Your Children Are Not Your 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, they do not belong 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 universe
And he bends you with his might
That his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be gladness,
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves also the bow that is stable.

-Kahlil Gibran