I had to look up JSON since I am retired. Interesting.

Back to SQL databases. I was first introduced to them around 1990. It was a huge step backwards for me.

SQL is not a database. It is the language for pulling data from a relational database of tables. I was using FOCUS, a database of relational hierarchies. The database structure was far more powerful and much faster than SQL and relational databases.

In your example, age would be added as a table owned by the person. That table may have only one field and no key. An age may or may not exist. There was no Join statement since the database knew who its children were for each parent. You could reverse it, too, without changing any code, just the viewpoint from age instead of the person.

SQL and relational databases won the publicity wars.