Children

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 can not 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 you bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that files,

So He loves also the bow that is stable.

(Khalil Gibran)