What does it mean to honor your parents, and how do we honor or dishonor them? Having been raised in Asia, I understand that some of the specific practices below may not be applicable to the Western world which emphasizes individualism and unilateral decision making without regard to parental counsel.
1. Listen to parental counsel. There must be a willing spirit to receive instruction. You dishonor your parents when you do not consult with them on important life decisions. Do not leave them out of important decisions in life. Seek their counsel. You will be ultimately responsible for your decision, but at the very least, give them your time to listen to their concerns and counsel.
D. James Kennedy wrote,
In today’s world, some children don’t show honor to their parents because they are afraid their friends will call them a “mama’s boy” or a “daddy’s girl.” But you know there is nothing at all wrong with being a mama’s boy.
I think of a young man who wanted desperately to join the navy and see the world. He dreamed of being captain of a ship someday. What a thrill that would be!
His mother, however, was not thrilled by the idea of her son, who was just sixteen, going off to sea. She walked with him down to the port, and just as he was getting ready to leave, she said to him, “Son, I just have no peace about your going off to sea. I have prayed a great deal about this, and I really wish you wouldn’t go.”
What did this young man do? He said to one of the other sailors there, “I cannot sail off and break my mother’s heart,” and he went home with her.
He never became the captain of a ship, but he did go on to command an entire army, as president of the United States. The young man was George Washington, who had been taught the Ten Commandments as a child and knew the importance of honoring his father and mother.[1]
2. Respect your parents. Treat your parents with utmost respect. Treat them as distinguished (even if you think that they do not deserve it). No parents are perfect. We are all fallen beings. But that does not give you the license to disrespect them. There are several ways you can disrespect your parents. Here are a few examples:
(a) You disrespect your parents when you keep silent, and tolerate insults on your parents from others.
(b) You disrespect your parents when you distort facts in order to cast a negative image on your parents while giving a positive image of yourself.
(c) You disrespect your parents when you speak ill of them to your friends. When someone belittles or demeans his/her parents, he/she is diminished himself/herself. And when a person excuses his/her failures by reciting the errors of a parent, I think the right response might be, “Grow up! If you can perceive the mistakes of your parents so clearly, you must surely be perceptive enough to know how to remedy them.”[2] Dr. Laura Schlessinger also says,
If they do not agree with or support everything we do, if they don’t shower us with a constant flow of affections and approval, they are bad and to be shunned, according to popular philosophy. I have been concerned for decades about the ultimate destructive impact of so-called therapeutic “confrontations” and the trend toward blaming one’s parents for all one’s current ills and problems.[3]
(d) You disrespect your parents when you do not call them by the proper designation of “mom” or “dad” or “mother” or “father”. Some children have called their parents names (such as “evil father”) unworthy of mention in this article. Call them by their proper designations. Dr. Laura Schlessinger laments that the loss of manners in addressing seniors. “No longer do we refer to people with the formal address of Mr., Mrs., or Miss. Remember when most of us were growing up, the idea of calling an adult by his first name was ridiculous? With the use of these formal forms of address, we learned that we did not treat adults in the same way we might treat other children.”[4] In Japan, respect is conveyed by bowing; in India and many Asian countries, it is conveyed by proper designation. No one would ever think of calling their father and mother by their first names.
(e) You disrespect your parents when you speak in a harsh tone of voice. Speak to them in a pleasant tone. I have heard of children or even adult children screaming at their parents. That is a NO, NO. Both your tone of voice and attitude of heart should communicate respect and honor for your parents.[5]
(f) You disrespect your parents when you (a boy) do not ask permission from a girl’s parents to date or court their daughter. Asking for permission is the minimum courtesy to be extended to parents who have raised their daughter and have given their life to her.
(g) You disrespect your parents when you (either you are a boy or a girl) do not ask their permission and blessing to pursue a life-long relationship with a boy/girl. In honoring parents at this stage the child should respect parental counsel, carefully weigh their judgment, follow their advice if at all possible, and be patient, praying for and wisely working toward a consensus with them. In the final analysis the child must make his/her own choices.[6] But the son or daughter who truly honors his/her parents will never make such a choice lightly. David Wheaton writes,
When you’re divinely dating, make sure you seek and listen to those who know you best and want the best for you, namely, your parents.
Most people strongly resist being under authority because it goes against our human pride. “I will make my own decisions; I will be the master of my own ship; I won’t let anyone tell me what to do!”
So they pay the price. Ask a divorced person sometime if their parents wholeheartedly approved of their marriage. My anecdotal poll says that the answer is invariably no…To the contrary, you will have a difficult time finding a divorced couple where both sets of parents gave their wholehearted approval.
Before you become so emotionally attached that it would be difficult to let go, make a special point to introduce the person to your parents. Spend time together with your own family. Spend time together with your dating partner’s family.
If after plenty of interaction your parents have major problems with your choice of a dating partner, you had better take their warning very seriously. To “honor” means you make every effort to obey. That is why I say get your parents involved early rather than a week before the wedding.[7]
(h) You disrespect your parents when you ignore their presence especially during public functions.
(i) You disrespect your parent when you do not invite them to your wedding.
3. Do not shame them. In Asian culture, you dishonor your parents when you shame them either privately or publicly, and one would never shame his/her parents before the extended family. In cultures where community solidarity is of extreme importance, care must be taken to avoid shame upon the parents, thereby incurring shame on the entire community. Dr. Laura Schlessinger says,
One should try not to embarrass or humiliate a parent in public. This might include not retaliating if your parent behaves inappropriately toward you. Always let a parent save face or give them the benefit of the doubt. It is the responsibility of any child, adult or otherwise, to remind the parent, respectfully and privately, of any duty for which the parent is responsible. The idea is to correct the parent without shaming him, even in private.
When parents refuse to be responsible, when they break civil and moral laws or jeopardize life and limb of innocent “neighbors,” you are required to stand between your parents and those laws or innocents. [8]
4. Obeying them. Several clarifications are in order. First, there should not be “blind obedience” to a moral wrong. Disobedience, however, does not give you license to dishonor your parents. They are not the same. A person can disobey when parental demand contradicts a moral law, but the person can still honor his/her parents. Young people must, however, not be too quick to use the “moral wrong” to justify disobedience. Be careful to evaluate whether the demand is substantial enough for you to disobey. Many of the reasons given by young people may not fall into the category of moral wrong. Many of the complaints adult children have against their parents may simply be classified as “irritation” or “annoyance” which you need to accept as a reality of the parental challenge you were given. There are some parents who are violent, sexually aggressive, or emotionally destructive. Most of the confusions lie between “irritation” and “blatantly evil.”[9] When a parent is more pathetic than dangerously evil, it is healing to find safe and reasonable means of showing honor – a call, a card, or a visit. Perhaps those efforts might even result in an opportunity for a parent to express remorse and make attempts to repair their damage.[10]
Second, when a person is married, the obedience aspect of honoring is no longer operative because the person has established a new home where the husband is now head. But there are other ways of expressing honor to parents after you are married.
Third, children are not to be possessed with an attitude of stubbornness and rebellion. There are consequences of stubbornness and rebellion.
5. Not to curse parents. Dr. Laura Schlessinger says,
As children growing up, we yearned to be free and in control. By being the center of our own universe, virtually idolizing our whims and desires, we were frustrated by who stood between us and that power: our parents. In our internal struggle between our animal and potential human selves, it is easy to disdain and exaggerate parental faults, maximize negative moments, and so forth, in an attempt to eliminate the lessons, controls, and punishments...[11]
6. Not to treat parents with contempt.
7. Not to mock parents.
8. Not to treat parents as fools. You dishonor your parents when you think that they are stupid because you have a higher education than they have. You may have the IQ, but they may have higher WQ (wisdom quotient). Their wisdom will steer you away from many troubles.
9. Not to exert physical violence against parents.
Notes:
[1] D. James Kennedy, Why The Ten Commandments Matter, 92-93.
[2] C. W. Christian, Covenant and Commandment, 133.
[3] Laura Schlessinger, The Ten Commandments, 153.
[4] Laura Schlessinger, The Ten Commandments, 136.
[5] D. James Kennedy, Why The Ten Commandments Matter, 89.
[6] Robert McQuilkin, Biblical Ethics, 287.
[7] David Wheaton, University of Destruction (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2005), 64-65.
[8] Laura Schlessinger, The Ten Commandments, 157.
[9] Ibid., 159.
[10] Ibid., 162.
[11] Ibid., 145-46
