Honoring Your Elderly Parents

MAINTAINING THE RIGHT ATTITUDE

Sometimes a problem that adult children face in honoring their aged parents involves the relationship they had with their parents in earlier times. Perhaps your father was cold and unloving, your mother domineering and harsh. You may still feel frustrated, angry, or hurt because they were not the parents you wanted them to be.  Can you overcome such feelings?

Basse, who grew up in Finland, relates:  "My stepfather had been an SS officer in Nazi Germany. He easily lost his temper, and then he was dangerous.  He beat up my mother many times in front of my eyes. Once when he was angry with me, he swung his belt and hit me in the face with the buckle. It hit me so hard that I had tumbled over the bed."

Yet, there was another side to the picture. Basse adds: "On the other hand, he worked very hard and did not spare himself in caring for the family materially.  He never showed me fatherly affection, but I knew that he was emotionally scarred.  His mother had thrown him out when he was a young boy. He grew up with his fists and entered the war as a young man. I could understand to some degree and did not blame him.  When I grew older, I wanted to help him as much as I could up until his death. It as not easy, but I did what I could.  I tried to be a good son in the end, and I think he accepted me as that. 

In family situations, as in other matters, the Bible counsel applies:  "Clothe yourselves with the tender affections of compassion, kindness, lowliness of mind, mildness, and long-suffering. Continue putting up with one another and forgiving one  another freely if anyone has a cause for complaint against another. Even as Jehovah forgave you, so do you also." - Colossians 3:12, 13.

Next time: Honoring Your Elderly Parents/CAREGIVERS NEED CARE TOO

From the book: The Secret of FAMILY HAPPINESS