Honoring your parents can be hard. Maybe Mom constantly nags about the one thing that always sets you off. Perhaps Dad isn’t very supportive of your significant other or current career. Maybe it just seems like your parents can’t stop treating you like child even though you feel like a grown adult.
We all know that Asian cultures (and parents) often bring a particular set of hopes or expectations into your life. So what does it mean to truly honor your parents as an Asian American adult?
What Does the Bible Say About Honoring Your Mother and Father?
It’s right there in the Bible. The fifth commandment:
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”
Some of us really squirm when we read that verse. We have thoughts like:
- Does God really command me to honor my mother and father?
- Why is honoring my parents listed in the 10 Commandments, anyway?
- What does “honoring” my mother and father actually look like?
Why the Ten Commandments Tells Us to Honor Our Father and Mother
But is is honoring our mother and father listed as one of the 10 Commandments, anyway?
The Ten Commandments and the rest of the Mosaic Law were first given to the Israelites in order to teach them rightful worship of God and love for others in a wider, more just society.
At first glance, a command to honor our mother and father seems so out of place.
- You shall have no other gods before me
- You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth
- You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God
- Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy
- Honor your father and your mother
- You shall not murder
- You shall not commit adultery
- You shall not steal
- You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
- You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
But upon closer inspection, its place among the 10 Commandments can actually make a lot of sense. A popular categorization of the 10 Commandments involves separating them into two categories: ones that deal with loving God, and ones that deal with loving others.
The first four Commandments are all about worshiping God and God alone. Don’t make idols. You shall have no other gods. Keep God’s name holy. Honor him by honoring his Sabbath.
The last five Commandments, the string of “you shall not” commands, are all about our relationship with others. These are the basic rules in a just and loving society—don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t envy, don’t commit adultery.
Where does the fifth Commandment fit in? Is the fifth Commandment to honor your parents an act of loving God or loving others?
It turns out that the command to honor your parents can be interpreted as a little bit of both! The Fifth Commandment is right there in the middle, serving as a “transitional” or “bridge” commandment between loving God (Commandments 1-4), and loving neighbor (Commandments 6-10).
Honoring Your Parents: A Reflection of Honoring God
How is honoring your parents a reflection of honoring God?
Honoring your parents is an act of loving God because it agrees with and follows the naturally created order. God designed families to nurture, instruct, and model His love and authority.
To the Israelite people, you worshipped the God of your fathers because that was the way you kept the faith and maintained identity as God’s “chosen family” (Deuteronomy 7:6). Honoring your father and mother and the rest of your lineage was a symbol of preserving family unity and status as God’s chosen people.
The first four commandments are all about respecting God and having right relationship with him. There is rightful hierarchy between the Creator and us, the creation. The commandment to honor our parents is instructive practice for how we are to honor God.
Parents are the first authority we encounter in life. Honoring them teaches us the importance of respecting the presence of an authority in our lives. If we can’t recognize and honor our parents as having (human) authority over us, how can we possibly recognize and honor God’s (heavenly) authority?
So we see that the commandment to honor mother and father reflects a divine order: honoring one’s parents is a form of acknowledging the structure and roles established by God. And through acknowledging earthly, human parents it postures us in such a way that we learn and practice what it means to honor God as the ultimate authority in our lives.
Honoring Your Parents: The Family as a Unit of Society
Honoring your parents is also an act of loving neighbor. Your parents are people too! If we are all children of God, we are to honor and love everybody as people created in the image of God. That includes family— we all know it’s a lot harder to love those who share a home or are in close proximity to you. The act of respecting and deferring to your parents in a household is a basic marker of a functional society.
When grouped together with the last five commandments, the commandment to honor your mother and father fits in with the larger picture of having healthy relationship to others. These commandments were given to the Israelites in order to set up a more loving, more just society.
The Israelites were not to kill or steal what was not theirs. They were to have moral integrity and practice contentedness. They were to be held to a high standard of sexual purity. This was in contrast to much of the ancient world.
God gives us the 10 Commandments as a snapshot for how he intends his people to live, and honoring your mother and father is right up there with the other basic duties needed for a decent society. Much of the Mosaic Law is dedicated to rules and regulations that ensure care for various people groups, including widows, foreigners, and children—showing love for neighbor. As the most basic unit of society, the family itself is a small microcosm of love. Just as proper respect for authoritative or regulatory bodies is essential for society to function well, honoring the parental role is crucial for the family to thrive.
What Does It Mean to Honor My Mother and Father?
The Hebrew Word for Honor
The Hebrew word for “honor” (kabed) used in the fifth commandment is derived from the Hebrew root word for “heavy” (kavod), which roughly translates to “respect,” “importance,” or “weightiness.” This is the same word that is used to refer to the glory of God! To honor your parents means to hold them in high reverence or respect. In other words, God teaches us to “kabed” our mother and father, to respect them, to see them as holding weight in our lives.
In contrast, the opposite word in Hebrew might be something like kalel. Kalel has a root of kal (meaning light) and approximates to “to curse” or “to make light of.” So to dishonor your parents means to “curse” them or “treat them lightly.” Dishonoring your parents can look like a dismissive attitude or a spirit of defiance.
Honor As Different From Obedience
Honor and obedience are not the same.
Honor is forever. Obedience is not.
Growing up, I often internalized a misquotation of the 10 Commandments. The fifth Commandment is not, in fact, “obey our father and mother,” but “honor our father and mother.” Why is this distinction important?
We all know that parental authority is far from perfect. There are times when the letter of the law must give way to the spirit of the law.
We know that the Hebrew root word kavod expressing “honor” in this passage means to treat someone with reverence, importance, or healthy respect. It strives for rightful recognition of authority. As such, it has nothing to do with dominance, and everything to do with love.
So when it comes to an abusive parent, obeying the command does not mean that you have to do everything they say. While “honor” normally does mean “submitting” or “deferring” (in other words, obeying), it is not always the case. You are able to honor someone even if you don’t obey them. There are ways to respect and lovingly acknowledge your relationship to them even if you don’t go along with their wishes and desires for your life. There are ways to treat someone as important even if you completely disagree with them. You can still honor an aging parent. You can still love an abusive parent.
Obedience is not forever, but honor and love are.
Honoring Our Parents as Adult Children
Making the distinction between “obedience” and “honor” is one of the most helpful things we can do to in learning how to honor our parents well, especially as adults. At some point in the circle of life, we eventually all become peers and equals to our parents (whether through “leaving and cleaving” in marriage, or simply growing up into adulthood.)
Ephesians 6:1-2 clues us in to the fact that this command is not meant to be static.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—“so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. —Ephesians 6:1-2
The fact that it’s a “commandment with a promise” indicates the passage of time as we navigate between different phases of life. Honoring (and obeying) our parents in early adolescence is generally accepted as a good thing. Children who obey their parents generally comprise stable families, and stable families generally advantage those same individuals. Biblical wisdom teaches the innate advantage to following the commandment—honoring mother and father generally leads to healthier relationships and a way to “learn” the wisdom from previous generations, as well as familial support down the road that sets individuals up for long-term success.
But this obedience to your parents is not necessarily forever. At some point, in adulthood, our parents become our equals. And even further down the road—in the last stages of life, we may often play the parent or caretaker role for them.
Many East Asian cultures are heavily influenced by Confucianism, which teaches five “rightful” relationships, one of which describes that between a parent and a child. The parent-child relationship is one marked with filial piety, obedience, and respect. It is part of a broader system of hierarchical relationships that include respect for elders, ancestors, and authority figures.
But while Confucian filial piety is grounded in a philosophical system that emphasizes social harmony, hierarchical order, and collective well-being, the Hebrew concept of “kavod” is rooted in the covenantal relationship with God and the moral obligations that arise from it. Before any of your other relationships, you are first subject to God. And if God is love, then that means that as Christians, our relationship to our parents always be rooted in love.
There is some “God-wisdom” here in how humans are designed to relate to their parents. In our infancy, we are utterly dependent on our parents for sustenance, love, and nurturing. We learn how to be loved. In our adulthood and beyond, we learn how to love. In the frailty of our human parents as they age, we learn how to reciprocate and take care of their needs, as they once took care of us. In our mortality, we get to experience both. We learn how to love and to be loved.
What Are Some Practical Tips on How to Honor My Father and Mother as an Adult?
- Give them grace. Remember, your parents are human too.
- Work to understand their family narrative. The Israelites went to great lengths to preserve and pass down their history. As Asian Americans, one of the greatest things we can do to “honor” our mother and father is to understand their background and their heritage.
- Allow them to love you. (Yes, let them feed you. Even if you don’t need it or want it, take that extra serving of humble pie in order to receive their language of love)
- Respect their wisdom. Give weight to their lived experiences, even if it doesn’t match your own.
- Learn to hear what they mean, not what they say.
- Pray for them.
- Pick up the phone and call! (I’m the worst at this one, sorry Mom).
- Listen more than you speak.
- Participate in family traditions.
- Support them financially. Take responsibility for their well-being.
- Express gratitude for the past and for the present.
- Show that you care about their health. Celebrate their marriage. Show interest in their hobbies and passions.
- Learn to accept their advice (yes, bring the fruit when going over for dinner. Yes, call and pay respect to your aunties and uncles.)
- Respect their privacy and autonomy. In situations where your parents are emotionally, financially, or practically dependent on you, entrust them to God.
- Set emotionally healthy boundaries.
- Acknowledge cultural or generational differences.
- Share about your life. Update them about (better yet, involve them in) large decisions.
- Acknowledge the things you disagree about and recognize the validity of their viewpoint.
- Honor the things they care about.
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