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This year Mother's Day is May 10th and we should all honor our mother, just as we honor our father on Father's Day in June. Honoring our mother and father is the fifth of the Ten Commandments and one of the most important. As author and JWR contributing columnist Dennis Prager often points out, you don't have to love your parents or even like them, but in the Jewish tradition you must honor them. Dennis makes the point that if you don't love your mother or father, that is sad. But you still owe them honorable conduct.
Dennis says, "The great lesson of the fifth commandment is that in life we are obligated to behave in certain ways whether we feel like it or not. "Honor" means treating one's parents with the gravity that their position demands. One honors one's parents through speech and actions. We do not speak to our parents with the same abandon we do to our peers. Actions would include getting up to greet a parent, offering them one's seat, and maintaining regular contact with one's parent(s) — such as calling them every week."
Fortunately, I loved my father and mother so honoring them wasn't very difficult for me. But loving and honoring are different. It is possible to love your parents and not to show them the honor that they deserve. Your father and mother should always be honored, no matter how much or how little you love them.
Thanks to the greeting card companies, the florists, the candy makers, and the jewelers we have many other days in which we honor specific people. I call them Other's Days. There is grandparents' day, there even is an aunt and uncles' day, and of course there is secretaries' day (now called Administration Professionals Day). Let us not forget Bosses Day. Is there a Middle Management Day? If not, why not? And while we're about it, we should also establish a "Low Rung on the Org Chart Day" for all those worker bees. And oh yes, there is a national Custodian Day, although I couldn't find an assembly line day.
There are more other's days. Since the early 2000's we now have a Wife's Appreciation Day and a Husband's Appreciation Day. We know there are homosexual, lesbian, and trans days, not to mention weeks and months. We live in a time when everyone needs to be given the participation award. No one is excluded from being honored. And for some groups having one day just isn't enough, we must designate entire months.
There is black month, women's month, Hispanic month, Arab American month, Asian and Pacific Islander month, there's even a zombie awareness month. Is there a terrorist appreciation month? Maybe only on college campuses.
But for most of us, the important people to honor are our parents. Without them we would be nothing, literally. So thank you, Dad and Mom. I'll always love you. I'll always remember you and all the things you did for me. And of course, I'll always honor you and your memory for as long as I live.
(COMMENT, BELOW)