Wise Son, Glad Father; Stupid Son, Sad Mother

“Wise son, glad father; stupid son, sad mother.” (Proverbs 10:1, The Message) 

Eugene Petersen is succinctly brilliant in his paraphrase of Prov. 10.1.  A wise son makes his father glad.  Conversely, a stupid son, a foolish son, causes a mother to be sad.  

Solomon demonstrates that he was well aware of the inability of a parent to control the character outcome of their child.  A parent can work hard and give a good home environment, but at the end of the day, a child is going to make his own choices and sometimes those choices are bad.

Of course this makes a parent more dependent on God the father when it comes to child-rearing and less likely to boast in their parental prowess.  This is a good thing.