Editor's Note: In the first half of this article, St. Paisios talks about humility during one's life as a child. In the second half of the article, he talks about how adult married couples can continue to honor their parents.
When a child is small, he does not do any work. His parents take care of his food, clothing, and the like. Parents help their child out of love. The child does not work - he can only complete small tasks around the house.
But can this work compare with the work or expenses that parents do for him? If, having become an adult, a child does not understand what his parents gave him, then this is very great ingratitude!
Previously, parents punished the child corporally, and he accepted corporal punishment without thoughts [of resentment]. Often he did not even understand why he was beaten. But today's children are one continuous "why and for what?" — but if there is no punishment from the father, then he is an illegitimate child (Heb. 12:6-11).
Some children, as soon as their parents make a small remark to them, immediately begin to threaten: “I will cut my veins!” And what can parents do? They give in, and in the end the children deteriorate and die.
The child must understand that if sometimes his parents give him a slap on the head, they do it not out of malice, but out of love - so that he improves, becomes better and subsequently rejoices. When we were little, we accepted everything: parental affection, parental slaps, and parental kisses. We understood that our parents did all this for our good. We had great trust in [our parents]. Sometimes this also happened: one brother was guilty of something, and the mother scolded the other because she did not have time to conduct a “trial.” However, the guilty one, seeing that because of him, the other one, the innocent one, had suffered, admitted his guilt, because his conscience convicted him, and thus the guilty brother or sister was justified.
In the family, the younger ones should have respect for both parents and older [brothers and sisters]. Younger people should feel respect, submission and gratitude to their elders as a necessity. The elders, in turn, should have love for the younger ones, help and protect them. When the younger one respects the older one, and the older one loves the younger one, a wonderful family atmosphere is created. My father told us: “Be obedient to your older brother.” We knew that our father loved us all, and we behaved very freely with him. But for the older brother, not finding fatherly love in him, we showed greater obedience (Elder Paisius had seven brothers and sisters).
When spouses respect each other, and children respect their parents, then life in the family goes smoothly, like a clock.
In such a family, the eldest son will never say to his mother something like “look, mother, don’t do this again” or “why did you do everything topsy-turvy?” But in such a family, the father does not speak to the mother in a similar tone. An adult can joke with a child to please him, but the child, feeling joy from the adult’s jokes, should not behave unceremoniously and familiarly with him.
When I was in the Stomion monastery and sometimes went down from the monastery to the city for shopping, one little boy, whose house was right on the road, ran up to me as soon as he saw me, and I kissed his hand. Then he got used to it and, running up to me, he himself held out his hand for me to kiss it! I did what he wanted. But then his parents asked: “Father, you don’t need to kiss his hand, because he runs after the priests, holds out his hand for them to kiss, and if they don’t do this, he starts to cry.”
How can children love their parents after they start their own family?
The good God has arranged it in such a way that husband and wife bond with each other with such love that they even leave their parents. If this love did not exist, then people would not be able to create their own family. The task of parents is completed once their children start their own family [or become monks]. After this, children owe their parents only [two things]: great respect and as much love as they should have for their parents. I do not want to say that a husband and wife should not love their parents. No.
But first they must have great love among themselves and [only] then love their parents. Spouses should love each other so much that their love overflows. And just from this overflow of conjugal love, they should show their parents all the respect and all the gratitude. The love of spouses should be noble, so that each spouse takes as much care as possible about the parents of the other spouse.
In order for there to be peace and harmony in the family, this will help a lot: the husband must love his wife more than his mother and more than anyone else from his loved ones. A husband's love for his parents should flow through his wife. Of course, the wife should behave the same way.
I know families in which, at the beginning of their married life, husband and wife had problems and disagreements because one of the spouses loved his mother with excessive love.
This love begins from the curiosity that a son or daughter has, feeling great gratitude to his mother. However, little by little, when spouses become attached to each other, this problem disappears. After all, if immediately after the wedding one of the spouses gave the other such love that would replenish the mother’s love, it would be unnatural.
If a husband respects his mother-in-law and father-in-law, then this is an honor to him, just as a daughter-in-law is honored by respect and love for her mother-in-law - the woman who gave birth to her husband, raised him, and now he is her husband and her joy. If a husband and wife have similar feelings and similar thoughts, all this quietly instructs the souls of their own children.
Before her son’s marriage, the mother found considerable consolation in his love. But old people become babies again. Having married off her son, the mother feels the same as the eldest child feels when she sees another child in her mother’s arms - a newly born baby. You see how: if a person does not cut off his passions in his youth, then over the years his willpower will weaken and his passions will become stronger.
However, the daughter-in-law should not be offended by this. And if she is also caring for her elderly mother-in-law, then let her be patient a little so as not to lose the bribe that is awarded to her for the care she provides her. If now she patiently looks after her mother-in-law, then later, when all the sorrows are behind her, she will rejoice at the good she has done.
But, of course, a mother-in-law should love her daughters-in-law as her own daughters. My paternal grandmother loved my mother more than my father. When my brothers got married, the neighbors shook their heads and frightened my mother: “Well, now the brides-in-law will come in large numbers...” And my mother answered them: “Why are you saying that? My mother-in-law loved me more than her daughter. So why shouldn’t I love my daughters-in-law?” And indeed, she also loved them as daughters.