Parenting
“Your just like your father, my mother, your sister etc.,” why do we say these things to our children – Do we want them to be just like the people we mention or not to be like them?
I invite you and me to be mindful of the way we script our children.
To see who they are requires a commitment to be silent, to observe, to listen and to understand them. In this poem Kahlil Gibran reminds us not to seek to make them like ourselves or anyone else, our job is to let them BE!
When your children On Children – Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
[…] And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. Read more here […]