Your children are not your children, by Kahlil Gibran

Late this afternoon some one asked me just as our meeting was ending: " I have a two year old. do you have any tips for raising a child?" Inspired by that question, I did some pondering on the way home and remembered very enlightening Poem by Gibran and a quote I read on a friend's Facebook site.

 
Point to Ponder:

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. -- John Lennon
 
 

Story Line: Poem from Kahlil Gibran* about Children

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.

* Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese American artist, poet and a writer.

Comments

[California Guy]

This is a challenge for parents. How to guide children to become happy (learning for the present and future to avoid being trapped in the past) and independent (protect without being suffocating) adults.

[A friend from Malaysia]

Thank you for sharing this. I especially like this statement:

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.

As I was in the pre-marital counseling session, my teacher taught us about the importance of raising our children in a high standard manner. We eventually are the ones who shape our next generation as they learn, listen and take advice from us. In this statement, the archer represents parents and the arrows represents children. It takes time and lots of effort to be trained as an archery to hold the bow and ensure the arrows can shoot as far as possible and still hitting the target that he aims. Once the arrows are sent forth, they will not come back to us!

I have no kids yet, no experience to raise one. To train a 2 year old child with the end in mind of he is old enough to take care of himself by then and be a man that can contribute much to the community, living a life with integrity and moral – kind of tough 

Have a nice weekend.

[East Coast]

There is much wisdom in that John Lennon quote. My favorite essay on Happiness is by Maximilian Kolbe and how everything every human does is to bring them happiness, but finite things are, by definition, limited and so our happiness is only temporary.

It has snowed terribly back here again this week and has created such a emotional depressing situation. Look at the snow on my roof. I am having it shoveled off today. 60 inches in just a four weeks when our average for the year is only 46. What a mess.

[a friend From Arizona]

The passage from Gibran about children come through us, not from us, is something I kept in front of me when I was raising my children. Now they are grown and my two boys of children of their own. I passed this on to them this morning. Thanks so much. Hope everything is going well for you.

[alex]

In the case of my son, it took me ~25 years to get the point

[jaypee]

This is indeed a tough job for parents, for them to become loving but independent, responsible but kind-hearted. In this age of laptops, iPads, iPods, and all other gadgets...it's becoming more challenging because we have so many temptations around.

[DELIA P JACOB]

how many parents know by heart and mind their responsibility in raising God-fearing, peace-loving and law-abiding citizens? Parenting is a skill..Parenthood is a challenging stage in life.

[Margaret]

Is parenting a "stage" in life? Once a parent, always a parent. Even the death of a child does not end one being a parent; the relationship has ended for the one who dies but goes on for the one who continues to live -- in this sad analogy: the parent. Too many parents raise God-fearing children. Can we not raise them to know God is love -- the One who loves us when we cannot love ourselves? Of course, this does not negate our responsibility to help them learn God is the one true living god who does chastize us. Yes, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.