I have told this story several times on this site, and here it is again. When I was 8 years old, my parents sat me down, took my little hands, and told me that they wanted me to follow my own heart where beliefs were concerned.
This was the most beautiful gift they could ever have given me. I will always be grateful to them for honoring my little heart, and revealing to me their support and caring for my unique feelings. They were my heroes that day.
Allow them the beauty, innocence and wonder of their childhoods. Don’t be in a rush to define this world for them. Soon enough they will be confronted by their OWN questions. If you are as amazing a parent as I was lucky enough to have, you will give your future children this gift. Again, as I have done many times before here, I am going to add this beautiful, timeless piece of poetry from Kahlil Gibran from his book ‘The Prophet’. It is a piece on children:
On Children
Kahlil 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.
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