Respect

A commandment is to respect parents, yet many do not have a functional or realistic definition of respect. Respect is not a particular attitude or form of slavery. God also made children with their own hearts, minds and freewill. Expecting someone to do exactly what they want all the time is slavery. Respect is a meaningful activity of understanding and empathizing with another person. It is understanding correctness of actions, and empathy of circumstances.

Every family has parents. Many idealize parents they see on television or other potential parents. A person with a stepparent does not disrespect active parent when fantasizing about a biological parent. In fact, the more ideal the biological parent is increases the child's sense of empowerment because the image is more a personal reflection than actual fact. If the person is active in their life then biological parents are a person to learn from and offer real assistance in relations to multi-facets of social arenas.

Active parents are the only ones that are important, because the only consequence of disrespecting parents is being kicked out of the house. There is no stoning to death or measurable punishment, besides leaving.

I have many theories on what happens when someone disrespects their parents. Parents are the first level of interacting with people. If unable to relate to circumstances of people in an equivalent standard of life it is virtually impossible to function with realities and consequences of adult life.

It is important to know everyone is different and evaluates choices. You cannot tell someone who has all of the natural skills to be a nurse, not to be a nurse or tell an unattractive woman they should invest time in marrying a successful husband. This creates strain that might look like disrespect, yet parents are simply not seeing the child as an individual. Though children will realize they are gifted in ways that other people lack skill or should plan on finding work because there are few suitors, a parent should also be responsible by avoiding making their child's life difficult with unrealistic expectations. Parents would probably react similarly in the same situation.

Disrespect has its own consequences that are innate to a person showing disrespect. Parents are older and wiser when dealing with aspects of life. The person best suited with a niche in life will have to learn from their parents in how to handle difficult decisions associated to their station. If having to work while raising children it is better to respect the parental decision to go to work to pay the bills so they do not have to live on the streets and spend time to make sure the children are safe and happy.

My Mother had to work. I could evaluate her in various ways. I could disrespect her for not being wealthier and marrying whatever guy came around so she could spend all of her time with me or I could respect how responsible she became when graduating from the Community College and finding a decent office job where she met my stepfather. He likes her because of her independence, yet it was internal strength making it possible to go to work while he went to school. He eventually graduated. Slowly all of the economic strains disappeared as they look forward to a satisfactory retirement.

Depending on severity of an overbearing parent who only sees one life for her daughter through marriage, a child might have to create barriers when recognizing the plan is unrealistic. As long as the daughter is going through actions of respect: cleaning the house, learning about makeup, practicing poise and being a good daughter there is no harm; however, if having to reinforce a mental barrier that the Mother is stupid and irresponsible, she should prepare to leave the house before forcible removal.

A parent must follow laws stating they must provide for their children until a certain age. A parent should show empathy when a child is lashing out verbally at everyone because they are having difficulty figuring out what they will do with their own life. A parent does not have to support an enemy in their own home who destroys all of their work because of a total lack of respect. The child should figure out how to live independently. It is likely they want to live however they want or suffer forcible removal from the home.

Knowing a person who has lived a greater portion of their life the combination of disrespect and leaving home are interdependent. This is not because they had a hard life. In fact, they are prosperous, own their home, have a family and live on par if not better than several peers. They only disrespect one parent. The other parent is a glowing tower of perfection and they got as far away from the parent they disrespect as soon as possible.

Even into the corners of their mind and soul they determined every aspect of a parent is wrong. At least by having one parent who is thoughtful and righteous they have a model for behaving properly. More importantly they enacted the consequence of disrespect and then became blessed. They might have regrets. In the incident of the overbearing Mother wanting an attractive daughter, the skillful daughter could benefit from understanding gifts of leisure and poise to make life better, yet life is still full of God's blessings.

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