generation.