Your Children Are Not Your Children

★ Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life longing for itself. They came by means of you, and not from you. And though they are with you, they are not yours. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for their thoughts are their own. You tend 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 will strive to be like them, but do not ask that they be like you. For life goes not backward, nor tarries with a yesterday that is gone. You are the bows from which your children go forth as living arrows.

For the archer sees the mark before him on the path of the infinite, and He directs you with His care, that His arrows may fly swiftly.