Your children are not your children. <br />They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. <br />They come through you but not from you. <br />And though they are with you, they belong not to you. <br />You may give them your love but not your thoughts. <br />For they have their own thoughts. <br />You may house their bodies but not their souls, <br />For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, <br />Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. <br />You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. <br />For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. <br />You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. <br />The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite. <br />And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. <br />Let your bending in the archer's hands be for happiness; <br />For even as He loves the arrow that flies, <br />So He loves the bow that is stable.<br /><br />Khalil Gibran<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/your-children-4/
