Should named relations conform to defined philosophies? Should there be an ideal father son relationship and if so how or where is it defined? Is it in the scriptures, studies, cultures or is it defined by the bigger person? In this case will it be the father to dictate the son? Then what? To what benefit is the relationship?
Way back then when humanity’s culture was in its formative states; writing was not a thing. So at first, common sense just worked. We hunt, we eat, we don’t die and that equaled life. Then we desired comfort so we decided to to introduce ‘store’ to our survival kit. This way when game and fruit was rare; we had some to last.
Instinctively, it followed that we could benefit from specialization. We realized that some were better at some tasks than others. My guess being that the earliest of this was along biological patterns. First it started with role specialization between man and female. Then it proceeded further to unique character traits which were largely useful to the organization. Some hunted better whilst some specialized in ambush like game gathering like trapping.
Ideally; specialization was along unique traits that were useful to the community. People needed a piece of that to gain advantage thrive. Your importance to the society above ordinary contribution lay in the value you traded. Blacksmiths gain fame over soldiers and farmers just as a medicine man was invaluable. Thus if you were good at metallurgy then you barely need to farm.
All this development was primarily aimed at efficiency. A people could gain immense power if they could achieve more than their adversaries if they could achieve more give a similar time frame. Part of the advantage lay on how information was passed down. Meaning that if a synonymous with a skill; then it so followed that it got perfect down the generations. Information was earned by apprenticing.
However this might have been overshadowed by the advent of writing. It not only gave us archival capabilities but also afforded the freedom to choose a skill of liking. Knowledge could be exported and taught which was now much more efficient than traveling to practitioners for the services. Also, knowledge could be compared, merged and re published.
Now here lies the conundrum; before all these, parents passed down knowledge. Now they pay institutions for that. Having outsource their core duty, does that dilute their meaning to a child’s survival? Yes, it definitely does. Does it invalidate the relationship?
Sampling two sons of equal opportunity then we might just get close to an answer. Say our sample sons are of equal age and both graduates of engineering. Now the fundamental difference being their background. For one, the family cottage business of making cutlery from recycle steel paid the bills. The other relied on the stability that the father provided from his employment as an accountant.
After graduation; we can rightly assume that their paths sharply diverge. For one, the relationship with the gather just found a reason to grow stronger. The family business is about to grow using the advantages of the new applied knowledge. For the other, he about to job hunt and start from the ground up.
There is definitely the advantage of running a family business in that; food, shelter and clothing are provided for as a default. For the other the employment comes at the expense of generational debt. His children have don’t have occupational heritage and will be stuck on the same circle of job hunts generation after another.
As soon as the bond of survival between father and son is broken then they cease to become active participants in each others lives. The son needs the father for the basics until such a time that the basics also compromise of deep generational knowledge around survival; not philosophy but direct skill.
So for one, a visit means enlightenment but for the other visits are just that; visits.