What Makes a Parent?

A parent is defined as a father or a mother, or someone who has kids.

It’s a simple equation:
1 man + 1 woman = 1 child.

Ok, that equation doesn’t actually add up. But it still makes sense, somehow.

Well, what if I told you that in Judaism, the math is even stranger?

Here’s a little quote from the Talmud (Niddah 31a):

Our Rabbis taught:

There are three partners in man:
the Holy One, blessed be He, the father and the mother.

The father supplies the white substance out of which are formed the child’s bones, sinews, nails, the brain in his head and the white in his eye;

the mother supplies the red substance out of which is formed his skin, flesh, hair, blood and the black of his eye;

and the Holy One, blessed be He, gives him his spirit and breath, facial features, eyesight, power of hearing, the ability to speak and to walk, understanding and discernment.

So it’s a three-way partnership, resulting in one beautiful end result: a brand-new child.

Bad math aside, it seems to me the Talmud is being very generous in its expression here. It’s almost implying that there is an equal partnership. As someone who has carried and given birth to four beautiful children, I find this rather amusing. (To be perfectly clear, we are talking about the creation of a person – not his upbringing.)

Let me explain.

Forming a baby

It’s like this. I meet my husband. We like each other. We get married. After a short while, we discover I’m pregnant. Soon enough, we start feeling tiny little kicks, then bigger kicks, and sure enough, after nine months, it’s a beautiful baby girl.

Alright, maybe it wasn’t quite so easy. I had to put up with some nausea, mood swings, and other pregnancy symptoms that came my way. My life changed a lot. Yet, at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking how crazy it was that a child was being formed inside me with the greatest precision, with no tools or intervention at all.

Consider this fact: There are eleven main systems in the human body, including the cardiovascular system, digestive system, endocrine system, integumentary system, lymphatic (immune) system, muscular system, nervous system, renal (urinary) system, reproductive system, respiratory system, and the skeletal system. To be honest, I’m not too sure I know what some of those even mean. In short, it’s a lot of sophisticated stuff.

So I ask you: If human beings were putting together such a thing, how many people would it require? And how long would it take? And what at the chances they could get even close to such incredible results?

And yet, right inside me, in nine short months it had come together – automatically! I did nothing! Alright, I did gain a few pounds (or more than a few) and experienced some aches and pains. But as far as helping create the baby, I mean, I didn’t even take my prenatals every day. And my husband, well, his job was to keep up a nice supply of cookies.

And for that, the Talmud says, we are called partners.

Do you see the humor in it? That’s a whole lot of credit for simply allowing G-d to single-handedly form this incredible, perfect, and super-sophisticated child within you. And then attributing that whole element of the baby to the man or the woman – I mean, I guess being super technical it comes from him or her, but being even more technical, they didn’t actually do anything to develop it. G-d did.

Still, the Talmud calls us partners.

Why? Do we really deserve that title?

A parent as a partner

I thought about this for a while, reviewing the original sources and exploring some possible answers. And it took me some time to get to this simple but obvious conclusion.

You see, when I work with a partner, we work together. We split up the work as it is appropriate for each of us and then support each other in our respective roles. Like with my husband, my partner in raising my family. We try to avoid the “equal” idea – worst idea for family harmony, since nothing in life is equal, period – but we certainly share the burden and support each other as best we can.

So maybe that’s why I found the Talmud’s words so strange. How can we be considered partners when we do none of the work?

Then it struck me: this is a different kind of partnership.

This is more similar to a business partnership.

Business partners don’t always split the work. Often, one partner will manage the venture himself, while the second partner supports it with his money. He trusts his partner to make all the little decisions, and may not be involved at all. Yet, should the need appear, he carries veto power for any major decisions.

So simple and obvious. G-d is the managing partner. He alone carries the secret to the gift of a new life, managing every detail as it develops into the perfect form of a baby. And we parents invest our trust in Him, relying on Him to do the job only He can do.

The truth is, with the wealth of data and understanding at his disposal, He could single-handedly decide the best family and situation for each potential child, and get ideal results, perfectly catered to each soul and the souls of its family. And in fact, He does – wherever there are willing partners.

So what makes a parent?

A parent is a person who has chosen to partner with G-d, with the good fortune that G-d agreed to partner with them.

And while being a parent can also mean a million things more, it is this one choice that gives them the status of partners in creation.

The ideas in this post are adapted from the talks of the Lubavitcher Rebbe from the eve of 24 Teves, 5741 (1981) and 1 Shvat 5741 (1981). Follow the links for (related excerpts of) the original talks. You can choose the English translation option at the top of the page.