Many parents have been baffled over a son’s or daughter’s easily transferred loyalties from the original family to a new spouse. How can their young boy or girl so easily choose the new love over a long-established relationship? Here is the reason:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

When the Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” he answered and said to them:

Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matthew 19:1-6)

To leave our fathers and mothers does not mean we must cut off all relationship to them. We should relate to them, and honor them all the days of our lives. However, when we marry, our relationship to them must change. From that point the primary communion of hearts that is designed to alleviate the loneliness must come from our mates, not our parents. Anything else other than that will be perversion of both relationships.

Stress that is related to in-laws is one of the main destructive elements in a marriage relationship. And one of the primary forces that keep married people from learning to cleave to one another is the interference of their parents or in-laws.

Many parents find it very hard to let go of their children and allow them to live their own lives as mature and independent adults. But it is not natural for a man or woman to continue cleaving to their parents when there are mature adults especially after they get married. If they do, destruction of both relationships is guaranteed, as well as the wounding of their own souls.

There is a point in everyman’s life when he must become the man of his own home. And there is point in every woman’s life when she must establish her own household. Fathers and mothers may always help their children with advice and wisdom when it is requested. However, after marriage, any parent attempting to control his/her children will be destructive to their lives.

The Lord created us to be free and make choices, and if children are mature enough to marry, they are mature enough to make the decisions and bear the responsibility of their choices. If parents don’t allow the children to develop responsibility, it will make it much more difficult to accomplish God’s purpose for their lives.

As parents, we must understand that anything we do to interfere in the relationship of our children with their spouses may save them from some short term mistakes, but will usually be very detrimental to them in the long run.

We have to let them grow in their relationship to each other, by facing all life choices together, and dealing with the consequences whether bad or good. If we don’t let them grow, and make mistakes, the consequences of these choices will hurt them more.

One of the easiest routes to a conflict in marriage is when a husband has to compete with the wife’s parents for priority of relationship. Likewise the same is true for a wife whose husband has trouble cutting ties. This is why the instruction of Scripture is so strong and specific that a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

The words “leave your father and mother” means, while still part of their larger family, the new couple will have to form a priority family unit that begins with their marriage. This of course suggests a temporary state. But the words “united or joined” to his wife indicates a permanent condition.

The Parent and Child Relationship

The parent/child relationship is established by birth or adoption, but the husband/wife relationship is established by covenant. Marriage is a covenant commitment established by God and sealed by the Holy Spirit, therefore it supersedes blood ties. As someone has well said, “Blood may be thicker than water but it is not thicker than promise.”

Parents, when your children marry, the leadership and decision making responsibilities should be transferred from their former homes to the new home they are building together. All leadership and responsibility now devolves on them. They are responsible for making their own decisions and this includes allowing parents to be involved in supporting them when in any sort of crisis.

There is no doubt that any well intentioned but inappropriate interference of family members into the daily affairs of the couple’s life and relationship will definitely cause problems.

If possible, the newly married couples are to move as far away from their parents as they can to prevent the wrong kind of interference. Listen to what happened in the early years of a well known couple, Mary Beth and Steven Curtis. Here is part of their story:

A baby bottle sterilizer had been left on their kitchen stove. The apartment didn’t burn to the ground, but most of their earthly possessions were ruined from fire, smoke, or water damage.

The youngest of three children, Mary Beth called her parents in hysterics to tell them about the fire. A few hours later, they arrived to help, filled with good intentions, paint buckets, and ladders. Mary Beth wanted to believe that Daddy would fix it all—that he could somehow make it all better.

At the time, Mary Beth was recovering from a C-section. And Steven was trying to break into the music business while learning where he fit into the extended family dynamics.

The confrontation

One Sunday afternoon, when Mary Beth’s parents were up to their knees in soot and laundry, Steven’s mother and grandmother arrived after a two-hour drive. Somehow tensions mounted that day, and conflict blew up into an unfortunate disagreement:

Mary Beth’s parents were on one side of the room, holding their daughter and saying that they may need to take their little girl back to Ohio. On the other side was Steven’s family, with his mom saying, “Well, I’m going to take my son back to Paducah.”

So much had happened to Steven and Mary Beth in such a short period of time. A new baby. A fire. Temporarily staying with friends. In-laws visiting, day after day.

Feeling desperate, Steven knew that only the Lord could resolve this situation. He remembers literally yelling to the devil, the enemy of relationships: “You’re not going to have this family! You will not have this home!”

With two much older siblings, Mary Beth admits that she’s always been a daddy’s girl. And now she found herself in the middle of a mess bigger than soot and ash. Would she give her loyalty to her young husband, or to her father?

As she heard Steven pray out loud for his family, she knew she should support him. After all, their marriage had been established on biblical principles. On her wedding day, hadn’t she had pledged her loyalty to Steven above her parents (Genesis 2:24)?

But at the same time, she recalls, “I didn’t have a place to live and had this newborn infant that I didn’t even know how to take care of yet.”

Despite her emotional turmoil she somehow made her choice: Steven had her heart. Together they made a home. She and the baby would remain with him.

So parents, for the sake of your children, when they marry, let them go. It may be painful for a little while but it is necessary in order to be obedient to God’s Word and worse still it can be much more painful later if not done.

When God created the human race He began with husband and wife, not a parent and child. Therefore every couple needs to establish their own household, and identity as a family.

To listen to Steven and Beth sharing the lessons learned from miscommunication between the in-laws and other challenges, and how the Lord got them through this season of their lives…. download the Transcript here

Image credit: Heavens Call

FAQ: Should a married couple support their parents? Today many young couples begin their married life struggling to understand what responsibilities they have toward their parents or close relatives.

Let’s start with what the Bible teaches. In Old Testament times, people understood “family” to mean something much different from our modern day family which consists of a dad, a mom, 2.5 kids, and probably a dog. This kind of “nuclear family” would have been foreign to the people in Old Testament times.

The family included all living generations, usually living on the same piece of land or property. And the inheritance would pass to the eldest male. He would receive a double portion compared to the inheritance of his siblings. Parents thought in terms of interdependence. Each son with his wife and children formed a family subunit, usually geographically connected to one family estate or compound.

When the patriarch died, the central responsibility shifted to his eldest son. This concept of family in the Old Testament is still practised in some parts of the world today, most notably in Africa. The value of having many children in the Old Testament and some cultures today is obvious. First, the infant-mortality rate and premature death rates were very high. Secondly, those with large estates needed more labour to work and defend their property.

They had no concept of social security, nursing homes, health insurance, or pensions. Instead, they had children. Under Old Testament law, allowances were made for polygamy although it was never commended or condemned in the Old Testament. If the primary wife was unable to bear children, especially sons, the husband would often add more wives to the family to bear more children.

And when it came to warfare sons were to take this responsibility. This perspective of defense is the key to understanding the blessing of the “quiver” mentioned in Psalm 127, a chapter used by the Quiverful movement as God’s ideal for large families.

Yes, sons are a gift from the Lord the fruit of the womb is a reward. Sons born during one’s youth are like arrows in a warrior’s hand. How blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! They will not be put to shame when they confront enemies at the city gate. (Psalm 127: 3-5)

This is not meant to diminish the blessing or importance of a large family in our modern world today. All children regardless of sex are a blessing from the Lord, whether the Lord allows you to have many or just a few or even none. The abundant life does not consist of only having children.

When it came to childbearing, in His recorded teachings, Jesus never commanded biological reproduction. His emphasis was on the kingdom. The church’s main purpose is to live for God’s glory and in a relationship with Him. Many righteous and devoted people in the Bible never had children. In fact, Jesus says:

For there some eunuchs who were that way from birth, and some who were made eunuchs by others, and some who became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”(Matthew 19:12)

The apostle Paul who was not married nor had children received the privilege of revealing the mystery of marriage. He believed that his singleness enabled him to focus totally on the one thing that he had been called to do.

He explains that an essential purpose in God joining husband and wife or bride and groom is to provide an earthly picture of the heavenly union of Christ and the church. (See Ephesians 5:22-23) Even before and after the children have grown, this union of husband and wife pictures the intimate relationship that Christ has with the believers.

Children Supporting their Parents

When we go back to our main question of children supporting their parents, we encounter one of the most common problems in families where traditional generational ties are very strong. For instance, most African parents expect the grown-up children, even those who are married, to support them financially and worse still on an ongoing basis. After all, it is right for children to “repay” their parents for having taken care of them.

Let’s consider what the Bible says. In writing to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul explained that, as before, he didn’t want to be a burden to them financially. Why? He said, for it is not your money that I want but you; for children are not duty-bound to lay up store for their parents, but parents for their children. (See 2 Corinthians 12-14)

He was trying to make it clear that children don’t provide for their parents, rather parents provide for their children. In the right context, Paul was explaining the spiritual principle that applies also to family relationships.

Parents have the responsibility to support their children in every area of their lives so that they can become all that God created them – to be productive, mature and independent adults who are able to fulfil their purpose. Likewise when children become independent adults; they should not be dependent on their parents. So it works both ways.

Does this mean that children should have no responsibility for their parent’s welfare? Not at all, as a matter of fact, if your parents are genuinely in need and you have the means to support them, that’s okay. But the decision to help should be a choice made by the couple and not imposed on them by the guilt of having to “repay” back their parents for the care they got from them. It’s worth considering another biblical example.

In Paul’s first letter to his young protégé Timothy, he said that the responsibility for caring for the helpless naturally falls first on their families. He says;

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, see to it that these are first made to understand that it is their religious duty [to defray their natural obligation to those] at home, and make return to their parents or grandparents [for all their care by contributing to their maintenance], for this is acceptable in the sight of God. (1Timothy 5:4)

It’s indeed acceptable and pleasing in the sight of God because if at all you can recall that when the Lord Jesus was hanging on the cross, He saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing near to His mother and He said to His mother, Dear woman, See, here is your son! Then He said to the disciple, see here is your mother! And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own keeping, own home. (John 19:25-27)

But again in 1 Timothy 5:5, Paul continues to provide practical counsel for supporting parents, particularly those who are widowed or have no legitimate means of supporting themselves. He says:

Now [a woman] who is a real widow and is left entirely alone and desolate has fixed her hope on God and perseveres in supplications and prayers night and day. He goes on to stress that a widow who lives in pleasure and self-gratification [giving herself up to luxury and self-indulgence] is dead even while she [still] lives.

The church had a responsibility to care for widows who were not living in pleasure and self-gratification. Under strict guidelines, it was only those who were in real need because they persevered in supplications and prayers night and day. Paul said that the Church’s primary responsibility was to those widows who had no one–not children or grandchildren to take care of them.

Paul stresses that widows who had children or grandchildren in the church are expected to be taken care of by their families. In other words, children or grandchildren are responsible under God for caring for parents or grandparents who because of health, destitution, or other reasons cannot care for themselves.

The prophet Isaiah also helps us to understand that the kind of fasting that God wants is to share food with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house—when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from your relatives who need your help. (Isaiah 58:6-7)

What if your parents abused you or mistreated you in any way? You need to ask the Lord for the grace to completely forgive them. Joyce Meyer, a well-known Christian author and evangelist, was sexually abused by her father from the time she was a young child until she became of age. I heard her sharing her testimony that her father abused her almost 200 times. Yet in spite of all this horrible experience, she had to forgive her father for his actions.

Joyce said that the Lord told her to move her father closer to her home and take care of him. It was a difficult act of obedience, but she complied and tried to show him her love. When her dad lay sick in the hospital, he told her: “Joyce, I am sorry you feel I hurt you. But I still don’t understand what was so bad about what I did.”

Joyce Meyer said she left the hospital feeling very sad, not knowing if he would live through the night and she was sure that her Dad did not know the Lord.  But she bought clothes and food and ensured all his basic needs were met.

Eventually, during one of her visits to her father, he told her: “I am sorry for what I did to you. I have wanted to say this to you for a long time, but I didn’t have the guts.” He apologized to Meyer and her husband, Dave, and asked them to forgive him. Meyer knelt beside her father and joined him in praying to receive Christ and he was later baptized after this process of reconciliation and forgiveness.

In a nutshell, parents who are healthy and possess the means of supporting themselves should not become a burden to their children. Children, on the other hand, have the responsibility to provide for the welfare of parents who can longer provide for themselves. The church can therefore concentrate on caring for those widows who have no families, the elderly, disabled or sick.

Image Credit: Heavens Call