friends with ezra?

am i friends with my 8 week-old son, ezra?
can a father be friends with his son?
if so, and i'm not his friend now, when will he (or can he) become my friend?

kara martin says, "those who have the same opinion, the same will about spiritual and earthly matters, along with mutual generosity, love and service, have... reached the heights of friendship." and aelred said that "friendship... ought to begin in christ, continue in christ and be perfected in christ."

those are weighty (and impossible) things to be said of an infant who cannot speak or understand such abstract concepts as "mutual generosity, love and service" not to mention christ jesus himself and the story of god's rescue of humanity.

how then can i be friends with my son? or when can i be his friend?

(of course this has implications for so-called friendships between children, or where one party is a child.)

quite apart from the inability to understand abstract concepts, my little ezra is not my equal. of course he is my equal in terms of human worth and value as a person. that i will defend of any human being, however young, born or unborn. but i am his father -- he is not my father. in our family he will obey me -- not i him. the bible commands him to honour me. does this difference in role within our family preclude a spiritual or true friendship? providentially, ezra has found himself (once he becomes aware of it) within a family structure where he is not the boss. he has found himself the fruit of the covenant of marriage -- the very tangible outcome of the most intimate of friendships -- that between a husband and wife. he is the product of a friendship.

what does that say about friendship within covenants (whether family, marriage or with god himself)? martin says, "the distinguishing mark of philia was reciprocal goodwill and affection. in that way it is a responsive love; but the response is voluntary, not mandatory." but the honour (and love?) that is commanded of ezra toward me is not voluntary -- it is mandatory. and, at a more profound theological level, my love for god is also commanded and required. i am obligated to god to love him. i owe him that, since he made me and he commands it.

does that mean ezra can never truly love me as a friend since he is born into this structure of obligation and command?

my experience of my own sonship, and from what little i understand of spiritual or true friendship, is that it is possible. but like anything between a father and a son, it takes time to develop. this has come as i have matured from being a child to become and adult.

i would like to think that ezra and i can be friends.
true spiritual friends.
friends in christ.

listening

"listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
they will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck." proverbs 1.8-9

it seems that in listening we become beautiful. or, more precisely, in listening to (ie, taking on, treating as important, respecting) "your father's instruction" and "your mother's teaching", these very instruction and teaching will the things that adorn us. it's not that we are beautiful because we listen, but it's the "wearing" of these words from our parents that is beautiful.