Children are Called to Love Not Judge Parents

Never allow grown children to interfere in your marriage. Many people who have been married a long time have children that have left the nest, their children feel some sort of entitlement to judge the marriage interfering with decisions that should be between Dad and Mom alone.

It must be made clear to adult children, when they begin to advise or speak out about the marriage of their parent, that they have crossed the line and are trespassing where they have no right to go.


There are many children who have made judgements about their parents marriages that are based on the faulty memories of a child. Often children remember events and attitudes based on the feelings they had at the time, rather than the true meaning of the event.

Since parents don't express to children what the challenges of their marriages are, the children are remembering how they felt rather than the accuracy of the situation. And there is no way a child can know what goes on with parents in private.

The best advice I can offer, is that adult children not judge a parent based on what they thought they saw, or how they felt while they were small children. Sometimes children will judge one parent as mean while the other parent was nice. Often children think that a parent who has rules and disciplines them, is the mean parent, while the lenient parent who has no rules is the nice parent.

It is best for parents to be in solidarity on discipline and training, but often this is not possible. Many parents are desiring to be pals with their children leaving most or all of the discipline and training to the other parent. When this occurs and the children grow up, the children develop their favorite parent, withholding love and encouragement from the less favored parent, even harboring contempt in their heart for the parent they cannot control.

Children who have understanding hearts will love their parents no matter how many warts they have. They will love them both equally, never attempting to come between them in their sunset years.

If you have adult children who work to divide and conquer over the marriage, it is time to explain to the children what you see happening, informing them where their place is, as children who honor, not marriage managers. If they continue to work to divide, then they must be put out of the relationship.

No where in the word does God tell children to evaluate the marriages of their parents or make sure their parents are doing what the children think they should do. Adult children are called to love their parents, not to judge or manipulate them.

Ephesians 6:1-3
"6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), 3 so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth."