THURSDAY: Fathers and Adult Children (Part 1)“Whose Are They, Really?”

Ken Kalis
Dec 4
6 min read

The Prodigal son and his father. — Gustave Doré, The Prodigal Son in the Arms of his Father, 1865, print from *The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations*. Project Gutenberg.

My Dad was 43 when I was born, and he brought me up in the way I should go.

When I was 43 i had a son and brought him up in the fear of the Lord.

Now, my son is 35 and going to be a father himself

God has ordained this process, and the father-son relationship is eternal

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In our culture today, one line from a very different “prophet” keeps showing up:

“Your children are not your children…”

That’s Kahlil Gibran, not the Bible.

It sounds wise, and there’s a half-truth in it — our children are not our possessions. But if we are not careful, that idea quietly cuts the cord between parental responsibility and God’s design.

Scripture gives us a very different starting point:

“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”— Psalm 127:3

Children are not “Life’s longing for itself.” Children are the Lord’s heritage, entrusted to parents for a time.

And that stewardship does not end at age 18.

This is the beginning of a new series on fathers and adult children:

What does Scripture actually show us?
How do we keep loving and speaking truth when our children are grown?
What does it mean to surrender them to God’s sovereignty, even as we still long to guide them?

1. A Father and His Grown Sons: The Book of Proverbs

If you open Proverbs and read it straight through, you’ll hear one phrase again and again:

“My son…”

Solomon uses that phrase over 20 times.

These are not bedtime stories for toddlers.

They are heart-to-heart talks with a grown son, perhaps Rehoboam, who would one day wear the crown.

Listen to the tone:

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father…” (Proverbs 1:8)
“My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” (1:10)
“My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.” (4:20)
“My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.” (23:26)

This is ongoing spiritual fatherhood.

Solomon is not saying, “You’re an adult now; you’re entirely your own.”He is saying, “You are my son, and I am still responsible to warn, to plead, to teach.”

What a tragedy, then, that Rehoboam seems to have ignored his father’s counsel.

When he became king, he listened to the young men instead of the elders. He chose harshness over humility, pride over wisdom — and tore the kingdom in two (1 Kings 12).

You can almost hear the echo of Proverbs behind that disaster. Rehoboam had heard everything; he had obeyed very little.

That speaks to us as fathers and mothers of adult children:

We are called to keep speaking truth in love,
But we are not guaranteed that our children will follow that truth.

We are responsible for what we say. They are responsible for how they respond.

2. Abraham, Jacob, David: Fathers with Complicated Grown Children

Scripture is honest about families. God does not give us a gallery of perfect homes; He shows us real people with real sons and daughters.

Abraham loved Ishmael and Isaac. Even after Isaac was born, he cried out, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Genesis 17:18). His father-heart longed for both sons to walk with God, even though their destinies were different.
Jacob played favorites with Joseph, and the result was resentment, jealousy, and almost murder. Years later, as an old man in Egypt, he is still dealing with the consequences of those early patterns in his relationships with twelve grown sons.
David is perhaps the saddest example:
- Amnon’s sin,
- Absalom’s rebellion,
- Adonijah’s presumption. Scripture quietly notes of Adonijah:
“And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” (1 Kings 1:6)
David was a man after God’s own heart, but he failed to confront his grown sons. His silence as a father contributed to tragedy.

These stories were written, Paul tells us, “for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

They remind us:

You can love God deeply and still have heartache with your children.
You can be a faithful parent and still watch an adult child make painful choices.
You can also, by God’s grace, repent of your failures and begin to relate differently — even late in life.

3. Adult Daughters and the Question of Marriage

We must not forget daughters.

In Bible times, a father’s role in his daughter’s life was deeply tied to marriage:

He gave her in marriage (or shamefully withheld her).
He was called to protect her purity and future.
He rejoiced when she was joined to a godly husband.

Today, our customs are different, but the spiritual reality remains:

Daughters need wise, loving fathers who will bless, not control.
Fathers must learn to release their daughters into marriages, careers, and callings while still praying, counseling, and loving with open hands.

It is a delicate dance:

not clinging,
not abandoning,
but walking beside them as a father whose authority has changed shape, not disappeared.

4. “Your Children Are Not Your Children” — Or Are They?

Gibran says:

“Your children are not your children.They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself…”

It sounds poetic, but what is missing?

No Creator.
No covenant.
No God who forms us in the womb and numbers our days.

The Bible says:

“Behold, all souls are mine…” — Ezekiel 18:4 “Children are an heritage of the LORD…” — Psalm 127:3

Our children belong to God, not to “Life” in the abstract — and not ultimately to us either.

So in one sense, Gibran is right: We do not own our children.

But Scripture goes further:

We do bear responsibility to train them in the Lord (Proverbs 22:6).
We do remain fathers and mothers even when they are grown.
We do answer to God for how we have shepherded them.

The answer is not: “They’re not yours, so let go and stay out of it.”The answer is: They’re His — so love them, speak truth to them, and entrust them to Him.

5. Surrendering Our Children to a Sovereign God

This brings us back to sovereignty.

Just as we are “not our own,” our children — young or grown — never really belonged to us. From the beginning, they were the Lord’s.

For many of us, the deepest pain in life comes from watching adult children drift:

away from church
into strange doctrines
into relationships that grieve us
into habits that harm them

We ache. We worry. We replay our parenting in our minds.

One of the hardest acts of faith is to say:

“Lord, they are Yours.You love them more than I do.I will keep praying, keep loving, keep speaking as You lead —but I will not try to be their god.You alone are sovereign.”

You do not stop being a father or mother at 18, 21, or 30. But your role changes from manager to intercessor, from controller to counselor.

A Father’s Prayer for Adult Children

Father in heaven,Thank You for the sons and daughters You have entrusted to me.Forgive me for the times I tried to cling to them as if they were mine,or wash my hands of them as if they were not my concern. Teach me to love them as You do —with truth, with tenderness, with perseverance. For my children who walk with You,keep them faithful. For my children who are far from You,draw them home.Send into their lives those words and people that will point them to Jesus. Help me to be a father (or mother) who does not give up,but also does not try to take Your place. I place each of my children in Your sovereign hands. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Questions for Reflection

Where have you been tempted either to control your adult children or to give up on them altogether?
Is there one “My son” (or “My daughter”) conversation God is prompting you to have — gently, prayerfully, without manipulation?

In future parts, we can look closely at Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon — and what their stories teach us about being faithful parents of grown children in a very confused age.

If you’d like, next step I can prepare Part 2 focusing specifically on Solomon & Rehoboam: a wise father, a foolish son, and what went wrong in

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A testimony and a law

The Lord our God decreed,

And bade our fathers teach their sons,

That they His ways might heed.

He willed that each succeeding race

His deeds might learn and know,

And children’s children to their sons

Might all these wonders show.

Let children learn God’s righteous ways

And on Him stay their heart,

That they may not forget His works,