Honoring your parents when your parents have problems

[MariaRita5]

My sister and I had a couple of long conversations about some family issues. We are young adults still living in our parents’ house along with our little brother. We discussed some frustrations we’ve been having with our parents. Our parents’ marriage is fraught with communication problems, and my sister is finding herself caught in the middle. This is after establishing with them, when they did the same thing with me, that I am not okay with being a mediator or a sounding board for their marriage problems. They are so averse to conflict that most communication just ends up being passive aggressive toward each other and towards us, which makes living together very uncomfortable at times.

She and I also discussed the fact that they don’t seem to take their responsibility to be role models for our family very seriously and never have. Besides the yelling and threatening to belt us, a lot of the issues that our family had when we were kids are still there. My brother is 13, and neither of my parents are taking the time to educate him in faith and morals, just like with us girls (I have two other sisters). Both my parents can also be incredibly insensitive toward each other’s and other people’s feelings within the family.

There’s also an issue with our extended family that has effectively been swept under the rug despite promises to address the problem, which makes both my sister and I angry since this exact type of conflict avoidance has led to poor relationships both in our immediate and extended family. We feel like everyone is pretending we’re a picture perfect family, and it feels sickeningly fake.

All in all, my sister and I are both frustrated. We want to move out, but neither of us have the money to do it or jobs because of the pandemic. While we’ve discussed some solutions to a few of these things, like my sister setting boundaries with our parents like I did and me not nervously laughing at the uncomfortable things my dad says, a lot of it is out of our control.

My questions are the following:

How do you keep the commandment to honor your parents even when they treat you disrespectfully and unkindly and aren’t good role models? When my sister and I discuss these things, where is the line between discussing our feelings, identifying problems, and finding solutions and dishonoring our parents? How do you address passive aggressive communication from your parents, like my dad snapping at me to quit looking sad during Mass, without disrespecting them and also maintaining your peace and your own self-respect?

If anyone has been in a similar situation with their parents, I’d love to hear how you dealt with it because I really have no idea how to navigate this.

 

[Freddy]

I think there was a bracketed clause in that commandment that went missing somehow. It should read:

Treat your parents with respect (assuming that they deserve it).

 

[christismylord]

(Galatians 6:1) Brothers and sisters, if someone is overtaken in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual, restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so that you also won’t be tempted.

(Matthew 18:15-17) “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Always treat your parents with respect…but you are not required to engage in their behavior. Be the very best influence and role model you can for your brother, lead him in the ways your parents may not be, closer to Jesus through the Catholic faith. If a discussion with your parents ends in useless quarreling:

(2 Timothy 2:16-17) “ Stay away from foolish, useless talk, because that will lead people further away from God. Their evil teaching will spread like a sickness inside the body.“

So if it is a toxic environment for you and your sister, you’re not required to have a very close relationship and interact with your parents often. But when you do interact, do so with all humility, love, and respect.

 

[ZemD]

Forgive your parents for thier many shortcomings.

Move out of their home so you don’t have to deal with how they choose to behave everyday.

Call or visit fairly often and try to make the best of it, if your parents behavior upsets you during one of these interactions, politely leave. Forgive them again. Try again to visit or call in a little while.

You cannot change them, but you can change how much you need to interact with them on a daily basis.

To dictate to your parents how to behave while you are still dependent on them, even if they are dysfunctional on some level, seems disrespectful to me.

 

[MariaRita5]

Move out of their home so you don’t have to deal with how they choose to behave everyday.

Need to find a job first, and then I will absolutely move out. I have enough saved up where I can move out as soon as I find a job that pays enough to rent an apartment.

To dictate to your parents how to behave while you are still dependent on them, even if they are dysfunctional on some level, seems disrespectful to me.

Exactly, which is why I’m trying to figure out how to communicate with them without doing that. Dictating to any adult how to behave is disrespectful.

 

[Freddy]

[whether or not they deserve it]

You must honour someone who perhaps beats you on a regular basis?

 

[mrsdizzyd]

I was once given excellent advice by a priest. He said that the 4th commandment, in a certain way, assumes that our parents are holding up their end of the bargain and living a virtuous life. But, when they aren’t, we have a moral responsibility to protect ourselves from their sinful tendencies. In such situations, you would, of course, remain respectful toward them, and express gratitude for those things they did well, but you would also create and enforces healthy boundaries.

While you are under their roof, there is only so much you can do. Maintain what boundaries you can. Stay respectful. Move out as soon as possible.

 

[Freddy]

I was once given excellent advice by a priest. He said that the 4th commandment, in a certain way, assumes that our parents are holding up their end of the bargain and living a virtuous life. But, when they aren’t, we have a moral responsibility to protect ourselves from their sinful tendencies. In such situations, you would, of course, remain respectful toward them, and express gratitude for those things they did well, but you would also create and enforces healthy boundaries.

While you are under their roof, there is only so much you can do. Maintain what boundaries you can. Stay respectful. Move out as soon as possible.

Fair points well put. But to push this to the extreme to make my point, would the daughter of the rapist Fritzl be expected to be honoured? Josef Fritzl, the 'ordinary' pensioner and the dark secret of the daughter he held captive for 24 years

 

[mrsdizzyd]

The Christian principle is that you treat others as you wish to be treated. Therefore, you show respect especially to those who least deserve it.

And let me add that this obviously isn’t easy especially in a case such as you cite where atrocities have been committed. Nevertheless, living by Christian principles is not easy, but it is our job to try to live up to them as best we can.

 

[Freddy]

The Christian principle is that you treat others as you wish to be treated. Therefore, you show respect especially to those who least deserve it.

I think you’re using the term ‘respect’ in a way that makes no sense to me.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

mrsdizzyd:

The Christian principle is that you treat others as you wish to be treated. Therefore, you show respect especially to those who least deserve it.

I think you’re using the term ‘respect’ in a way that makes no sense to me.

I think you must only be thinking of respect as a deep admiration for a person. But, respect can also mean to show regard for the feelings or rights of another.

You might not have deep admiration for a rapist, but you can still show regard for his feelings or the rights he has by virtue of his inherent human dignity. For this reason we might wish to throw him in jail for the rest of his life but stop short of wanting him tortured and starved to death.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

mrsdizzyd:

The Christian principle is that you treat others as you wish to be treated. Therefore, you show respect especially to those who least deserve it.

I think you’re using the term ‘respect’ in a way that makes no sense to me.

I think you must only be thinking of respect as a deep admiration for a person. But, respect can also mean to show regard for the feelings or rights of another.

You might not have deep admiration for a rapist, but you can still show regard for his feelings or the rights he has by virtue of his inherent human dignity. For this reason we might wish to throw him in jail for the rest of his life but stop short of wanting him tortured and starved to death.

By all means respect someone’s civil rights or human rights but I don’t think the commandment is to be read in that way. Why just specifically your parents? It would apply to all. And as tradntru pointed out, the actual term is ‘honour’. Which is to treat with great respect.

You can’t, and neither should you be expected to, honour someone who beats and rapes you.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

but I don’t think the commandment is to be read in that way.

We are not being commanded to give false honor to parents who have not acted honorably. That flies in the face of reason and is not in line with our faith or our understanding of God. We are not to lie or deceive.

The advice given to me and that which I relayed to the OP is for those situations when our parents haven’t acted honorably. We can still be respectful. We can still be grateful for the things they did well. We can still have boundaries.