Honor Your Father and Mother

[hotpink]

On 5/15/2017 at 0:29 PM, DameAgnes said:

This is good, on the subject: "How can I ‘honor’ my parents when they’re such miserable, difficult people?”

 https://aleteia.org/blogs/the-anchoress/how-can-i-honor-my-parents-when-theyre-such-miserable-difficult-people/

I'm sorry, just NO.

The guy just talks circles around the topic, saying that a child must contact their parent because...God.

One caller talks about a temporary separation because he PHYSICALLY ABUSED his minor preteen child.  The Rabbi said he must be remorseful and then work on the relationship.  I'm sorry....but no.  If he wasn't arrested and in freaking jail for what he did, he needs to be in serious therapy and so must the child.  The Rabbi spoke as if the father has a right to parent his child and the child is indebted to work towards a reunion if the sorry is remorseful.  Quite frankly, the thought is disgusting.

[little2add]

5 hours ago, hotpink said:

sorry, just NO.

Sometimes it's not mom or dad

IE:

Parenting Angry Teens

By Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D.
 

 

Some teens seem to walk around assuming that their parents are in a fight with them. The king-sized chip on the kid’s shoulder invites the older folks to try to knock it off. The kid then feels justified in fighting back because Mom or Dad “started it.” Unaware that, in fact, he (or she) started it by being so cranky and uncompromising, these teens are always upset with the people around them. And they are always upsetting to parents who desperately want to have friendly relationships with the adolescents they love.

When this kind of family shows up for an appointment at my office, things are intense indeed. The kids are angry, hostile, and generally unwilling to participate in the session. The parents are bewildered, hurt, and angry. The kids see their parents’ hurt as manipulative and their anger as pressure. The parents see the teen’s hostility as unfair and their demands as unreasonable. Pleasant time together has become very rare. Conversations are often punctuated by threats from both sides. The kids threaten to leave. The parents threaten to kick the kids out. Both are just plain scared.

Believe it or not, the intensity of feelings can be a hopeful sign. People who fight with each other still care what the other person thinks and still want to have impact and influence on each other. Families that are the most difficult to pull back from disaster are those in which people have given up on each other and no longer care. Where there are fights, there is some room to salvage the relationships.

After 30 years of working with families with angry teens, I have come to a few conclusions about what works and what doesn’t. The principles are easy. Staying with them isn’t. There are few things as hard to withstand as hostility from one’s own child. It hurts. But when adults manage to stay adult even when under attack, they often end up with more influence than they thought they had. By preserving the relationship, even while under fire, these parents both model maturity and make room for the child to mature eventually.

[little2add]

Most humans have family members who we find hard to forgive.  

Pray the lords prayer.  Forgive those who trespass against us, as We forgive those who trespass against us.

Amen

[sariejack]

What can you do if your parents and siblings don't want anything to do with you?

My dad and stepmother were abusive to me and when I was fifteen, I stopped going over to his house on weekends and speaking to him. Fifteen years later, when my daughter was born, I reconciled with them. I forgave them everything and was determined to have a good relationship with them.

But they held on to a lot of anger, and so did my sisters. Though we were speaking, they made it clear that I wasn't part of the family (and neither were my husband and my daughter). I invited them to everything, tried to include them, tried to be a part, but they never reciprocated.

I was stunned that when my half-sister got married, we weren't even told about it, even though my other sisters and their children were part of the wedding party.

So I don't know what to do about this. I asked my priest and he said to honor is to remain open to having a relationship with them. I am open, but at the same time, I don't want to put my daughter in a situation where she's being treated differently than her other cousins and the other grandchildren.

[hotpink]

1 hour ago, sariejack said:

What can you do if your parents and siblings don't want anything to do with you?

My dad and stepmother were abusive to me and when I was fifteen, I stopped going over to his house on weekends and speaking to him. Fifteen years later, when my daughter was born, I reconciled with them. I forgave them everything and was determined to have a good relationship with them.

But they held on to a lot of anger, and so did my sisters. Though we were speaking, they made it clear that I wasn't part of the family (and neither were my husband and my daughter). I invited them to everything, tried to include them, tried to be a part, but they never reciprocated.

I was stunned that when my half-sister got married, we weren't even told about it, even though my other sisters and their children were part of the wedding party.

So I don't know what to do about this. I asked my priest and he said to honor is to remain open to having a relationship with them. I am open, but at the same time, I don't want to put my daughter in a situation where she's being treated differently than her other cousins and the other grandchildren.

That stinks.  I think, in your situation, if you do feel open to having a relationship you can.  It really shouldn't involve your daughter until they are a bigger part of your life.  The idea would be not to burdan her with adult issues.  So, if you do want her to meet her cousins, you would do it at a super casual place, like a playground.  You would indicate that they are her cousins, and you are "just visiting" them for a while.  Children may ask to visit with people they had fun with again, but will not be hurt by it, because they don't have to face adult issues.  I would encourage you to hire a sitter and bring your support (other sister, husband) to family gatherings until you really feel like you've tested the waters.  Of course, bring lots of pictures. Once, 6 months to a year down the road, you are sure that they are on the right track, then bring her to a bigger family event. 

 

One thing you might have to consider--because I've heard the story 1,000 times if I've heard it once--is that one of your siblings was likely abused in your place, even if they were the golden child while you were there.  These kinds of resentments go deep.  The other story that is quite common is that all the remaining children who lived in the house were abused and developed an extremely common trauma bond that can't be penetrated by outsiders, even if those outsiders are family.  Third, though the one I see the least, is that they found a way to abuse you from afar, ascribing controlling and manipulating actions and blaming the person who left the abuse....even suggesting the abused was the abuser that they rescued the rest of the family from. 

 

You, unfortunately, do have the odds stacked against you and without major family therapy probably will never have even a tenuous relationship.  Unfortunately, abusers don't change their tune when the target is removed, they just find a different form.

[tinytherese]

On May 16, 2017 at 9:33 PM, little2add said:

Sometimes it's not mom or dad

IE:

Parenting Angry Teens

By Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D.
 

 

Some teens seem to walk around assuming that their parents are in a fight with them. The king-sized chip on the kid’s shoulder invites the older folks to try to knock it off. The kid then feels justified in fighting back because Mom or Dad “started it.” Unaware that, in fact, he (or she) started it by being so cranky and uncompromising, these teens are always upset with the people around them. And they are always upsetting to parents who desperately want to have friendly relationships with the adolescents they love.

When this kind of family shows up for an appointment at my office, things are intense indeed. The kids are angry, hostile, and generally unwilling to participate in the session. The parents are bewildered, hurt, and angry. The kids see their parents’ hurt as manipulative and their anger as pressure. The parents see the teen’s hostility as unfair and their demands as unreasonable. Pleasant time together has become very rare. Conversations are often punctuated by threats from both sides. The kids threaten to leave. The parents threaten to kick the kids out. Both are just plain scared.

Believe it or not, the intensity of feelings can be a hopeful sign. People who fight with each other still care what the other person thinks and still want to have impact and influence on each other. Families that are the most difficult to pull back from disaster are those in which people have given up on each other and no longer care. Where there are fights, there is some room to salvage the relationships.

After 30 years of working with families with angry teens, I have come to a few conclusions about what works and what doesn’t. The principles are easy. Staying with them isn’t. There are few things as hard to withstand as hostility from one’s own child. It hurts. But when adults manage to stay adult even when under attack, they often end up with more influence than they thought they had. By preserving the relationship, even while under fire, these parents both model maturity and make room for the child to mature eventually.

We're not talking about situations like that. We're talking about parents who are abusive and or negligent. Regardless of how old their children are, they need to be separated from them. Forgiving them is not the same thing as trusting them. Some people are just too dangerous to be around. Sometimes they change and sometimes they don't. 

A nun once told me that the abuse that I've been through from my dad was my fault. I used to believe her and it was damaging. To be treated with abuse or or negligence is completely unacceptable. No one deserves to be treated like that. It is NEVER the fault of the person being abused or neglected. 

There are people who are being abused and or neglected or who have had a history of such treatment who could easily stumble onto this thread and read your posts. They might believe you and that would be incredibly dangerous. I'm done with this thread.

[little2add]

7 hours ago, tinytherese said:

No one deserves to be treated like that.

Mother and Child reunion 

Paul Simon

 

No I would not give no false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away

Oh, little darling of mine, I care for the life of me
Remember a sadder day, that now they say let be
Just don't recount on me in the course of a lifetime run
Over and over again

No I would not give no false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away

Oh, little darling of mine, I just can't believe it's so
Though it seems strange to say, I never been laid so low
Such a mysterious way and the course of a lifetime runs
Over and over again

No I would not give no false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away

But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away

But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away

[hotpink]

9 hours ago, tinytherese said:

We're not talking about situations like that. We're talking about parents who are abusive and or negligent. Regardless of how old their children are, they need to be separated from them. Forgiving them is not the same thing as trusting them. Some people are just too dangerous to be around. Sometimes they change and sometimes they don't. 

A nun once told me that the abuse that I've been through from my dad was my fault. I used to believe her and it was damaging. To be treated with abuse or or negligence is completely unacceptable. No one deserves to be treated like that. It is NEVER the fault of the person being abused or neglected. 

There are people who are being abused and or neglected or who have had a history of such treatment who could easily stumble onto this thread and read your posts. They might believe you and that would be incredibly dangerous. I'm done with this thread.

Therese,

 

I think there's been enough people on here to say that no abuse is ever OK.  and I wish I could get @Era Might and @Luigi and @vee  and @Maximilianus and @Seven77and heck back it up with @dUSt  that God never, ever, ever requires one to stay in an abusive relationship.  Parent/Child, spousal, or friendship.  

 

Era Might started this thread speaking about difficult parents, and that's a different story. I have many students who have difficult parents.  I have many students who have difficult personalities and what appear to be very normal, logical parents when I meet them.  Cases like this are grey territory. So long as none of the parties tend towards abuse or extremes then eventually things work out.  Sometimes as a child gets older the parent and child both change learn to tolerate each other.

But that never, ever works when there is abuse involved.  Even if the abusive party is the college student, it requires a lot of family therapy to develop healthy bonds because they've hurt not only their parents, but any siblings.  The damage that an older sibiling, even if they are just abusive to their parents, can do is profound.

For my students who have non abusive but generally difficult parents, I recommend a few things.  Meet in neutral territory if ambushes are common, don't stay under their roof, keep conversation light and fluffy about topics that won't set them off, never give or accept money, don't be negative about any aspect of your life.  If they are negative, deflect with a laugh.  Have friends around.

The election was really hard for many families and every topic became a landmine.  I sent many families to national parks to do scavenger hunts.  It was so successful, it's now become a thing and we've purchased rain jackets so we can send them out in all weather (PNW, it's always raining).  It is more complicated as adult children get older but in general KISS-keep it simple, stupid...is the go to.

[Era Might]

4 hours ago, hotpink said:

Era Might started this thread speaking about difficult parents, and that's a different story. I have many students who have difficult parents.  I have many students who have difficult personalities and what appear to be very normal, logical parents when I meet them.  Cases like this are grey territory. So long as none of the parties tend towards abuse or extremes then eventually things work out.  Sometimes as a child gets older the parent and child both change learn to tolerate each other.

But that never, ever works when there is abuse involved.  Even if the abusive party is the college student, it requires a lot of family therapy to develop healthy bonds because they've hurt not only their parents, but any siblings.  The damage that an older sibiling, even if they are just abusive to their parents, can do is profound..

I'm kind of disappointed the thread has gone the way it has, but if that's what people need to express, that's fine. I don't know anything about abuse or neglect so I leave that advice to others. But, obviously, some people have serious issues to deal with, and if this thread gave them an opportunity to express themselves, it was worth it.

[little2add]

On 5/22/2017 at 11:01 PM, tinytherese said:

We're not talking about situations like that.

it happens a lot and is applicable to "honoring parents" in the contexts of this tread.  Accepting real abuse is not...

bring a child into this world a rising him or her is a lot of hard work .  don't forget!

[little2add]

 Dedicated to my dad 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=agC7SoihH-o

 

[little2add]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ATc1MqutSAQ

 

[Era Might]

I'm rereading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. The passage below, with dialogue from the monastery elder Zosima, reminded me of this thread topic. But, it didn't occur to me that the entire novel is about a father and his three sons, all completely at war with or at least alienated from eachother, yet bound to confront each other and learn what love is. It isn't a happy family, because you can't get a more dysfunctional family than the Karamazovs. But that is where love is found, in the mysterious redemption of sinners.

Quote

“By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.”

“In active love? There's another question—and such a question! You see, I so love humanity that—would you believe it?—I often dream of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to overcome all obstacles. No wounds, no festering sores could at that moment frighten me. I would bind them up and wash them with my own hands. I would nurse the afflicted. I would be ready to kiss such wounds.”

“It is much, and well that your mind is full of such dreams and not others. Sometime, unawares, you may do a good deed in reality.”

“Yes. But could I endure such a life for long?” the lady went on fervently, almost frantically. “That's the chief question—that's my most agonizing question. I shut my eyes and ask myself, ‘Would you persevere long on that path? And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not meet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great suffering)—what then? Would you persevere in your love, or not?’ And do you know, I came with horror to the conclusion that, if anything could dissipate my love to humanity, it would be ingratitude. In short, I am a hired servant, I expect my payment at once—that is, praise, and the repayment of love with love. Otherwise I am incapable of loving any one.”

[pg 057]

She was in a very paroxysm of self-castigation, and, concluding, she looked with defiant resolution at the elder.

“It's just the same story as a doctor once told me,” observed the elder. “He was a man getting on in years, and undoubtedly clever. He spoke as frankly as you, though in jest, in bitter jest. ‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.’ ”

“But what's to be done? What can one do in such a case? Must one despair?”

“No. It is enough that you are distressed at it. Do what you can, and it will be reckoned unto you. Much is done already in you since you can so deeply and sincerely know yourself. If you have been talking to me so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness, as you did from me just now, then of course you will not attain to anything in the achievement of real love; it will all get no further than dreams, and your whole life will slip away like a phantom. In that case you will naturally cease to think of the future life too, and will of yourself grow calmer after a fashion in the end.”

“You have crushed me! Only now, as you speak, I understand that I was really only seeking your approbation for my sincerity when I told you I could not endure ingratitude. You have revealed me to myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself!”

“Are you speaking the truth? Well, now, after such a confession, I believe that you are sincere and good at heart. If you do not [pg 058]attain happiness, always remember that you are on the right road, and try not to leave it. Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute. Avoid being scornful, both to others and to yourself. What seems to you bad within you will grow purer from the very fact of your observing it in yourself. Avoid fear, too, though fear is only the consequence of every sort of falsehood. Never be frightened at your own faint-heartedness in attaining love. Don't be frightened overmuch even at your evil actions. I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it—at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you.

Edited May 31, 2017 by Era Might

[little2add]