Generations, Leaving and Cleaving + 6 Ways to Honor Your Parents
The Intentional Parents Podcast
Intentional
4.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we explore what Scripture really means when it calls us to leave and cleave. Leaving isn’t just moving out, it’s a purposeful, decisive shift of loyalty and identity so a new family can truly become one. This kind of separation can feel confusing or even painful, especially for parents who have spent years nurturing their children. But leaving is not rejection; it’s the healthy foundation God designed for a flourishing marriage. We look at what this requires; physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially, and how both parents and adult children can navigate these transitions with grace together.
From that foundation, we move into the biblical command to honor our parents. We clarify what honoring is, and just as importantly, what it’s not. It isn’t blind obedience or ignoring unhealthy patterns. Instead, honor means giving weight and dignity to the person and the role, even when it’s challenging. We offer six practical ways you can live into honoring your parents today!
Six practical ways to honor your parents:
• Speak with kindness and dignity
• Appeal rather than criticize
• Speak the truth in love
• Express gratitude for what they did right
• Forgive ongoing or past wounds
• Seek to understand their story
Whether you’re forming a new family or parenting adult children of your own, this conversation offers a hopeful, grounded path toward healthier relationships across generations.
Scripture Mentioned: Genesis, 1 thessalonians 2:7-8, Ephesians 1-4, Proverbs 1:23+31, Proverb 15:1, 1 Timothy 5:1, Ephesian 4:15, Colossians 4:2-4, Luke 4:22
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey friends, before we dive in, my new book, Soing a Hidden Seed, Daily Prayers for Your Child's Spiritual Growth is out now available on IntentionalParendes.org exclusively. So go check that out. Christmas is coming. What a great Christmas present to get your family praying. And don't miss our upcoming retreats. The intentional fatherhood retreat February 19 through 21, 2026, in Costa Mesa, California,, the Intentional Fatherhood Retreat, February 19 through 21, |
| 0:21.1 | 2026 in Coast of Mesa, California, and the intentional motherhood retreat. We announced this April |
| 0:27.7 | 23rd through 25th, 2026 in Franklin, Tennessee. Please come out and know that early bird |
| 0:33.8 | pricing is on both of those events, check that out these retreats are spaces to |
| 0:38.1 | pause breathe and invest in your spiritual formation as a parent so learn more get your tickets now at |
| 0:44.4 | intentional parents.org and let's get into this week's episode you're listening to the intentional parents |
| 0:53.8 | podcast brought to by by Intentional. |
| 0:56.8 | Intentional is all about spiritual formation in the family. |
| 1:00.6 | We desire to bring biblical hope and practical hope. |
| 1:04.1 | Enjoy this week's conversation. |
| 1:18.3 | Welcome back to the Int parents podcast. As an adult, do you have tension with your adult parents? |
| 1:24.5 | Are in-law relationships hard? Not my in-law relationships. Your in-law relationships. |
| 1:31.3 | Hard ever. Do you find that leaving and cleaving was a nice sentiment that never happened for you? Is there chaos in your marriage because of an adult parent? Or rather, |
| 1:37.5 | as an adult parent, do you have chaos in your marriage because of your adult children? |
| 1:41.6 | These are real things that we all experience that we all go through. |
| 1:44.5 | And that honestly, I think to name this is important because I think a lot of us experience this. |
| 1:49.6 | And that's what we're going to cover today. |
| 1:51.1 | We want to talk about generationally, how do you have semi-normal or even, dare I say, healthy |
| 1:58.1 | relationships with your adult parents as adults, with all the |
| 2:03.2 | complexities of grandchildren and not being raised well or being raised well. And so we're going to |
| 2:07.5 | get in that today. All four of us are here, Phil and Diane. Phil's been a little bit since you've |
| 2:10.6 | been on. Welcome back. So glad to have you. So glad to have you. That strong voice. It's warm. |
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