It is interesting to note in the Ten Commandments that the first few commandments involve our relationship with God (that is, having no other gods, not taking God’s name in vain, keeping the Sabbath day), while the latter commandments involve our relationships with each other (not killing, not committing adultery, not stealing, not bearing false witness, not coveting things that belong to others).

All the more interesting, then, is the fact that the fourth Commandment (as numbered according to the Catholic tradition) marks the transition between these two sets of commandments. Our relationship with our parents is not like any other relationship that we have. It is generally our parents who first introduce us into the world beyond ourselves, who give us our first experience of love, and who first teach us about the God-given notions of right and wrong.

For all these reasons, the love and honor that we learn to give our parents is our first “school” for learning to love God and others. The commandment to love and honor our parents, then, is not just imposed on us as an external rule; it is a law that is written into our very nature as human beings.

Sometimes, it is true, people grow up in troubled family situations and have the challenge of learning how to love in other ways, but the natural way is in the family, so this commandment to love and honor our parents is very important for our development as human beings.

At the same time, and for the same reason, parents are bound to introduce their children to the love of God by loving them in an unselfish way, as God loves them. This means that they do their best to teach their children about God and instruct them in sound human values, with the goal that their children will eventually make their own decisions about their vocations and their overall way of life.

Following our conscience does not mean simply doing whatever we like; it means doing our best to make those decisions that correspond most closely to what we have learned — from parents, from religion, from experience and whatever sources — to be truly right.

But when it comes to the multitude of different situations in which such decisions must be made, no one — not even parents — can step in and take the decision away from someone who has reached adulthood. Making one’s own decisions, even if those decisions do not conform to parents’ advice, is not disrespectful of parents; rather, it is doing precisely what the parents have been preparing one to do upon reaching adulthood.

Even God himself does not make our decisions for us, because he wants us to do his will freely; parents certainly cannot assume a degree of control over their adult sons’ and daughters’ decisions that even God does not assume!

Of course, the commandment to “honor your father and your mother” does not cease to be binding when a child reaches adulthood. It is the manner of fulfilling the commandment that changes now that the child must make his or her own decisions. Perhaps
a healthy way of thinking about the matter is that this “honor” is really a form of love, and that in order for love to be genuine, it must be between at least two persons who are genuinely distinct from one another.

Parents who harbor specific dreams for their children and simply expect their grown children to carry out those expectations would be falling into the temptation of seeing their children merely as extensions of themselves, or as a tool for their own gratification, rather than as truly distinct persons to be loved for their own sakes.

Conversely, children who are unable to make their own decisions because they are so obsessed by their parents’ expectations would be falling into a similar error from their own side of the relationship. Love can only be authentic if there is a real mutual communication of values and a sharing of perspectives, allowing for the true freedom of the other to enter in.

It can certainly be painful to see those we love making decisions that are different from those we hoped they would make. And it is doubly painful if we see them making decisions that our own consciences would judge to be morally wrong.

But it is still possible to love the other person without agreeing with all of that person’s decisions. If the grown child has discerned a vocation from God that is different from what the parents might have hoped, or even if his or her judgment of conscience is different from what that of the parents might be, it is possible to differ and still honor parents. This is precisely because one adult honoring another involves respecting the distinction between them, which means such differences can sometimes happen.

Msgr. Michael Magee

(Living City, USA)