Excerpt from The Prophet by Kahil Gibran

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.

Comment by Lloyd Gilden

I realize my children don’t belong to me.  When they were young, I tried – and even now when they are adults I try, but to a much lesser extent – to share my beliefs with them.  I have devoted my life to the study of human relationships and resolution of human conflict, and want very much to convey to them some of what I have learned.  In fact, I view my children as my most significant legacy.  I’m hoping that when I die, some of my thoughts and feelings and values will be embodied in their being and their behavior.

Thus, I hope I, as the bow, have set forth three arrows in the direction of humanitarianism, however they may choose to go in their lives.