Against the Current

Posted on March 9th, 2026

In my mid-twenties, I believed that life was largely about speed: moving forward, making decisions and pursuing the next opportunity. With time, however, I came to appreciate a different form of capital. Experience cannot be accumulated overnight, and its value is not measured by how quickly one moves but by how thoughtfully one responds.

Many years later, I have become a father again. Our young son is growing up in a multilingual household, and our family is preparing to welcome another child. We are deliberately creating an environment in which curiosity, education and a measure of calm can flourish despite the noise and anxieties of contemporary life.

Some might regard fatherhood at this stage of life as unusually late. I prefer to think of it as a decision made against the current: not a rejection of age, but an affirmation of what experience can contribute to the next generation.

The Value of Experience

Public debate frequently treats youth and age as opposing categories, as though energy belonged exclusively to the young and judgement automatically to the old. Neither assumption withstands much scrutiny. Maturity is not guaranteed by the passage of time, just as imagination and ambition do not necessarily diminish with age.

Yet experience can provide something invaluable: perspective. Decades spent building organisations, accepting responsibility, confronting setbacks and adapting to changing circumstances can sharpen one’s ability to recognise patterns and distinguish genuine problems from passing agitation. Such judgement is not an entitlement of age; it is the possible reward of reflection and sustained engagement with life.

Success, moreover, is rarely the product of a single quality. It tends to emerge from an interaction of perseverance, adaptability, discipline, opportunity and the willingness to learn from failure. What matters most is not the appearance of uninterrupted achievement but the capacity to continue learning when circumstances become difficult.

What We Pass On

Parents pass on more than material resources or inherited characteristics. Children grow up within an emotional and intellectual environment shaped by the adults around them: their habits, expectations, relationships and responses to uncertainty. A household that values conversation, patience and independent thought can offer a powerful foundation for personal development.

Research into epigenetics raises fascinating questions about the relationship between environment, biology and development. It should not, however, be confused with proof that acquired wisdom or particular life experiences are directly inherited. The more immediate and demonstrable influence of parents lies in the example they set and the conditions they create for their children.

Experience can therefore become a practical resource for the next generation. It informs how we respond to pressure, how we approach uncertainty and how we cultivate resilience without mistaking emotional restraint for indifference.

Education Begins at Home

Our son is growing up with three languages, not as an exercise in prestige, but because language opens doors to different ways of thinking. A multilingual upbringing can nurture cultural awareness, flexibility and a sense that the world is larger than the assumptions of any one society.

We want our children to encounter complexity without becoming overwhelmed by it, to ask questions without fearing disagreement and to develop convictions without losing the capacity to reconsider them. Those ambitions are not achieved through slogans. They are cultivated through daily attention, conversation and the quiet consistency of family life.

Late fatherhood, for me, is neither nostalgia nor a statement about the choices of others. It is a conscious commitment to sharing the experience I have acquired while remaining open to everything my children will teach me in return.

Perhaps cultural renewal does not always begin in parliaments, universities or television studios. Sometimes it begins at the kitchen table, where generations meet, questions are welcomed and the future takes shape through ordinary conversations.

Originally published on 9 March 2026. Editorially revised in 2026.