“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father Noah and told his two brothers. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.” Genesis 9:22-23
When Noah woke up and found out what had happened, he cursed Canaan. Why Canaan? Many scholars believe it was because Canaan must have noticed Noah first and told his father. So why did Noah curse the boy? Did he laugh at his grandfather’s nakedness? Did he make fun of him or make lude comments? I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t say.
But, I remember when my dad died. My family and my brother’s descended upon his house to go through his belongings. That’s when we discovered Dad liked looking at pictures of naked ladies. LOTS of pictures of naked ladies. All the grandkids were banished from coming into the room as my husband, brother, sister-in-law, my dad’s brother-in-law, and I went through stack after stack of papers, sorting out important documents and tearing up lude pictures. We also excluded Dad’s current wife. She just lost her husband, and the rest of us felt it would be a great unkindness to expect her to endure this tarnish to his memory. A great purging occurred that left all us grownups feeling dirty and ashamed. But it was a part of my dad’s past we had no desire to expose our children to, especially my son Chris who was 18 at the time and had adored his grandpa. The shredded pictures would never be mentioned to them.
The bible tells us to honor our parents. There are times our parents act in ways that are not honorable, but even in those times we are called to preserve their dignity. God willing, our children will follow our example and honor us too.