Throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of Jean-Luc Picard's defining traits was his general discomfort and iciness towards children. The lone exception seemed to be young Wesley Crusher, a prodigious engineer who went from Enterprise hanger-on to a Starfleet Academy cadet under Picard's tutelage. But the captain's interest in the boy may have a deeper meaning.
DC Comics editor Andy Khouri posted a thread on Twitter outlining his TNG theory: Wesley is actually Picard's son. "Wesley was clearly setup to be Picard’s bastard," he writes, "but they chickened out." He references events prior to the series, specifically Wesley's relationship between his mother Beverly and father Jack. The two served as officers on the USS Stargazer under Captain Picard. Unfortunately, Jack lost his life while on an away mission with Picard, leaving Wesley father-less at five years old.
In the TNG pilot, Picard has a look of shock when he sees Beverly and Wesley become part of the Enterprise crew. Surprisingly, the captain then goes on to warmly show the young man the bridge, which shocks his fellow officers. Khouri reasons that Picard's reaction is "because of the crushing guilt Picard felt not just for betraying his best friend Jack Crusher by sleeping with his wife, but because, as Jack’s commander, he then sent the man TO HIS DEATH."
The Jean-Luc Picard we know from the Enterprise was certainly not someone to use the captaincy for ill intentions. But perhaps things were different back on the Stargazer. We've seen in previous episodes that the Battle of Maxia caused the new captain to abandon the Stargazer, prompting him being court martialed. It's possible that, while still a bridge officer, he and Beverly had an affair behind Jack's back, meaning Wesley is his biological child.
If that's the case, there may be a part of Picard that consciously or subconsciously wanted Jack to be out of the picture. But when he actually died on that away mission, even the thought of wanting his best friend to die was too much for Jean-Luc. Subsequently, he cut the Crushers out of his life, a symbol of how lust and emotion can get in the way of duty. Until they show back up on the Enterprise.
Though Picard is initially warm to Wesley upon seeing each other again, the series is quick to make the boy a punching bag for the crew--and the audience by proxy. Trekkers criticized the sizable number of storylines in TNG's first four seasons that saw Wesley getting himself and the crew in trouble, as well as serving as a "Mary Sue" at points with his natural engineering skills. His character was even at the central point of one of Star Trek's biggest memes, as a fed-up Picard responded to the boy's arguments that android Data is not who he says he is with a curt, "Shut up, Wesley!"
But that attitude may also have root in Khouri's theory. "This explains the visceral discomfort and even rage that Wesley’s presence ignites when he’s in Picard’s presence," he writes. "The boy, clearly his son, is a hellish reminder to Picard of his disgraceful failure as a friend and possibly criminal actions as commander. It’s truly nightmarish."
When viewing The Next Generation through this lens, the Picard-Wesley relationship takes on a whole new meaning. Their dynamic is not one of a man stepping into the role of mentor for an unguided youth, out of guilt for what happened to his father. Rather, it's a man reconciling his past, realizing that embracing his previous actions rather than running away from them allows him to become something he was always meant to be: A dad.