what happens when the path diverges

i've been mulling something for about a week. a man named terah gave birth to the father of the nations, abram. before last week i had never really taken much notice of terah, but like a child eager for dessert, let my eyes skip ahead to abram.

of terah, not much is said, and yet in the brief capsule of his life that we do know, there is an interesting fact. God called him to canaan. on the way there, for whatever reason, he ended up rooting down into haran.

in the next chapter, God tells abram to leave his father's household and go to the land He will show him. the next sentence (one of my favorites) begins with a connector word "so he went." and wouldn't you know he was headed for canaan...

what happens when the instruction for the parent goes unfulfilled? does it naturally fall upon the child? my thought is not always and yet what an interesting thread this is in the early histories and movements of the hebraic man.