I used to feel sad when I don’t receive a text or a phone call from my adult children. I remind myself that they belong to God.
This is an old poem by Kahlil that delivered me from being a forever child/mother to becoming a peer. Growing up with a forever mother and I treated as a child drove me nuts. It didnt mean I did not honor her but it’s tough being a child in my sixties. My oldest is 50 years old. The second is two years younger. They have their own homes with grown up children. I just became a great-grandmother.
I had to let them make their own mistakes and grow from them. And trust God for them.
God commands us to honor our parents. And I honored my mother by always gifting her something she likes. Even a can of 7Up that she liked. Honor doesn’t mean obey. To honor parents means to show them high respect and esteem through your actions, words, and attitude, even if they are flawed or the relationship is difficult.
The poem
“Your children are not your children” is the opening line of a famous poem by Kahlil Gibran in his book The Prophet, first published in 1923. The line, and the poem that follows, suggests that children are independent beings, not possessions or extensions of their parents. While parents may give birth to and raise them, children ultimately belong to themselves, with their own individual lives, thoughts, and destinies. Gibran’s message encourages parents to love and guide their children without trying to control or shape them into who the parents want them to be.
They belong to Life:
The poem states, “They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself”. This means children are part of a larger universal plan, not merely a parent’s creation.
Independence:
Children are not meant to be “tethered” to their parents. They come through parents, but their souls and futures are not their parents’ to keep or dictate.
Separate Identity:
Just as parents have their own thoughts, so too do children. Parents are meant to provide a loving space for their children, but not to impose their own ideas or control their children’s souls.
Guidance, Not Possession:
The message encourages parents to support their children’s individual paths and not to strive to make them conform to their own desires.
In essence, the poem advises parents to be a supportive force in their children’s lives, rather than an all-controlling one.
