Honor your father and your mother.
—Exodus 20:12
Honor your father and mother … except or unless. There is no except or unless in the fifth commandment. It is honor your parents. Period.
Honor them for having taken care of you before you could take care of yourself. Honor them for the sacrifices they made for you, some of which you know, some of which you don’t. Honor them for having loved you, however flawed the expression of that love may have been.
They made parenting mistakes, some of which may have left you pretty messed up. Honor them anyway. Honor them because even at their worst they were doing their best; or maybe not. Honor them anyway. Honor them for whatever it was that made them what they were—or kept them from being what you wish they had been.
Honor them because without them you wouldn’t be.
Nurture the next generation;
honor the previous one.