Children

Our children are but Arrows that we shoot into the future. “Kalil Gibran”.

I notice in family mediations the insistence by both parents that they are the best possible parent and caregiver for their children.  They then dismiss the role of the other parent in the lives of the children and also the possible role that the parent might full fill in the future.

Our role in the lives of our children is to prepare them to be the best adults they possibly can be. Our role in their lives is not to make them in our image and projections. Also not to project our anguish about life, love and the universe onto them making them fearful of the magnificence of what their lives might be.

We need to allow them the space in their being to find out about their life and how they would like to construct that. We tend to think they do not know what they would like, and at some level they don’t, but projecting our expectancy onto them diminishes the gift they might have to bring humanity. All we have to give them is skills to construct their lives the way they want to and then get out of their way. We should not let our love for them smother their GIFT that they might have to bring to themselves.

We have a past and all they have is a future. Let us not let our past influence their future.