Jeanie Miley ponders Joseph’s role and what it means to be “just an earthly father.”

Because I believe that Jesus grew up as a human child in a human familiy, I wonder a lot about what it was like for Joseph, being the dad to Mary’s child.

What was it like for him to look into the eyes of the newborn child, remembering the angel’s appearance to him in a dream?   Did Joseph ever walk the floor with the baby Jesus at night?  Did he help him learn how to walk?

What was it like for Joseph when the toddler named Jesus was learning how to talk, to read, to play with other children?  How much influence did Joseph have in Jesus’ daily life?  Did it ever, by any chance, get tense between Mary and Joseph as they carried the responsibility of parenting together?

How did Joseph teach Jesus the things that fathers teach a boy?  What did he tell him about the time he was born?  Did the boy Jesus ever rebel against Joseph, and if he did, how did Joseph handle that?

I’m aware that parenting practices in the first century were vastly different from today’s, but still I wonder what it was like for Joseph and Jesus.