What Children Owe Their Parents

One

The fourth commandment is explicitly directed to children: Honor your father and mother.

Not everyone is a father, not everyone is a mother, but everyone has a father and a mother, which means this commandment applies to everyone. And it applies first and foremost to children in the home.

It’s become commonplace for people just to assume that children are just recipients of family benefits.

Kids often take it for granted that their parents will give them life, spend time with them, help educate them, support them, and help them enter into adulthood. Meanwhile, it’s often seen as no big deal when kids are rude, ungrateful, or selfish. In other words, in our culture, the entitlement mindset tends to begin in the home.

But Judeo-Christianity tells a different story. It says that children have moral obligations too, just like the rest of us.

They have to be virtuous, loving, self-controlled, and generous.

Just like the rest of us, if they fail in their moral responsibilities, that’s called sin, and just like the rest of us, sin will ruin them. A child has two choices, sin and virtue, just like the rest of us.

Apart from religious piety, the primary mark of a virtuous child, the number one moral obligation and ethical principle according to which they will be judged by God Himself, is whether they honor their parents.

Two

Order of love

In Catholic moral theology, there is something called the “order of love”. This means that we can’t serve everyone equally. There are seven billion people on the planet. Which of those people should we focus our charity towards?

And the answer that the Catholic tradition gives is that we should focus our charity, our service, and our acts of love, on two demographics: Those closest to God and those closest to us. That means, above all, our parents.

They are, naturally, closest to us out of everyone. We come from our fathers. We come from within our mothers. And they represent God to us. Their role is most like God’s in what they have done, and what they are called to do for us.

This is why the Catechism says, “The divine Fatherhood is the source of human fatherhood; this is the foundation of honor owed to parents” (#2214). 

God is our Creator and our Parent and He has chosen to create us through the procreation of our parents; and He has chosen to be our Divine Parent through our human parents.

The primary human relationship, then, through which children relate to God, is through their parents. If they disrespect or disregard their relationship with their parents, they are disrespecting and disregarding their relationship with God. 

Three

Honor

Now the three most fundamental attitudes we should have toward God are also the three most fundamental attitudes we should have toward our parents.

The first is honor. We are called to acknowledge the greatness and grandeur of God. We are called to recognize that He is God, and we are not. 

So too children are called to honor their parents, to honor their father and mother. 

Children must acknowledge that there is an asymmetrical relationship between themselves and their parents. Children do not have the same authority or status as their parents. Parents gave life to their children, not vice versa. Parents are in charge of their children, not vice versa.

For a child to pretend it enjoys the same independence and autonomy as the parents is simply not true. And it’s actually the beginning of that false pride which can lead to a creature pretending to have the same independence and autonomy as God Himself – where the creature stupidly says, “I get to decide what’s right for myself.”

This honor or respect should also be joined to gratitude. Again, just as God gave us existence, for which we thank Him, so too did parents give children life, for which they must be grateful. The difference between a spoiled and an unspoiled child basically comes down to gratitude. And that also might be true for the difference between an unspoiled Christian and a spoiled Christian. 

And finally, this respect joined with gratitude should inspire love. When a person of some importance has been generous to you, the natural impulse is to have an affection for them. This is above all true of God, the most important of all Beings, who has been incredibly generous.

But Our Parents are Images of God – which means they’re important too. And they have been generous with us. They’ve given children more than anyone else. So children must cultivate an attitude of affection for them as well.

These are the three attitudes of a child toward his or her parents – honor, gratitude, and affection – but how should those attitudes express themselves concretely?

Four

Obedience

The way we show our respect and gratitude and love for God is to obey Him. Jesus Himself says, “If anyone loves Me, He will keep my commandments.”

So too, this is how children are called to show their respect, gratitude, and love for their parents: through obedience. 

The Catechism says, “Filial respect is shown by true docility and obedience.” (#2216). 

It goes on to quote Proverbs, which says “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,” as well as St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

Of course, as children grow up and leave the house, they no longer have to obey their parents, and even children in the home shouldn’t obey their parents if they command them to do something evil. But under normal circumstances, obedience towards parents isn’t just a compromise or something you have to do to avoid hassle. It’s the main way you fulfill your moral obligations towards other human beings. It’s the main way you love your neighbor as yourself. It’s your primary religious responsibility, after the first three commandments. Obeying your parents is, practically speaking, the primary way you obey God.

Five

God and your parents

We’ve pointed out that children at home need to see a very strong connection between their obligations to God and their obligations to their parents. But of course, God is perfect, and parents aren’t. Sometimes parents can be awful. 

But children, like all other Christians, are called to worry more about their own behaviors than about other people’s.

The fact that our parents often fail in their obligations doesn’t entitle children to fail in theirs. The sins of parents don’t legitimize the sins of children. And, quite the contrary, conscientious children can often be great witnesses and opportunities for their parents’ conversion. 

So let’s pray and resolve to spread the word – children are an important part of the Church, and they have important work to do for Christ – and they do it by honoring and obeying the parents God entrusted them to.