Parental Truths 1

It is so easy, so easy...to fall into the trap of living vicariously thru one's children.
How can it happen, you wonder?
Too easy, and too naturally too.

On paper, this is such an obvious no-no.
No one wants to stamp our hopes and unfulfilled aspirations on our child.
But in practice, they occupy your thoughts, your time, your life...and you want the best for them.
What is "the best"?
The best is all that we never had in our childhood.
It's true.
I never had my parents to myself.
I didn't have a lot of friends before the age of 7.
I didn't go out and my parents didn't have much activities for us before school-years.
In short, life before 7 was just... endless afternoons playing with my brothers.

And now, we want the opposite for our kids.
We want them to go to the best pre-schools, join the best playgroups, have the best possible start in life.
Did these things even matter when we were kids? Absolutely not.
I didn't think my parents even realised we had brains.

But i read somewhere - the whole idea of parenting, sadly & ironically, is to prepare your children to leave you one day.
Is to prepare for their independence and to be free from you.
Isn't that so sad and... you think, gosh, what is the point of all my efforts? [ and money!]

But it is so so true.
The true hallmarks of great parenting are when your kids are independent, and don't need you at all.
And everyday, they are leaving us in some way.
I feel it even now.
When Marco learnt to walk...
When he started to be able to bottle-feed himself...
You feel proud + overjoyed... and then think, he needs me less and less.
This is parenthood.


Here, Kahlil Gibran expresses it much better than i ever can:


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 mightthat 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.