ON CHILDREN

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, ‘Speak to us of Children.’

And he said:

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.

By Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)

I started reading works of Kahlil Gibran when I was in college. Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), the Lebanese poet par excellence,  wrote powerful and profound poems, that for me are a reference point, whenever I wanted to delve deeper to understand worldly phenomena be it love, beauty, freedom or friendship. His lucid and yet philosophical style makes complicated concepts so accessible and comprehensible, cutting through the jargon and subjectivity. As a parent, at the cognitive level, I understand this particular poem on children from his collection “The Prophet”, but at the behavioural level, I am training myself to imbibe it in my interaction with my three-year old.