Righteous respect: Why respect in parenting is earned (not handed out for free by children)

Many parents, if not most, want their children to respect them. Most American parents feel deserving of respect, and make demands based on that entitled worldview. Righteous respect, however, means that parents need to earn the respect of children.

Righteous respect is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission. See 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. This word refers to secure attachment, meaning God commands a secure attachment in all cases in parenting. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, meaning parents are to submit to children.

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 nor 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 time. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined 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. Paul may not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and even took in several orphaned children in his time. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords in order to punish a child, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were hated largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Respect for children was a thing in biblical times. However, respect was understood differently then. Biblical respect for children came from closeness. For the first 6 years of a child's life, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning that wherever the mother went, so did the child. The Early Christians practiced birth nudity, where mother and child were quartered next to each other in the family home, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. Whenever children cried, mothers responded by cooing at the child, and then picked up children, holding the child in her arms next to her bosom. When out and about in public, children were swaddled next to the bosom of mothers in swaddling blankets. Come nightfall, children co-slept next to mothers, in skin-on-skin format. Co-sleeping ended at the onset of puberty, when children wanted their own place to sleep. This closeness with mothers set the stage for parents earning their respect.

Parents bear the burden of proof in a mutual submission relationship with their children. Parents are not deserving of respect. The only exception is when children deliver that deservance. Thus, parents should take an undeserving attitude towards their children. Most parents these days, in the modern context, need to have an attitude adjustment. That means lose the parental entitlement, and be convicted of your entitled existence as a parent, at all levels, including the bottom one. The abovementioned context is how you win your child over.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever 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!