GUEST ARTICLE: Don’t feel ashamed If you work hard, but your honest sweat can only afford veggies
By Laura Miti
Many men, in Zambia, wake up the day after Father’s Day, to tautly stretched finances. Finances that absolutely do not reflect the effort they put in, to get them.
A bank balance with immunity to hard work.
A salary that refuses to touch the end of the month or a business that is not doing too well.
They might even be in between jobs – in between stretching longer than the combined employment.
This is in a country where even men who are readily paying their important bills, can be made to feel less by others.
Where the crazy, yes, but increasingly accepted, standard of success is flashing money and stuff that look like they come out of a bottomless pit.
Simply, it is tough to be the “broke” man, in Zambia, even if that broke is relative to a standard that makes no sense.
It is tougher on the soul, when the hard grind to provide, is not appreciated.
Whining wives, and mothers of children who respond with an atase vibe, to what a man has battled to get.
The – onani banzanu – story.
Or just failure to understand how hard the man works to earn the money that keeps body and soul together.
Then there are children who do not know, or care, that dad stays awake at night – quite literally – worrying about food, fees, rent.
Just saying that this Zambia can damage the soul of a good man. An honest man. A committed father.
If you fit this description, please know this – be ashamed only if you sit on your backside, doing nothing.
If you work hard, but your honest sweat can only afford vegetables, know that you are as much a man as another whose family drove a fancy car, to a fancy joint for Father’s Day lunch, yesterday.
You are as much him, only if that lunch was the result of honest work.
But if the soft life he can afford, is dishonourably earned – you are double and treble him.
May those you struggle for, celebrate you.
Above all, may the days ahead be better.
This is to wish a belated Father’s Day, to all the men doing their damnest to honestly take care of those they are responsible for.
Kalemba June 22, 2026