Your children are not your children

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Just wanted to share this from the book I'm currently reading:


Love is Separateness


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 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 not seek them to be like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.


You are the bow 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 arrow 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.

- Kahlil Gibran,
  The Prophet


Funny how that line "You may strive to be like them, but not seek them to be like you" reminded me of my daily prayers for my son Marti that he grow up to be better than his parents. And I'm hoping that I'm actually doing good in raising him a much wiser and kinder person than I ever was when I was his age.

Would recommend reading this book, "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck. It may be an old book but the wisdom you can take from its pages are so relevant today and eye-opening especially to us parents.