And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
– The poem begins with a woman who is holding a baby asking the prophet Almustafa to give a discourse on children. The prophet tells her or in general to every parents that their children do not really belong to them for they are the children of the future life. The “Life’s longing” is the idea of future life which will be constructed and created by the children by their own choices and decisions. The children automatically becomes a children of future who are born to create the future and becomes the child of the “Life’s longing”.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
– The prophet tells that the children are given birth biologically by their parents but the prophet states contradictory that the parents are just a medium to give birth to a child. The child comes from other source and the parents are just a mediator to give birth and bring into reality/life. He further tells that the children lives with their parents but the children does not really belong to them either.
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.
– Here the prophet tells the reason on why the child does not belong to their own parents who gave birth to them. He tells that the parents can give the child their love but not their thoughts or knowledge to them for the child has its own mind and cognition. The parents can nurture the body of the child with food and shelter but not the soul or the desire or dreams of their children. The prophet means to suggest that the child is living for the life of future or the “Life’s longing” and he dwells for the future tomorrow and the parents cannot visit nor see that future of their children. The prophet is clear with his ideas on independent will of the child and their own desire and dreams of children’s future independent of parents approval and input.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
– The prophet tells that a parents can strive and work hard to give love and make their children love and like them but the parents should not force a child to become like them or simply choose the path of their choices and pour it into their children. He tells that in comparison with the life where life goes in a linear progression and does not waste any time with the past. Similarly, the prophet wants to suggest that the parents desires to make their children walk their path is like reversing their own child to go back to the past of the parents old life for the child belongs to the future tomorrow and not the past.
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.
– The Prophet uses an imagery of the bow and the arrow to compare the relationship between a child and a parent. The bow is the parent and the arrow is the child. The archer takes the bow and he stretches the bow with a full force. Here the prophet is only suggesting to the parents that the parents needs to be stable like the bow for the stable bows can make an arrow move and flow swiftly to an infinite realm. He means to clarify that a parents should have a stable relationship with their child for it is the stability which is going to fulfill the dreams and desires of the child in the long run. In a sense, a good bonding and relationship can make the child progress better and achieve beyond the higher expectations in life in similitude to the arrow which will fly to the “path of the infinite”.
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