What the father hopes to see at the end of this long process is a child who is ready for life. Wisdom is justified by her children, and a wise father is judged by the conduct of his child. Of course different fathers have very different ideas of what makes a child ready for life, but the ideal father pictured here wants to see his child able to avoid the moral pitfalls he or she will encounter, and willing to put into practice all the positive virtues that the father has taught. The summary of all this is the one word wisdom, as always in this book, a word encompassing moral virtue as well as knowledge of character and skill in navigating life.
But how sad, how depressed, how undermined a father is to see the child he loves failing to learn, failing to exercise discernment, handing themselves over to sin. He watches a child who cannot see moral danger, who trusts those who are not worthy of trust, who in fact care nothing for the eternal soul, however plausible they seem on the outside. He sees the child handing himself over to bondage from which he cannot escape, throwing away all the precious instruction he has received and dragging the mother and father’s love with him down to the grave. Such a child dissipates his father’s goods, but also his well-being and peace of mind. Let us all give thanks for that first kindly authority we experienced in life and let it prepare us to accept all other legitimate authority that we encounter throughout life.