Honor thy parents: Understanding the Fifth Commandment in context

Many parents feel entitled to respect and honor. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents cite the Fifth Commandment as a means of demanding respect from children, oftentimes with punishment or threat of punishment. However, honoring parents does not entail punishing children for "dishonoring parents". Honoring parents means taking care of your parents as they age.

The Fifth Commandment is spelled out in Exodus 20:12 KJV:

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 

The Hebrew word translated "honour" is kabad and refers here to being a caregiver to someone else, in this case an aging parent. The idea to honoring parents is simply to take care of your aging parents. However, that only works if they took good care of you when you were a child. If your parents were abusive to you, you don't have to take care of them at all, and owe nothing to them. This commandment seems commonsense, but in the Old Testament, there was an epidemic of elder neglect as well as elder abuse. 

A common motive for punitive measures in parenting is a parent that feels deserving of respect and honor from their child. Most American parents punish their children for "disrespect", and many parents in this country punish their children almost exclusively when their children are "disrespectful". However, the Bible prohibits all forms of punitive parenting. See Colossians 3:21 KJV:

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek rood word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers here to offenses or damages, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. It is one thing to stop spanking your child, including for "disrespect". However, it is not enough to simply stop spanking, or even stop punishing your children for that matter. You need to avoid offense in children. Avoiding offense in children is the same as avoiding offense in other adults. Just as hurt feelings are inevitable in relations between adults, hurt feelings are also inevitable in children when dealing with them. Thus, in order to avoid offense in children, you need to be willing to give a meaningful apology whenever you hurt your child's feelings. Usually, all that is necessary is a reassurance of good intent coming from parents, in the form of a half-apology, whenever you hurt your child's feelings with a limit not set out of anger, such as "I'm sorry, but I had to set X limit for Y reasons". However, if you ever lose your cool with your child as a parent, you definitely need to give a formal apology whenever you hurt your child's feelings with your anger, such as "I apologize for losing my temper with you", and then commit to never losing your cool with your child ever again, as any parent anger directed towards children is entitlement, and was seen as entitlement in the Early Church. This commandment cross-references the Eighth and the Tenth Commandments, with the Apostle Paul here convicting a group of Greek Christian parents who brought into the church their pagan custom of patrias potestas, which is a Latin term roughly translating "power to the parent", including the power to impose punitive sanctions on children, such as spanking or other forms of punishment of children. However, this commandment ultimately was received then as prohibiting all offense as perceived by a child. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punitive parenting in his secular writings. Attachment parenting was banned under Roman law, but the Early Christians did it anyway, obeying God over men.

The Fifth Commandment simply means to take care of your parents as they age. However, sometimes, they don't deserve you caring for them, namely if they were abusive to you. If your parents were at all abusive to you, meaning as you perceive, you have every right to shun them. You only need to forgive your parents if they give a meaningful apology for how they treated you whenever you were still a child. Even then, you can always go back on your forgiveness if they turned out to be giving a fake apology. 

I myself was abused within the law by my parents. I chose to forgive them, but only because they apologized meaningfully. I do forgive my parents, but I don't forget how my parents treated me. I will always remember how I was treated as a child in this country, including by my parents. I was so hurt by my parents' actions as a child that I wanted to move out of this country. I am a conservative Christian, but not the most patriotic of Christian conservatives. It is okay to remember how your parents abused you when you were a child. I hold my mother to it whenever the topic comes up. 

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!