CHAPTER 5
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
(Honor your father and mother)
This is the only commandment which has a promise to go along with it. It tells us that you may live long in the land the Lord is giving you. In the old days a long life equated to a good life. Proverbs 13:1 (1b) states, “A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not listen to rebuke. These are the words of Solomon, who to this day is recognized as one of the wisest people to have ever walked on the face of the earth and he received his wisdom directly from God
As children it only makes sense we honor our parents. We need guidance and who is better prepared to give us that guidance than the people who know us best, our parents. Of course this is based on the assumption that our parents are living a godly life. If they are, then they will show us by example and word how to live the same type of life. If your parents are not living a godly life, then maybe you should not honor all they have to say. Yes they are your parents and you should respect them, but when they are directing you to do things against the word of God than you must draw the line and stop.
Our parents are only human and they will do things at times which are not in their best interests, but it does not mean we should stop honoring them all together. A good example of this is Noah in Genesis
If you do not have parents who you can honor then remember God. Remember, the first four commandments were about aligning yourself with God first and looking to him for everything in your life. He is always there for you and he should always be first, which includes the first parent. He is our Father, he is our parent, we were created in his image and he will always be there for us. He gave us the Bible which tells us how to live. By following the word of God you are honoring your Father, God, the perfect parent, so follow his word so you may live long.
I do not think there are many parents who intentionally give their children bad advice. Most parents only want the best for their children and try to give their children the best advice and guidance they are capable of giving. I feel my best strength as a parent is I can look back at my life and see how decisions I made as a young man worked out for me.
As parents we are a “time machine” in the sense we can look back at the decisions we made in our youth and see how they worked out. Now we can look at your life, the child, see the same cross roads you have come to and we have a very good idea how your decisions will work out for you. So don’t be in such a hurry to discount your parent’s advice. They have truly “been there and done that” and know the outcome of your decisions.
One of the big buzz words today in the business world is “models.” Businesses run data through computer programs to see how their plans will turn out in the future. These models are very good at predicting how business decisions will affect the business one year, three years, or five years down the road. Businesses pay thousands of dollars to develop these models so they can make better decisions to ensure the health of the company.
What is nice about a model is once you put in the data you can see exactly how that business decision will play out over time. You can put in your data and watch your cash flow increase the first two years by discounting your sales price, which increased your sales volume. It also shows that you will be bankrupt by the fifth year, because the lower gross profit margin could not support the overhead needed to support the greater sales volume. The model shows that you destroyed your profit margins for years three, four and five due to the discounting you did in the first and second year to increase sales.
The second benefit of a business model is it is “make believe.” If that first decision was bad, no one is getting fired, because the company was not affected by it. Since the first scenario did not work out, you can put a different discount factor into the model and see how that works out for you over the long term. In life this is not the case; you make a decision, you live with the consequences for the rest of your life. So where is your business model to try out your new ideas risk free? Your parents are your business model to go to and get some input.
Almost any decision or situation you face in life your parents have already lived through it. That is why God told you to honor them. He knows they have gained some wisdom over time and since they love you they will give you good advice. Parents want an open door relationship with you. They want you to come to them for advice so they can help you live a happy life. They want to impart their knowledge to you and you need their input to make good decisions.
Though you may be taller than your parents now and younger looking, they still see that little person taking his first steps which ended up landing in their arms before you fell to the ground. You are still the most precious thing in the world to them and they want to be part of your life. If you wonder how your parents feel about you today, pull out an old picture album of when you were little. Look at your faces; though you may not be so happy with them at the moment, your parents still feel the same way towards you. So give them a break, because they still love you so very much and only have your best interests in mind when they tell you something.
So when your parents tell you to do something or tell you to not do something it is not to torture you, but to help you. They are not trying to be “control freaks” or “run your life” they are trying to help you. Remember they have already lived through your life by living their own life. They have learned good lessons and bad ones, and want to impart that knowledge to you so you have a happy healthy life.
So if you are all dressed up and ready to go to the school dance and your mom suggests you go put on a different blouse, because you are showing too much skin, it is not to ruin your night. Yes you look cute, and you look cute to your parents as well in that blouse, but you will look just as cute in the blouse with a little more material in it.
You just want to look good, but your parents know you are sending out a message to a lot of guys who will not see you as cute, but as sexy. Then they will run that through their interpretation of sexy and decide that you are advertising (to them). Next they will come over to talk with you, not because of who you are, but because of what you could be to them. From here it can get real ugly real fast. You have now gone from looking cute and going to the dance to have fun, to being a piece of meat which they want to put on their plate.
If you continue to give them the time of day, it will not take long for them to get to the point. If you go along with them, then the tone will stay positive. If you decide this is not for you, then you are a “tease” and the tone will change. At this point you will ask yourself why didn’t I listen to my mom. Your mom knew where that blouse would get you and tried to save you the embarrassment or harm that could come your way by wearing it. You are no longer in the safety of your home, and your mom tried to protect you outside the house by telling you what to wear.
You may be going out with you friends and your dad tells you not to drink. You figure what is wrong with one drink, it can’t hurt you. Well, when you are young one drink will hurt you. Your body gets used to certain foods and drinks and whatever you put in it. When you have a drink your body will start looking for that drink again. Since you are growing it is looking harder and harder for that stimulus, because it is growing and making all these things the building blocks of your body.
One drink will lead to two, then to a six pack, and then you guys will be driving around drunk. Even sober we all think we can run that yellow light. The only problem when you are drunk is the light turned yellow when you were 100 yards away from it, but since your judgment is impaired it looks like 100 feet. You step on the gas to beat the yellow and all you see in your mind is the yellow. By the time you enter the intersection, cars are now going through it and bang you broadside one of them. At best no one gets hurts, you get a DUI, and your parents spend over ten thousand dollars on fines and attorneys, and you spend hundreds of hours going to DUI school and AA meetings for the next five years. That is the best case.
The worst case is someone gets hurt, maybe killed. Maybe it is your best friend sitting next to you. It is no longer fun! You are in jail. All your friends now hate your guts because you killed their friend as well. Not only has life turned into pure hell, but you have to go to bed every night knowing you killed someone you loved, because you were irresponsible and did not listen to your parents.
Your dad told you not to drink, but there will be no “I told you so” here; the consequences of your actions are way too serious. Your parents will support you through this, but they will lose their house, to pay for the lawsuits which will follow, and there will be no money to send you away to college. The same friends who encouraged you to have another drink now hate you and will drop you like a hot rock. You will no longer be one of the guys, you will be an outcast. Funny how quickly people change when you hurt them, even though up to that fatal moment you were the best of friends. In the end there will only be mom and dad and the nagging thought that you should have listened to them.
How many times have parents told their children not to get into the car if the driver has been drinking? I have told my sons more than once when they go out, that if the driver is drinking call me, I will come pick them up. I will even give the driver a ride home, no problem, no calls to their parents, no questions asked; just don’t get into that car!
About ten years ago a group of kids from a local high school went out partying. It was a great night for each and every one of those kids; life could not have been grander. You can just imagine everyone with their dates, they were going to graduate high school in a month, go off to the colleges of their dreams and they were in love. There is no better feeling in the world than being young and in love. Just try to capture that feeling for a moment.
The party was over and about 10 kids got into their SUV with their designated driver and started home. There were two problems though. First the suspension on the SUV could not handle all that weight (it was not designed to), so the SUV would not respond the way the driver thought it would. Second, put 10 kids in a car and the distraction factor goes up about 10 fold regardless of the fact if they had been drinking or not.
As they pulled out of the parking lot they were the perfect storm. The car was not going to respond properly to the road conditions and the driver was distracted. Not only did they take a windy road home, but it had plenty of dips in it as well. Well they hit the curves in the road going a little to fast. The driver turned the car to stay on the road, the car leaned over from all that weight, the suspension bottomed out and then it rolled over. The impact of the car hitting the street was so great it tour the roof off the SUV and those kids went flying out of that car going 60 miles an hours waiting to hit the pavement.
I can not even begin to imagine how those kids and their parents felt or how their lives are now, but I told you this story to show you how quickly things can change from life to death, fun to funeral, health to harm, love to hate. One of them died, all of them were severely injured and some have permanent damage. I remember when the court case was finally completed and the driver was given his sentence, one of the mothers said that his punishment was not enough. So when your parents tell you something, there is a pretty good reason why they are telling you that!
Every parent will tell their kids not to take drugs. Kids in junior high are smoking pot all the time so why shouldn’t you. Maybe your parents tell you because they know the damage it will do to you, especially at a young age. They know that if you do it, you will probably not get into the college you want. That instead of going to a university you go to the local community college instead to get your grades up. Instead to going on to grad school, you get a job at a store and work up to assistant manager by the time you are 25.
Maybe your parents look back and know the reason they are successful is because they did not do that in their youth. Maybe they look back and watched their friends smoke pot and fall short of the dreams they had in their youth. Maybe they look back and see themselves and what it did to them. Whatever their reason for telling you not to drink alcohol, smoke pot or take drugs, they tell you so you will have a better life. It is for your own good to keep you out of trouble and on track to obtain the things in life you want. Remember, they are all knowing, just like Yoda (8). They have lived through your life and are now looking back through a time machine and have a very good idea how your actions will affect you for the rest of your life. Listen to them!
Some parents are clueless, which is sad but in some cases it is not their fault. As I have told my wife, just think of all the kids in your high school class who got Cs and Ds and barely graduated. Maybe they were too busy drinking and smoking or they just were not into school or studying and the high school just graduated them to make room for the next class coming up. Whatever the reason, they did not prepare themselves for adulthood.
By now they have had children and their children have had children; talk about the blind leading the blind. This is really a scary thought, and if you find yourself in a position where you really question your parent’s judgment, then you need to get help and guidance somewhere else.
Do you have friends who go to church? If so, ask if you can go with them. Most people who go to church are shy about offering up their religion to others, but if you ask them if you can come along with them almost all of them will say yes. You pass by churches in your daily life. Most of them have children’s programs. I teach Sunday school and we do not require a parent to be part of the church for the child to come to church or Sunday school. The kids show up with their friends, we teach the lesson, and they leave with their friends. If you are in this situation just remember this. You are a kid, you need help and guidance, and God is here for you. Church is one of the vehicles He uses to reach his children so find a friend who goes to church and go with them, come on your own if you can or call a church and ask them if they can help you.
As I stated earlier, your best parent is your first parent, God your Father. You should always seek out your heavenly Father first, even if you have the “best” parents in the world. We are all human and all fall short of being perfect, but God is the perfect parent and he is always there for you.
If you want your children to honor you then they need to know the reason why they should. If you go to church and take your children with you then they will learn this as they learn the lessons in Sunday school. If you do not go to church then how are they going to get there and learn that one of God’s Ten Commandments is to honor your mother and father?
I will admit, the reason I started going back to church was because of my children. My wife and I both believed in God and Jesus, went to church as children, but as adults stopped going. My wife mentioned that if we did not go to church and did not teach religion at home, then how were the boys going to learn about God? Good question and the answer was they were not going to learn about God on their own. We started going to church and they started going to Sunday school.
Taking them to church has helped me to get them to do the things I want them to do. I asked the little guy once to do something and he did not want to do it. So we bickered for about two minutes (I never expect an “ok dad” right off the bat) and then I asked him, what the fifth commandment was. He thought for a second and then told me. Then I said well, you should be honoring me now and get to it. With that, he went and cleaned his room or whatever it was I wanted him to do. Now if I didn’t go to church and he did, then I would have been be a hypocrite in this situation. If I did not go to church and he did not go to church, then I could not have eased into this solution to the problem. But, since I went to church and he did also, I had a foundation (a very strong foundation) from which to launch my argument as to why he should do what I ask.
As a parent another way to get your children to honor you is to practice what you preach. My dad would always tell my brother and me that we should not drink, but we both knew that at
Starting about the age of 19 I became my Dad’s drinking buddy. I remember the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college. My mom worked the swing shift at the hospital and my girlfriend did not get off work until nine at night. So here are two guys with nothing to do until 9:00pm. After dinner we would sit down and have vodka martinis for two hours. My Dad would tell me about all the corporate gamesmanship that went on at the office and I would take mental notes since I was going to be a business man some day just like him. It was great, my dad got to relive his past glory years and I got first hand information on how to conduct myself in the office.
Did I benefit from my Dad’s advice? In some ways I did, because I always knew how to conduct myself at work and always kept work at a professional level. Could we have done this without drinking? Yes of course, but my dad was having a drink after dinner and I joined him. Hey, I was in heaven, my dad was my idol, I wanted to be a big business man just like him so what could be better than to learn from the master. In retrospect was this a good way for me to learn from him? No.
I talk with my sons and give them advice. Now that they are over 21, I will drink with them, but during though times I will not give them advice, because my words would be tainted with alcohol. I only drink from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. I have my last drink on New Year’s and call it quits until the next Thanksgiving. I live my life that way, and my sons see it. So when I tell them to call me if they need a ride home from a club they know I mean it and I will be ready to come get them. The oldest has figured out a better way; they have the girls they are going out with do the driving.
My sons are not drinkers, because I am not a drinker. There is no hypocrisy coming out of my mouth when I tell them drinking is not good for them. In fact, not only will they not get to where they want to go in life, but drinking will get them off track and take them to places they never wanted to visit. They realize that is good advice because it is coming from someone who used to drink when he was young, but now drinks very little and lives by the code he preaches.
One school of thought when it comes to sharing you life with your children is we should not tell our children about the off color things we did in our youth. I do not believe in that theory, because if I tell them something and tell them the negative or positive effect it had on my life then the story is real and not a lecture. I also feel I do not have to justify anything I did in my youth to them. I made decisions in life -- some good, some bad -- but I don’t have to justify myself to them for making those decisions.
I share my life with my kids, and I think they respect me for that. I remember as a kid I used to read autobiographies about great American leaders. In one of them, a naval admiral spoke about how he led by example. He would be at the side of the boat and the first one to jump over on to the boat they were attacking. If he led, his men would follow. Well, as a parent I try to lead by example. I go to church every Sunday and help teach Sunday school afterwards, so when I tell my youngest son he should go to church he can not argue with me for very long, because I go to church and I am only telling him to do something I do. I can’t say I am totally pleased with his attendance record, but I am still trying.
I remember when my oldest son was five he came home from kindergarten with all this stuff about “say no to drugs.” I walked in the house after work and he greeted me with, “say no to drugs daddy.” Of course, he was more than ready to show me all the good stuff Officer Bianchi had given him at school. I looked at my wife and asked her where he came up with all this. My wife told me they were going over that in school. I thought he was a bit young for that, but she told me they start them out young to instill the idea in them.
Then I stopped and thought about my son. If he is learning at school how to say no to drugs then he is also learning that the people who use drugs are bad. What would my son think if he ever saw me lighting up? It would crush him! Everything the good policeman told him about the bad people who smoke pot he would see in his daddy. With that, the thought of ever being around pot again in my life ended.
As a parent we need to give our kids an exit strategy for getting out of the drinking or smoking situations which they will fall into accidentally. I told all three of my sons the same thing when they graduated from the 8th grade. Within the next year you are going to make the biggest decision of your life. Are you going to drink or smoke pot or not? It is going to happen when you are with your friends, your best friends. You will be sitting around having fun and then one of them will break out a joint or a six pack and say let’s party.
At that moment you will have to make the most important decision of your life -- join in or leave. I told them that all they have to do is call me. No questions asked; I was not going to ask who was there, and nark out their friends to their parents, I just wanted them to know that I would be there for them immediately!
Earlier this summer my youngest son was at the association pool. It was a Friday night and we would let him stay out to about
About two months latter, I was talking with my wife about who was getting naughty in high school and she reminded me about picking David up early that night in June. When he called and I picked him up I did not realize that call was “the call”, but I kept my word to him and I was there for him. I got the call I told him I would always be prepared to take.
As parents we need to do some forward thinking to help our kids out. We need to let them know we are there for them, and when they need to make that call we will be there to get them and any of their friends are welcome. Let them know there will be no questions asked so they do not have to deal with the guilt or fear of you calling up their friends’ parents and squealing on them.
When my middle son went to college he joined a fraternity and my heart really sank. Frats are no different today than they were in the 70s. They drink a lot! I told him I expect an honest answer whenever I ask him a question. If I ask the question than I need to be a big enough man to live with the answer. In turn he needs to be a big enough man to give me an honest answer. So if I ask him about drinking and I don’t like the answer, that is my problem not his, since I was the one who asked it.
I do expect him to be honest and if I think he is getting into trouble with drinking then I will tell him. I will not punish him for his answer and if I think he is getting into trouble, I will do everything in my power to help him out of it. I trust my kids and know they will be honest with me. In turn they trust me and know I will keep my word. This way Karen and I can keep a pulse on their lives and they know it is only for their good that I do it and they don’t have to lie to us.
I try to treat my wife lovingly and with respect and my sons do as well. We have the family plan so all the boys have cell phones. They are scattered between the next town over, the local high school, and Berkeley, but all of them usually call her about two to three times a day. I tell her they are mama’s boys, but she has peace of mind because they check in with her every day. They honor her in the sense they know she wants to know they are safe so they check in with her. Setting a good example is the greatest learning tool we have to use when it comes to teaching our children, and if we set a good example for them to follow they will probably follow you.
As adults we can benefit from honoring our parents. I remember I had been married about seven years and my wife and I got into a big fight. I got really mad and went over to my parent’s house to vent my frustrations. I probably spent about two hours telling my parents what a “B” my wife was and they sat there and listened, never taking a side.
When I was done my mother got up and gave me a hug and told me, “Now Michael, you go home to your little family and make up with Karen. That is your family and you should be with them.” My mom didn’t see a lacking daughter-in-law, she saw a young family having a disagreement. She saw her daughter-in-law and her two little grandsons who needed me and she sent me home to be with them. Even though we are adults and have our own family we do not have all the answers and if you are fortune enough, you still have your parents here to help you out.
As adults we should still honor our parents. When I was 23 my father and I got in a big fight and we did not speak to each other for over a year. Other than the holidays I did not see him and then we were cordial at best. I went over to see him for Father’s Day, because I had missed the last one since I was in
When my father died I was 38 years old. Sometimes my wife asks me if I miss him and if I am sad he is gone. I tell her I miss him at times, and would love to share my life and my children’s lives with him, but I am not sad. I was a good son, I honored my father and I have no regrets.
After his death, I noticed I stopped going over on Sunday evening for dinner. I would drop by and see my mom when I was in town. She only lives ten miles from me, but somehow I only dropped in about once a month. I realized this was not fair to my mother so I told her, if she would drive to my office on Fridays, I would treat for breakfast.
I now take her to lunch every Tuesday. I don’t feel I should get around to visiting my mother. She has been there my entire life and I enjoy being with her. We have a great lunch together every Tuesday. We walk to the end of the Huntington Beach pier and have lunch at Ruby’s. It is great seeing my mom -- she is someone who is near and dear to me and I enjoy being with her as much as she enjoys being with me. She knows she has not been forgotten.
My wife told me a story about when we were dating. It was Christmas Eve and she came over to my parents’ house for the first time to meet the family. She told me the one thing that really caught her attention was how I treated my mother. She told me how she noticed that I treated my mom like gold. I constantly asked her if she needed any help and helped her with anything she needed. I treated her like that because she is my mother and Christmas Eve with my parents was not about me (the guest), it was about being with my parents (the hosts). She told me that if I treated my mom like that, then she figured that is how I would treat my wife.
How you treat your parents is a direct reflection of how you will treat other people who are close to you. It shows what you are like. If you treat them well, people will see the good in you and want to be part of your life. If you treat them badly, then they will probably think you will treat everyone badly and you will have to settle for the people who will have you, because the good ones will move on.
Honoring your parents will help you have a more productive and enjoyable life. No parent will intentionally give their kids bad advice or lead them down the wrong path. As new parents we see that brand new baby as a life we could have had. Some people have had great lives and would not change a thing, and others can see what could have been better. Good parents will take the good parts and make them better for their child. They will also take the bad parts of their life and make sure those mistakes are not made a second time in their child’s life.
Parents are here to guide you. God is first and your maternal parents are second. If your maternal parents are on the same page as God then you are in good hands. If you are old enough to read this book then you probably know right from wrong and can make a fair assessment of your parents. If your parents are not on the same page as God, then you have some work to do to find that guidance you need. Look to God, look to a church, and if your family does not go to church then ask one of your friends if you can go with them. As a child you need guidance and it was God’s intention that your parents give that guidance to you. Good advice and guidance will give you a happy and fulfilling life and keep you on the right path, which God has chosen for you.