04.02.15 The 11th Key for Adding Value to Your Parents' Lives

11. Keep Personal Information about your Parents Confidential

Considering that Naomi’s husband and sons all died in Moab, sometimes, I wonder if there could have been a well-hidden family secret that sent them to their graves. Some writers report that God punished them but it is not clear how and with what. They explain how Elimelech was a wealthy man who would feed the community during the drought that hit Bethlehem; and that by fleeing to Moab, Elimelech deserted the responsibility of supporting his community at a time when they needed him the most; a thing which annoyed God hence leading to the man’s death. They also assert that God punished his sons for marrying Moabite women (Deuteronomy 23:3). All in all, the bible is silent about their actual cause of death. This could suggest that Ruth may have known exactly what led to their demise but chose to keep the information confidential.

A value-adding daughter keeps family secrets rather than hanging her parent’s dirty linen in public. A befitting metaphor to use is that ‘you should never uncover your parent’s nakedness' before people’ (Leviticus 18:7).

In other words, your parents’ inadequacies and failure points are ‘bedroom issues’ that should never be disclosed to the external world, to avoid the shame and reproach that may follow, which in essence could minimise the value that people accord your parents.