On Children is from Kahlil Gibran's most prominent work The Prophet which is a book of 26 poetic essays written in English. Kahlil Gibran took more than 11 years to write this book.
In this poem, Gibran states that humans are a product of this universe and natural forces at play. Parents take credit for giving birth to children, but they are only a medium through which life expresses itself. Children are not their parents' possessions . Each of us is holding our children in trust for the future. We need to care for children till they are independent, just as our parents did for us, and our grandparents did for our parents. And so on life moves forward. The only gift we can give our children is the gift of love. Children fondly remember the unconditional love they received from parents.
Each of our previous generations has lived in a different environment than the one we live in. So it is going to be with our children. Their world will be different than ours. Be confident that our children are equipped to deal with the future they will live in, just like we were equipped for the world we live in. Each generation’s role is to leave the world a little better than the one they inherited. Apart from love, that is the biggest gift we can give to our children.
Gibran draws a beautiful analogy here by calling parents ‘bows’ and children ‘arrows.’ Parents’ role is to be an arrow, that powers their children’s journey, aimed towards the future the children will live in. The more flexible the bow, the more it bends. The stronger the bowstring, the more it can be stretched, and the more power it can pass to the arrow. The steadier the aim, the more accurately the arrow will fly on its journey towards a different space and time.
Music in this video: Awakening by Steffen Daum
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