Are we to respect bad parents?

[Joko2599]

We’re all familiar with the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother. I understand that God wants us to love our parents and give them our undivided respect. And for my mom, I have nothing but love. She has showered me with emotional support and has done everything in her power to make sure I had a successful life. I am very lucky to have her as my mother.

However, this completely breaks down when it comes to my father. He has been a very hurtful, neglectful, and overall callous person who I genuinely feel no love for. I know that is an absolutely terrible thing to say, but he’s done awful things throughout my life that I cannot overlook.

-He often belted/punched me while growing up. Not simple spankings, mind you. This man was brutal for no good reason. He’s hit me in the face/neck and elsewhere for what he perceived to be “disrespect.” I remember he even bruised me once a long time ago and applied lotion and ointment to try and heal it. He was ruthless.
-He was known for driving my younger brother and I around while drunk, swerving the car and behaving recklessly behind the wheel. I remember being scared as a kid but not being able to do anything.
-He would often throw me out of the car when angry, once in an isolated location where I didn’t know how far away my destination was (walking). He also threatened to call the police on me an a regular basis for no good reason, causing emotional stress for me and my younger brother.
-Once, when I was heading into a church for volunteer event, he threw me out of the car and called me a “motherfuing devil son from hl” in front of all the organizers there. This wasn’t a one time thing either – he is known for being extremely verbally abusive. He has referred to me in extremely vulgar terms constantly.

Beyond this, he has generally been a hypocrite. He condescends to my mom and I about “family values” and “following God” – yet he never lived by his word. He has never held a stable job, was terrible at maintaining the house, leeched off my mom for money, and yelled at us constantly. We would often leave the apartment whenever my father went on one of his tirades.

He’s currently in the Philippines right now, so we don’t have to deal with him. And my mom is doing an excellent job taking care of my younger brother while working a full-time job and maintaining the household. Life is extremely peaceful for them.

My question is this: am I to respect a man who has given my family nothing but grief? My aunts, uncles, and my grandmother are always furious with me for not loving him – but how is it possible to? I don’t wish him any harm. That would be very wrong. But I want to completely block him from my life – I don’t want to see, talk to, or have to deal with him ever again. I’m moving away soon for college, so even if he comes back from the Philippines I won’t have to interact with him.

Please tell me it isn’t sinful to boot this horrible man out of my life just because he was my biological parent.

 

[Catholic1954]

It is not sinful to leave him out of your adult life. The commandment says to “Honor your father and mother”, that does not mean you have to be a target for abuse. Go to school, do well, and maybe in a few years you can reconcile with him and have a better relationship as adults.

 

[DarkLight]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

 

[AClaire11]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

I love this.

 

[Allegra]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

I second this, but add, it’s important for your own peace and well-being to forgive your father.

 

[Polycarp1]

We are called to love everyone, but that necessarily doesn’t mean we have to like everyone or the things that they do. I think respect is determined by a person’s behavior. I don’t hate anyone but there are definitely some people I wouldn’t want to hang out with because of their behavior and as well as my own short comings.

To love everyone is to sincerely hope and pray that they won’t perish into the fires of hell. It is not God’s will that anyone perish, and we should bend our will to His.

 

[Hideyplace]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

I love this.

Me too!

 

[Viki63]

Please tell me it isn’t sinful to boot this horrible man out of my life just because he was my biological parent.

Of course it’s not sinful to sever ties with someone who abuses you.
He sounds as if much of his problem is alcoholism. Maybe attending a few Al-Anon meetings would help you; they help you learn detachment.

However, I hope you would stay in touch with your younger brother and your mother. Your brother might need protection from your father, or a place to stay someday.

.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

I think this is the second time I’ve seen this. It’s dead on! I love it.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

We’re all familiar with the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother. I understand that God wants us to love our parents and give them our undivided respect. And for my mom, I have nothing but love. She has showered me with emotional support and has done everything in her power to make sure I had a successful life. I am very lucky to have her as my mother.

However, this completely breaks down when it comes to my father. He has been a very hurtful, neglectful, and overall callous person who I genuinely feel no love for. I know that is an absolutely terrible thing to say, but he’s done awful things throughout my life that I cannot overlook.

-He often belted/punched me while growing up. Not simple spankings, mind you. This man was brutal for no good reason. He’s hit me in the face/neck and elsewhere for what he perceived to be “disrespect.” I remember he even bruised me once a long time ago and applied lotion and ointment to try and heal it. He was ruthless.
-He was known for driving my younger brother and I around while drunk, swerving the car and behaving recklessly behind the wheel. I remember being scared as a kid but not being able to do anything.
-He would often throw me out of the car when angry, once in an isolated location where I didn’t know how far away my destination was (walking). He also threatened to call the police on me an a regular basis for no good reason, causing emotional stress for me and my younger brother.
-Once, when I was heading into a church for volunteer event, he threw me out of the car and called me a “motherfuing devil son from hl” in front of all the organizers there. This wasn’t a one time thing either – he is known for being extremely verbally abusive. He has referred to me in extremely vulgar terms constantly.

Beyond this, he has generally been a hypocrite. He condescends to my mom and I about “family values” and “following God” – yet he never lived by his word. He has never held a stable job, was terrible at maintaining the house, leeched off my mom for money, and yelled at us constantly. We would often leave the apartment whenever my father went on one of his tirades.

He’s currently in the Philippines right now, so we don’t have to deal with him. And my mom is doing an excellent job taking care of my younger brother while working a full-time job and maintaining the household. Life is extremely peaceful for them.

My question is this: am I to respect a man who has given my family nothing but grief? My aunts, uncles, and my grandmother are always furious with me for not loving him – but how is it possible to? I don’t wish him any harm. That would be very wrong. But I want to completely block him from my life – I don’t want to see, talk to, or have to deal with him ever again. I’m moving away soon for college, so even if he comes back from the Philippines I won’t have to interact with him.

Please tell me it isn’t sinful to boot this horrible man out of my life just because he was my biological parent.

By all means get away from abuse. Help your brother and mother as well. But let’s not canonize her just yet unless she never knew of your abuse

 

[DarkLight]

I think this is the second time I’ve seen this. It’s dead on! I love it.

Well it’s like the third or fourth time I’ve posted it!

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

We’re all familiar with the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother. I understand that God wants us to love our parents and give them our undivided respect. And for my mom, I have nothing but love. She has showered me with emotional support and has done everything in her power to make sure I had a successful life. I am very lucky to have her as my mother.

However, this completely breaks down when it comes to my father. He has been a very hurtful, neglectful, and overall callous person who I genuinely feel no love for. I know that is an absolutely terrible thing to say, but he’s done awful things throughout my life that I cannot overlook.

-He often belted/punched me while growing up. Not simple spankings, mind you. This man was brutal for no good reason. He’s hit me in the face/neck and elsewhere for what he perceived to be “disrespect.” I remember he even bruised me once a long time ago and applied lotion and ointment to try and heal it. He was ruthless.
-He was known for driving my younger brother and I around while drunk, swerving the car and behaving recklessly behind the wheel. I remember being scared as a kid but not being able to do anything.
-He would often throw me out of the car when angry, once in an isolated location where I didn’t know how far away my destination was (walking). He also threatened to call the police on me an a regular basis for no good reason, causing emotional stress for me and my younger brother.
-Once, when I was heading into a church for volunteer event, he threw me out of the car and called me a “motherfuing devil son from hl” in front of all the organizers there. This wasn’t a one time thing either – he is known for being extremely verbally abusive. He has referred to me in extremely vulgar terms constantly.

Beyond this, he has generally been a hypocrite. He condescends to my mom and I about “family values” and “following God” – yet he never lived by his word. He has never held a stable job, was terrible at maintaining the house, leeched off my mom for money, and yelled at us constantly. We would often leave the apartment whenever my father went on one of his tirades.

He’s currently in the Philippines right now, so we don’t have to deal with him. And my mom is doing an excellent job taking care of my younger brother while working a full-time job and maintaining the household. Life is extremely peaceful for them.

My question is this: am I to respect a man who has given my family nothing but grief? My aunts, uncles, and my grandmother are always furious with me for not loving him – but how is it possible to? I don’t wish him any harm. That would be very wrong. But I want to completely block him from my life – I don’t want to see, talk to, or have to deal with him ever again. I’m moving away soon for college, so even if he comes back from the Philippines I won’t have to interact with him.

Please tell me it isn’t sinful to boot this horrible man out of my life just because he was my biological parent.

No, you do not owe him respect. Give him the boot. Abuse does not warrant respect, let alone love. Forgive him as you would any other child of God, but get the heck out of dodge. Speaking as a fellow college student who has dealt with familial abuse, continuing to interact with him is going to be a huge hindrance to your academic success and overall happiness.

People like this do not often change unless you give them serious incentive. To have his teenaged child walk out his life might give him the motivation he needs to change into a better man and father.

 

[Norseman82]

Two questions:

1. Is your family from the Phillipimes? The reason I ask is because you mention how your extended family appears to be on his side.
2. If it came to it, could you physically defend yourself against your father?

Here is a story that came out around this time last year regarding Patrick O’Sullivan, who played in the NHL, and his recounting of the abuse he suffered from his father and how he finally stood up to him and escaped:

theplayerstribune.com/patrick-osullivan-nhl-abuse/

 

[holyrood]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

I think this is the best answer I’ve ever seen to this problem, too. I saw it several years ago.

OP, my father is similar to yours, and my mother has spent a lifetime being miserable, negative, complaining, gossiping, saying nasty things about other people, and saying untrue things about me that have made it difficult, if not impossible, for me to have relationships with my own siblings or extended family.

I live in a way that does bring them honor. And yes, they’d be incredibly proud of me if they ever got their heads on straight. At the moment, the only communication I get is my dad calling me names and telling me all my faults.

I will continue to live as I do regardless. My own children and my siblings children are being influenced by the family narrative that I’m the family mess, such that two of them have called me absolutely vulgar names to my face (and I guarantee with no cause to do so, either). I have no doubt that the only problem here, in my family’s eyes, is that I’m ‘holding grudges,’ rather than telling two young men their behavior was far beyond the pale and needs to be apologized for. It’s very tempting to start calling others in the family similar names to prove a point, including my mother. But I’m not going to do it. This, to me, is continuing to do what I can to live this commandment.

However, I won’t go near any of these people, because their behavior is horrible.

 

[chevalier]

Sometimes ‘honour thy parents’ gets close to ‘love thy enemies’. I have no doubt you’d be capable of respecting an enemy — a poor son of a gun in the trenches on the opposite side protected by the same Geneva Convention. You can probably respect the president of your country, even if it’s a bad president. You’ve probably had some lousy teachers or bosses in your life and respected them.

Respect the position if not the man doesn’t fully apply to one’s parents because the parent-child relationship is so personal, but there is still this ‘he’s still my father’ sort of feeling. Like the Scripture says, respect him even if he loses his mind — which doesn’t include lying to yourself about him losing his mind.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

Sometimes ‘honour thy parents’ gets close to ‘love thy enemies’. I have no doubt you’d be capable of respecting an enemy — a poor son of a gun in the trenches on the opposite side protected by the same Geneva Convention. You can probably respect the president of your country, even if it’s a bad president. You’ve probably had some lousy teachers or bosses in your life and respected them.

Respect the position if not the man doesn’t fully apply to one’s parents because the parent-child relationship is so personal, but there is still this ‘he’s still my father’ sort of feeling. Like the Scripture says, respect him even if he loses his mind — which doesn’t include lying to yourself about him losing his mind.

No, he doesn’t owe him respect. Your parents are supposed to love you, and maintaining a relationship with an abusive parent can poison you from the inside out. I know from experience.

People can renounce their citizenship, quit their jobs, and report bad teachers without committing any sin, so your analogy doesn’t really work.

 

[AdamP88]

Please tell me it isn’t sinful to boot this horrible man out of my life just because he was my biological parent.

No I don’t think it’s a sin. I actually started a similar thread about a similar thing a few days ago. My father’s abuses were more of the apathetic variety though.

But I think the commandment as well as placing obligations on the children, also implies that parents must live up to their obligations and responsibilities. It’s not a one way street.

I love my dad, unfortunately he’s not a good dad. That’s just a fact. I wish he was different. But that’s out of my control. I have had too much pain from my dealings with him…so I have just decided not to interact with him or try to be running him and putting him in a position to disappoint me.

In your case, your father is abusive. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to distance yourself from him for your sake and the sake of your future family.

 

[Demetra2]

Something I learned from a Jewish website: When all else fails, live as though to bring honor to your parents. This means living your life and living it righteously, in a way that your parents (if they got their heads on straight) could be proud of you. You don’t have to keep an abusive parent in your life.

This is excellent advice! Live a life that is honorable and noble and stay close to God. It may be best for you to take a break from seeing your abusive father, but continue to pray for your parents. Do not neglect your mother though.

 

[psalm90]

I have seen something like this (not exactly) and I think the abusive person sometimes maintains the abuse as a cover for not having to apologize for things in the past, as if some perception of his of the past is still valid in the present.

I grew up most of my childhood years without a father or a father-substitute. My mother was overwhelmed with the responsibility of raising two kids. She rather wasted her childhood not preparing for being an adult or a parent. She was mildly abuse towards me, excessively so, out of proportion to what goof off thing I may have done - like putting a frying pan in the wrong place.

It seemed to me that she was arguing with me the way she used to argue with her siblings, projecting that old anger on to me. That’s the closest I could figure out what she was doing. I did not present a behavioral problem to her, but she would resurrect my mistakes of the past, to justify her anger in the present day.

All I could do was to decide to live my life as best as I could, anticipate her criticisms to defuse them, and – literally – I had to try to act normal, although I could only guess what that was, by observing other kids in my school. I had to think logically when my mother didn’t or couldn’t. My faith and the lessons of the Bible and “religion” class were my guide, no matter what my mother (and my sister) threw at me. I cannot sugar-coat the fact that I did not act as I should have, 100% of the time, far from it.

I put my faith and trust in God which we are all called to do. And, I have to say that I think my attitude towards God is like that I had towards my mother (see above). So, like the Holy Father is saying that controversial apostolic exhortation that he issued (AL), there are probably not simple rules, for one thing. It’s just nip and tuck every day.

In Judaism, the numbering of the commandments is different than in Christianity. for them it’s not 3 and 7 but 5 and 5 – 5 commandments towards God, and 5 towards our fellow men and women. And, the Biblical basis for this is that the wording tips off this division. In the first 5 group, the commandments contain the words “the Lord your God” whereas the back 5 commandments don’t contain those words. So, the Jewish scholars strongly suggest that we act towards our parents as towards God. That is the starting point. Surely, they don’t always let us do that. And, we don’t understand why they are the way they are. I don’t think it is good to talk back to an abusive parent.

In their old age, we are to support them, house them, feed them, and not ignore them, so that they would feel lonely, etc. I think the Lord is looking for our best effort. Life is really rather short. Do the best you can and keep a clean conscience. It is phony for your father to interject God into the conversation, without taking all of scripture into account. We should all pray for “bad parents.”

Forgiveness is the abandonment of the desire for revenge. Reconciliation may take a lot longer and has to be consistent with Biblical principles.

 

[TheSeraphim]

Dear Joko,
My reply to you is on red.

We’re all familiar with the fourth commandment: honor your father and mother. I understand that God wants us to love our parents and give them our undivided respect.

Answer: You are to honor everyone as if you have honored Jesus Christ. Your parents are owed due respect as they brought you into this world.

And for my mom, I have nothing but love. She has showered me with emotional support and has done everything in her power to make sure I had a successful life. I am very lucky to have her as my mother.

However, this completely breaks down when it comes to my father. He has been a very hurtful, neglectful, and overall callous person who I genuinely feel no love for. I know that is an absolutely terrible thing to say, but he’s done awful things throughout my life that I cannot overlook.
Answer: What’s your gender? I’m sorry to hear that your father has been, it seems like, emotionally abusive to you.

-He often belted/punched me while growing up. Not simple spankings, mind you. This man was brutal for no good reason. He’s hit me in the face/neck and elsewhere for what

Answer: I’m sorry he’s done this. Where, what year and what location? I’m sorry that this happened and this is 100% illegal.

he perceived to be “disrespect.” I remember he even bruised me once a long time ago and applied lotion and ointment to try and heal it. He was ruthless.

Answer: The devil. He saw the Christ in you.

-He was known for driving my younger brother and I around while drunk, swerving the car and behaving recklessly behind the wheel. I remember being scared as a kid but not being able to do anything.

Answer: Yikes! You have to call DSS on this guy before he abuses more children. department of social services

-He would often throw me out of the car when angry, once in an isolated location where I didn’t know how far away my destination was (walking). He also threatened to call the police on me an a regular basis for no good reason, causing emotional stress for me and my younger brother.

Answer: Totally illegal. He couldn’t call the cops on you. He’s on the wrong. Allow the cops to come in, they are mediators of peace. You will not get in trouble. How old were you during this event? In reflection to the above paragraph.

-Once, when I was heading into a church for volunteer event, he threw me out of the car and called me a “motherfuing devil son from hl” in front of all the organizers there. This wasn’t a one time thing either – he is known for being extremely verbally abusive. He has referred to me in extremely vulgar terms constantly.

Answer: I’m sorry to hear that.

Beyond this, he has generally been a hypocrite. He condescends to my mom and I about “family values” and “following God” – yet he never lived by his word. He has never held a stable job, was terrible at maintaining the house, leeched off my mom for money, and yelled at us constantly. We would often leave the apartment whenever my father went on one of his tirades.

Answer: He hates himself. So he bullies you.

He’s currently in the Philippines right now, so we don’t have to deal with him. And my mom is doing an excellent job taking care of my younger brother while working a full-time job and maintaining the household. Life is extremely peaceful for them.

Answer: Are you filipino?