Righteous respect: Why respect is earned in parenting

Many parents feel deserving of respect. This is a common parent attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents punish children when they feel disrespected. Child punishment is a common way that parents enforce their power and prestige. The fact of the matter, however, is that respect in parenting is earned.

Righteous respect is the role in parenting for the child. However, this sort of respect is a choice made by a child that is between a child and God, in the context of a mutual submission relationship. In such a mutual submission relationship, the parent bears the burden of proof, not the child. 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 a secure attachment between parent and child in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to their children as they would to God, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return.

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 a child. 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 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 Christians who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing their 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 a few orphaned children in his time. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords in order to punish their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were oppressed largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Respect for parents was a thing in biblical times. However, it came more in the form of closeness than reverence. 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 children were quartered in the nude in the family home, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. Whenever a child cried, mothers cooed at the child before picking them up, then holding the children close to her bosom in skin-on-skin mammary closeness. Children up until age 3 were held constantly, either in the mother's arms or on her back in a papoose bag. Children aged 3-6 were in policing closeness to mothers, ranged next to her, insisting that mothers remain within the child's line of sight. Children were usually milk-dependent until age 3 - but sometimes until age 6 or older - and were weaned only when the child pushed away the nipple. Come nightfall, children co-slept next to mothers in skin-on-skin format, with co-sleeping lasting until the child reached the onset of puberty.

Righteous respect involves when children come to respect their parents and elders on their own accord. In the mean time, parents are undeserving of any respect or praise from anyone. Parents are deserving of absolutely nothing from anyone. Parenting should be a thankless job, meaning parents are the custodian in the house, not the custodian in another tense. Righteous respect is a private decision between the child and God, not something to be enforced on your child.

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!