Can something be a parent or child "to"/"of" something?

I sometimes see 'father to' or 'parent to', but I don't think it is the natural expression, which would be 'parent of' in this context.

A Google search turns up 900,000,000 'parent to' and 1,200,000,000 'parent of' but that would contain a lot of irrelevant matches and I don't know how to narrow it down to what we want.

Poets differ on this too :)

Wordsworth said of:

My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The Child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be

Gerard Manley Hopkins said to:

‘THE CHILD is father to the man.’
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
‘The child is father to the man.’
No; what the poet did write ran,
‘The man is father to the child.’
‘The child is father to the man!’
How can he be? The words are wild.

There are two different ideas being expressed here. One preposition, "of", makes the relationship itself explicit, and expressed the possessive relationship:

Bob is the father of Susie.  <--> Bob is Susie's father.

The other idea preposition, "to", links with the verb preceding the relationship to express the quality of it:

Bob is a good father to Susie.

Bob is like a father to Susie.

Also notice the article used. A native English speaker would not say "Bob is a father of Lucie" or "Bob is a father to Lucie". There will always be an adjective ("good") or a qualifier ("like").

In the case of data structures, documentation uses "X is the parent of Y", but in talking about making something the parent of something else, it will say "X is parented to Y" (but never "X is childed to Y").

A "father of" is something you are, no matter what you do. A "father to" is something you do, no matter what you are.

I think 'father of' means biologically, but 'father to' figuratively, e.g. Joseph was the father of Jesus. Our elders should be respected; they are our parents. The males will always be fathers to us.

I think 'father of' means biologically, but 'father to' figuratively, e.g. Joseph was the father of Jesus. Our elders should be respected; they are our parents. The males will always be fathers to us. Hence the phrase: our forefathers.