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Fathers protect, provide and nurture and mothers do the same but in the opposite order. Mothers nurture, provide and protect their young.
Another way of defining the differences are to say that Fathering amounts to “Equip & Release” while mothering is more focused on “Nurture & Control”.
It is obvious that fathering and mothering in union represent the fullness of God, but also that they have different applications.
Mothering
Mothering is more appropriate and effective in the early stages of life or when we are weaker and more vulnerable and unskilled. The mother’s instinct is to nurture, protect and also control her infant. This is a wonderful God given gift for that particular age gap. Mothering at the age of 35 is however not appropriate anymore and while the emotionally mature mother and her adult child have a wonderfully meaningful relationship, she cannot “mother” the child in the classic sense anymore.
Mothers sometimes tend to hang on the mothering side of the relationship and this causes tension, as it is inappropriate and un-natural. There is a meaningful and fruitful metamorphosis that a mother and her child should go through as the infant grows into a child and later an adult.
These maturity skills, for both mother and child should be taught and learnt and implemented if the relationship is to remain mutually life-giving. Emotionally immature mothers sometimes need the children as an emotional prop, or alternative to her husband, who might be emotionally detached, and this is a trap.
2 Corinthians 12:14 (NKJV)
14 ………. For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.
Fathering
Fathering on the other hand is slightly less effective in the early stages of an infant’s life when the infant has very few or no skills but Fathering is certainly very desirable and effective for older children and also adults.
The mature father is skilled at seeing where his child is at in its developmental path and instinctively knows what the child needs to accomplish next. The father will then gently bring the child to the standard. Never, ever can this be empire-building or army creation for the father. The children are not soldiers in dad’s army, dad simply raises them up and hands them over to God. Dad cannot and dare not replace the Holy Spirit as their long-term guide, that is perversion.
The result of age-appropriate Father & Mother balance is men and women who grow up healthy and are able to function autonomously as adults and repeat the cycle.
Ephesians 5:31 (NKJV)
31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Mom & dad remain valued and loved family friends but no longer have jurisdiction over married children. Parents who fail to understand these natural boundaries stifle their children and exasperate them.
Colossians 3:21 (NKJV)
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
