3. There is still another kind of dishonoring of parents, much more dangerous and subtle than this first, [a dishonoring] which decks itself out and lets itself be regarded as a true honoring of parents. That is when a child has its own way and the parents allow it to do so out of natural love. In this case they honor one another and love one another. On all sides it is a precious thing; the mother and father are pleased and the child is pleased.
This plague is so common that instances of the first kind of dishonoring are very rarely seen. This second kind of dishonoring arises from the fact that the parents have been blinded and neither know nor honor God in the sense of the first three commandments. For this reason they cannot see what the children lack, or how they ought to teach them and bring them up. It is only to please men and to get ahead that they train their children for worldly honors, pleasure, and possessions. The children like this, and, of course, they obey very gladly without any back talk. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.82-83).