Who is older the father or the son?

Content

• Here we go again!
• Who is older?
• Is this applicable somewhere else?

Disclaimer: I’m not a theologian or a parenting expert. I’m just a man who strives to be more observant and thoughtful day by day.

Here we go again

It was a cold night, it was a warm night. He thought that he would not have to buy any new diapers again. He will not lament any waisted diapers either. His little toddler has now finished the potty training and now it’s the annoying night routine of going to the bathroom every couple of hours. He was ready for that but he wasn’t ready for the new bun in the oven.

He thought he knew everything he was about to face; raising a newborn is not an easy task, but at least he has some experience now. What he didn’t know was that with a new baby he must be a new dad. A father of the first child is not the same as a father of two children. On one hand, no two babies are identical, even identical twins. On the other hand, dedicating his time to one child is drastically different from splitting his parenthood time between two children.

Each newborn comes with their own timeline, in the early months you have to be very delicate with them, their necks are fragile, even their skulls are not fully developed. Sometimes you can see their brain pushing through their scalp through the open spaces of their skull. A couple of years forward and the boys want to play it rough. As they have successfully mastered walking and running, they are now ready to climb and jump everywhere. They have learned to recover quickly from their falls. They are starting to be covered in bruises and battle scars of their topographical expeditions.

Newborns need you for every waking moment, after all they can’t do any meaningful movement, they can not even control their heads yet. True they have longer naps throughout the day, and if you are lucky during the night. Toddlers of 2 and 3-year-olds on the other hand can now entertain themselves, enjoy their toys and TV-shows. They still need you, but just not all of their time.

Who is older?

Here comes an answer I didn’t expect for a question I never bondered; if we have a father and a son, who will be older? In terms of age, one might conclude that the father is much older, as we normally observe that humans are born very dependent on their parents and need a good amount of time before they can be fully developed and ready to take the responsibility of reproduction.

But upon careful pondering, the father is only a father once he gets a son. And without ever having this child, we wouldn’t call him the father of a child. So in such a perspective, the father starts to be a father once there is a child.

But one might say, surely this case is not applicable for the subsequent children! But dear, the father of one child is drastically different from the father of two. As we explored with our little story above, there are 3 new axes of difference between the first fatherhood and each subsequent one.

• Each child has their own timeline of human development. Each stage of their lifetime has its own requirements for parenthood. You can’t behave as a father of a 3-year-old boy to a 3-month-old newborn.
• Each child has their own DNA and personality. Great, you knew how to put your oldest son to sleep eventually, your next one needs you to learn his way of putting him to sleep now. One child had an excursion routine, the next one has their digestive system on a different routine. This is the case without accounting for the gender differences.
• Each child comes at a different point in your life. You are not as young, as inexperienced or as patient when your next child comes as you were when you got the previous one. Life is working even if you are not aware of it. Life changes you, your partner, you supportive allies that got your back when you needed to leave your child for a couple of hours to have the reinvigorating romantic dinner with your partner. Your career has most probably changed your availability, time wise at least.

I’ll rest my case for now. Each child will require a new father, although the father will not start from scratch, but the new changes will redefine his fatherhood.

Is this applicable somewhere else?

One of the shallowest questions about christian theology is how can the father, and the son of the holy trinity have the same underlying fundamental essence when the father must be older than the son!

One must be aware when using the father-son terminology and talking about theology of mixing in the human limitations with his understanding of theological ontology. We try to find the true meaning of the father-son terminology while stripping away limitations imposed by our human perception based on our own experience.

One of these limitations is that the father must be fully developed as a human being before he is emotionally and physically able to get married and has a child. One other limitation is that human newborns are born totally dependent on their parents to fulfill their basic needs.

After peeling off most of these limitations, we are left with the wording of Jesus Christ describing Yehew as his father, and the words declared several times from heaven that Jesus Chirst is his beloved Son.

One can assume that father-son terminology carries the following meanings at least: representation, equality, differentiation of roles and intimacy.

If you think of two fathers, one is a business owner and the other is an employee. And one day both their sons visited their father’s workplace. The business owner’s son will be treated as the owner of the business. While the employee’s son will be treated as a visitor, yes welcomed as much as his father is loved but yet the most that he can be is a future employee. Now let’s think of the future in terms of the human perception of our reality. The business owner’s son can grow up to be a regular employee in that company or another one. The employee’s son can grow up to be a business owner himself. But in a spiritual reality the perfect son of a perfect father is his representative. He is treated with all the privileges of his father. And we learn from our reality as well that if a man leaves a debt after his departure from our world, his son should take the responsibility to repay that debt. So the son represents his father as he bears the privileges and responsibilities of his father.

“You’re the spitting image of your father”, or something similar has most probably been heard by almost all men at some point in their lives. Whether early during their childhood or later during their adulthood; how they behave, how they prefer something to eat or drink, or simply how they look in some piece of garment or hair cut. As humans, we stop resembling our fathers because we are imperfect, and we change all the time. In a spiritual reality, a perfect son has total equality to a perfect father.

Three people are riding in a car, two of them are fathers and two of them are sons. It’s very interesting how the father acts as a son for the grandparent, and at the same time interacts very differently with the grandson. A perfect son will always strive to please his perfect father, do his father’s will and please him. A perfect father will fulfill his son’s needs, planning and securing his son’s future and happiness.

There are many relationships that can have two male counterparts: siblings, friendship, business partnership, coaching and trainee, and many others. Nothing can be compared to the pure intimacy between a father and a son. A father considers his son an extension of himself. And the son considers his father as his foundation. Have you heard of or watched a redemptive story that hangs on the strong father-son relationship? People always get their eyes full of tears once the father’s love and the son’s dedication prevail over the hardships.

Summary

Fathers are the first superheroes for many of their sons. Fatherhood is the final stop to start the journey of manhood maturity. A man is only a father once he has a child. Each child begs a new father of their male parent. A 1-month-old baby has a parent that has been a father for 1 month.

Many are shouting: “Où t’es? Papa où t’es”. Truly the world needs a father!