What Grown Children Owe Their Parents

One

Moral obligations to parents don’t come to an end with adulthood.

One of the most demanding aspects of the fourth commandment is the way it continues to follow children after they leave the home.

Of course, it’s hard for kids to follow the fourth commandment. It’s hard for anybody to live under someone else’s rule, especially when that person, the parent in this case, is pretty limited in their competence. But to leave home, to experience the freedom of being on your own, to become an adult, someone with authority of your own, maybe with kids of your own - to have all that, and yet still to continue to be deferential and considerate and affectionate and above all to honor your parents, that can be really hard for people.

But it’s what God’s Law requires.

Two

The debt of respect

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “As they grow up, children should continue to respect their parents… Obedience toward parents ceases with the emancipation of the children; not so respect, which is always owed to them. This respect has its roots in the fear of God, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit” (CCC #2217).

This is so, so important. You may never, never, show contempt for your mother or father. It doesn’t matter how badly they’ve failed you in the past, it doesn’t matter how unwise or selfish their decisions are now. They are always your mom and dad, and the respect you show them is an expression of the respect you show God. For whatever reason, God decided that you were to be in a position of lifelong debt to your parents, and when you repay that debt with respect, you are showing your submission to God’s order.

That’s why the Bible hammers this home so much. Sirach especially emphasizes it: 

“For the Lord honored the father above the children, and he confirmed the right of the mother over her sons. Whoever honors his father atones for sins, and whoever glorifies his mother is like one who lays up treasure. Whoever honors his father will be gladdened by his own children, and when he prays he will be heard…” 

And it goes on, “O son, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives; even if he is lacking in understanding, show forbearance, in all your strength, do not despise him…”

Finally, Sirach says, “Whoever forsakes his father is like a blasphemer, and whoever angers his mother is cursed by the Lord.”

You owe your parents a lot and you owe God everything. And one of the primary ways you pay back that debt as an adult is by continuing to honor your father and mother.

Three

Solicitous for their needs

Again, your parents are still your parents, no matter how old you get, and no matter how old they get, which means that you have to care about them.

Listen again to the Catechism, “The fourth commandment reminds grown children of their responsibilities towards their parents. As much as they can, they must give them material and moral support in old age and in times of illness, loneliness, or distress.” 

We know as Christians that we are called to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. We’re called to visit the confined, talk to lonely people, encourage depressed people, care for sick people, and be hospitable for people who have nowhere else to go. Many of us have elderly parents who fit this description, so why would we run off looking for strangers in need when God has put people in our life – the very first people He ever put in our life, actually – whom we can help so much at such a difficult time in their lives?

God calls us to love our neighbor primarily by serving the poor and by serving our families. With elderly parents, we get an opportunity to do both at the same time.

Four

Receive and even seek counsel

Parents are the primary educators of their children and there’s a sense in which that instinct to share your insights and your advice with your kids never leaves you. But of course, parents giving advice often drives their kids crazy – especially when the kids are all grown up, maybe with kids of their own.

Most of us have experienced the urge to tell our parents off, to let them know we see right through their superficiality, their hypocrisy, and their tired, stale, endlessly repetitious formulas. We want to say, “Hey Mom, Dad, I’m all grown up now. You don’t get to tell me what to do. And anyway, I’ve heard it all before. So when I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

Listen very carefully, that attitude is totally off-limits. 

Once we leave home, we don’t have to obey our parents anymore, but part of respect means we take their opinions seriously because we take them seriously, because we honor them, and because they’re our parents.

The Catechism says that grown children should “anticipate [their parents] wishes, willingly seek their advice, and accept their just admonitions” (CCC #2217).

The Catechism doesn’t guarantee that our parents’ advice will be good, although some of it actually might be if you give it a chance. But the main point is that it’s an act of charity for a grown son or daughter to listen respectfully and graciously while their elderly father or mother tells stories, expresses their thoughts, or even makes a recommendation.

And Charity is what the Christian life is about. 

So respect for your parents means you must also show respect for what they say. And that obligation never goes away. 

Five

The sacrifice of respect

Respect for your grown parents is an enormous sacrifice. You have to sacrifice the feelings of bitterness you may still harbor for all the ways your parents failed you. You have to sacrifice the time you would rather spend on more interesting and more productive activities. Maybe most of all, you have to sacrifice your self-image as an independent, self-sufficient adult. Instead, you have to take a meek and deferential attitude to tedious old people – the tedious old people without whom you would never have existed, and who cared for you when you couldn’t care for yourself.

Respect for your parents is an implicit acknowledgment that you were helpless when you were very young, and it’s a reminder that you will be helpless when you get a little bit older. So it’s a beautiful way of destroying pride, which is the primary thing that blocks you from God.

Thank God for our elderly parents, who in their need of us, continue to call us closer to holiness.