This year’s Christmas has come and gone, and now is the time to take stock, to look back and reflect on how we are slowly turning the birthday of Christ Jesus into a day that risks ruining our children’s lives.
Each festive season is meant to remind us of hope, family tables, laughter, rest after a hard year. Yet beneath the carols and fireworks, a quieter tragedy is unfolding across Zambia.
Children as young as ten are drinking alcohol openly during Christmas celebrations, mimicking adults, borrowing from unguarded bottles, or buying from sellers who ask no questions. What should alarm us most is not that it happens, but that it is increasingly treated as normal.
Alcohol is robbing Zambia’s future in slow, devastating increments.
A ten-year-old with a cup of alcohol is not a harmless curiosity. It is a warning sign. At that age, the brain is still developing, judgment, impulse control, and learning capacity are fragile.
Early exposure to alcohol raises the risk of addiction, poor academic performance, violence, and long-term health problems. It also shortens childhood itself, replacing play and imagination with adult vices that children are not equipped to manage.
The Christmas season exposes the problem because it magnifies it. Homes are stocked with alcohol, celebrations spill into the streets, supervision loosens, and social pressure pushes boundaries.
In too many communities, children are encouraged to “taste,” to “learn early,” or are simply ignored while adults drink. When children see intoxication celebrated, they absorb the message that alcohol is a rite of passage rather than a risk.
This is not only a parenting issue. It is a societal failure.
Alcohol is aggressively marketed, cheaply packaged, and widely available, even near schools and playgrounds. Enforcement of age restrictions is weak, and penalties for selling to minors are rare.
Community silence compounds the problem, neighbours look away, relatives laugh it off, and leaders speak only after tragedy strikes. By then, the damage is already done.
The cost to Zambia is enormous. Classrooms lose learners to poor concentration and dropout. Families struggle with conflict and neglect. Health systems absorb preventable illnesses.
Employers inherit a workforce battling dependency rather than building productivity. When childhood is undermined, national development falters, quietly, persistently.
What makes this crisis particularly painful is that it is preventable. We know what works. Consistent parental supervision, firm community norms, responsible celebrations, and real enforcement of the law.
We know that children need safe spaces during holidays, sports, reading, church and community activities that give structure and joy without substances. We know that sellers must be held accountable and that public leaders must speak plainly and act decisively.
Christmas should not be the season when childhood is lost.
If we continue to excuse early drinking as tradition or harmless fun, we are choosing convenience over conscience. Zambia cannot afford that choice. Our future depends on children who are protected, educated, and given time to grow, not rushed into habits that steal their potential before it has a chance to unfold.
The question this Christmas is simple and urgent – will we keep celebrating while our children drink, or will we finally draw a line to defend the future we claim to cherish?
The image used is AI-generated and is used for illustrative purposes only. It does not depict real people or an actual event.
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