I had read a very nice thought about children and parenting them in Scott Peck’s book, Road Less Traveled – children are worthy of living their own life, of facing their own challenges and situations and finding meaning of their own life through all of that.
Welcome their arrival in this world, love them, nurture them, and celebrate them. However, your life as parents isn’t to make decisions for them forever, or to keep them away from what we think are challenging/trying situations. They are meant to detect their own path, and follow that.
In the book, I read these words from Kahlil Gibran about children and parenting.
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.
Words have an imprint on me since I read them. Seed was planted even if not always nurtured... 🙂
A ripple connected me back to it on last week's Awakin call with Thomas Ponce, a 13 year old boy that has calling from inside for compassion towards animals. While his own journey of listening to voice from inside since he was as young as 4-year old is very inspiring, what also stuck with me is that his parents understood, listened to him, and let him follow through on it helping/guiding/loving along the way.
