Respect: Why respect is earned for parents (not bestowed on a silver platter)

Many parents want to be respected by their children. This is a common attitude towards children on the part of parents. Most American parents feel that they are entitled to respect, usually without doing anything to earn respect. The fact of the matter is that respect is earned in life, including in parenting. 

The Fifth Commandment is repeated in Colossians 3:20-21 KJV:

Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "obey" is υπακουο (Latin: hupakouo) and refers to secure, vulnerable rest in the love and submission of parents. Children are to rest securely in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This form of surrender to parents came with strings attached on the part of parents, meaning that children could issue righteous demands from a place of rest, usually when parents weren't doing their part in the parent-child relationship.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or other controlling demeanor towards children. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last tine. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined under the Law as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen in biblical times as holding your child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating your child as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up the Law in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child in his secular writings. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords to punish their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were hated largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Respect for parents was a thing for children growing up in the Early Church. However, that respect was borne out of closeness, not fear of punishment. For the first 6 years of a child's life, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning wherever the mother went, so did the child. The Early Christians practiced birth nudity, where mother and child were in the nude next to each other, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. Whenever a child cried, mothers swooped in to the rescue, cooing at their children, then holding them close to their bosom in mammary closeness, diagnosing the need from there. When children were out and about, they were swaddled next to the bosom of mothers in swaddling blankets.  Come nightfall, children co-slept next to mothers, and continued  co-sleeping next to mothers until the onset of puberty, when children wanted their own place to sleep. All of this sustaining warmth led to respect in the form of closeness. 

Respect for parents was an obligation for young adults in the Early Church, but only after they left the home. When children in the Early Church were being baptized as adults, they usually bowed down to parents, and then were obedient to parents. All of this was thanksgiving for all of the times parents pampered their children. Some parents were not thanked, and those were the parents that the council excommunicated for child abuse, or else were simply shunned by their children. This shunning of parents was acceptable then, and most children divorced their parents when they were given freedom by their parents, usually as a young adult. Most children, however, bowed down in thanks for all the fond memories with their parents, and thanked their parents with compliance to the orders of parents.

In the modern day, with today's definition of childhood, one can expect respect during the teen years, if you have earned it in their formative years. Usually, in attachment parenting homes, adolescent children thank their parents, and thank them by requesting to do more and more things on their own. But, they do so in a cooperative way, not a vindictive way - many times, they want to help out around the house, and that is their idea of closeness to parents. The key to enjoyable teenage years is sustaining warmth during the first 6 years of a child's life. 

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them forever be cast into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss which is the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!