The mentee, too, serves an essential function for the mentor: By nurturing the younger person, the mentor keeps alive his own values and hopes, which helps him deal with his mortality and allows him to develop more “generative” parts of himself. Indeed, many men find the mentoring relationship at work allows them to heal some of the wounds of parenting; feeling frustrated with their own children, some men turn to their younger colleagues as “surrogate sons.”

Finding Our Fathers: How a Man’s Life Is Shaped by His Relationship with His Father – Samuel Osherson