| Your children are not your
children.
They are the sons and daughters
of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but
are not from you.
And though they are with you
yet they do not belong 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.
Kahlil Gibran
|