a guest post by Mary Ann Esque
“You’ll die sooner, you know.” This was the response I encountered when expressing frustration with my parents. A trusted adult at church told me I had to “honor your father and mother.” Their version of “honor” meant never speak of your parents in a negative light. To this day, any time I hear that phrase, my body tenses, and my fight or flight reflexes kick in. I don’t remember what specific issue was bothering me that day, but telling me I am going to die sooner if I don’t stop talking about my parental frustrations is a terrible thing to do to a child.
My parents tend to fall into the category of emotional immaturity. They provided a roof over my head, clothes, and food. They showed up for my games when I played sports. This sometimes makes it difficult for others to understand exactly why things were so hard growing up. While it’s true my physical needs were met, my emotional needs were not. I often felt I had to perform to be loved. My feelings were dismissed or invalidated. The emotional volatility displayed by my parents left me with a chronic sense of walking on eggshells as you never knew what would set one of them off. This left me as an adult struggling to express my own emotions and regulate them appropriately.
Parents will never get everything right all the time. I remember listening to a podcast where someone said as a parent you need to get it right about fifty percent of the time and be willing to repair the relationship if you do something wrong. As a single woman with no kids, I am sure people will say “You should try being a parent because you don’t know how hard it is.”, “You are not perfect either.”, etc. I will emphatically agree that parenting is a hard job. All parents make mistakes. I also am not perfect. However, attempting to weaponize Scripture instead of showing up with a Christ like compassion is not and never will be okay.
God’s Word never instructed me to be silent about the harm I experienced from my parents. He is not a harsh, punitive being who shaves hours off my life for daring to speak the truth of my experience. God is all about bringing things into the light. He is about honesty and confession. His encounter with the woman at the well in John 4 highlights this. He speaks the truth of her experience, but invites her to change and connection. If a child shares the truth of what it was like to be parented by their mom or dad, that is an invitation to change what went wrong and build a healthier relationship going forward. It will likely be hard for the parent to receive it as the gift it is, but that doesn’t mean we go back to sweeping things under the proverbial rug. All you will have is a mound of dirt barely hidden by the rug covering it, which becomes a tripping hazard for everyone.
As I consider what it means to honor my parents, I think it’s also important to acknowledge what your parents did well. My mom was an excellent baker. She made our birthday cakes growing up, which were fun and creative. I can recall many happy hours spent together in the kitchen. She and I spent a lot of time watching movies or TV while crocheting or crafting. We also did a lot of puzzles together, even though she did grumble about how quick I was to put the pieces together. My dad has taught me how to take care of my car and helped me financially. He has dropped everything to spend long hours in the emergency department with me when my chronic illnesses flare. There is goodness in my relationship with my parents just as there is harm. The picture it paints is one of flawed human beings. We are not monochromatic people. Light and shadow appear in their relationship with me along with hues of various colors. There is texture to who we are. Our choices frame the composition of our lives captured in moments. In this place of honesty, I find that I am met with the eternal compassion of my heavenly Father who never chastises me for my attempts to speak the truth with grace.
If you are struggling with your relationship with your parents, know that you don’t have to cover up their flaws. While I don’t believe in public humiliation, I do believe you can speak the truth of your experience with your parents in a respectful way that invites change and connection. Whether your parents accept such an invitation is not your responsibility. All you can do is issue the invitation. That’s a brave step for someone who has experienced disconnection from their parents and ultimately their Heavenly Father, but one that is life giving.
More about Mary Ann:
Mary Ann Esque is an eclectic writer who corrected her college English professor’s grammar. She loves all forms of grammar from the scholarly to the colloquial. Mary Ann has harbored a deep love of stories since childhood and has been scribbling in notebooks since she could write. Her stories often contain themes of grief, loss, trauma, and recovery. She lives in North Carolina with her village made of awesome friends who talk her out of things like owning a raccoon. She has a growing appreciation for cats and loves dogs, especially her hiking buddy Ace.
Readers can connect with her via email: [email protected]
