Children

Kahlil Gibran

 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.

 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 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.

Commentary

Throughout ‘The Prophet’, Kahlil Gibran manages to bring together great insight into how life works (or should, at any rate) and truly beautiful language. And he makes the two seem mutually indispensible. Which is why he appeals to me intellectually as well as aesthetically. He is a master of analogies and his texts have many that are apt and natural - that of the archer in this poem is close to perfection.

From a more simplistic viewpoint, he places the “Leave me alone/Let go of me” phenomenon that most ‘children’ experience at some point in a much wider context. I say this because in recent months the topic of how one should “bring one’s parents up” <g> has come up repeatedly with some of my friends. Well, here is how. (The minor problem that remains is conveying it to the parents… <g>)

— Radhika

Google spews out vast amounts of pages on Gibran. To name two:

http://leb.net/gibran has a detailed biography of Gibran as well as a lot of his writings in full. (Including The Prophet.) They spell the first name Khalil.

http://impact.civil.columbia.edu/~fawaz/g-gallery.html has many of Gibran’s illustrations that appear in The Prophet.

The Wondering Minstrels, poem #1194 · 10 March 2003

Guest poem submitted by Radhika Gowaikar

Fair use

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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.

John Burstow · 11 March 2003

Hi Martin,

I love the Wondering Minstrels and depend on it, but I only write you when something I read there makes me see red–Billy Collins’ stuff, for example, or now today’s wretched excuse for wisdom by Kahil Gibran.

To clear the taste buds, here is some Yeats, except maybe not his exact words, for I have lost the source (I thought it was in the version of “The Phases of the Moon” that appears Per Amica Silentia Lunae, which I have not looked at in 35 years). Something like:

The rhetorician would deceive another,
The sentimentalist himself,
While art is but a vision of reality.

And now my “realistic” rewriting of Gibran:

Your children are not your children.

They belong to your religion or the state

They come through you but not from you,

And don’t forget they belong to the state.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts;

Our schools and media will give them their thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

Which we will collect from our battlefields tomorrow.

Best,

John

Srinivasan Deepak · 13 March 2003

In this particular instance of Gibran’s verse the following lines say it for me
“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.”
It is in children that we see the future. Let us “love” and “house” them, but
let their thoughts and souls be free and unfettered.

peace
/Deepak

POP_Logon_Name · 4 June 2003

I saved this poem in my e-mail - as I do certain poems that I enjoy reading, over again. Gibran’s “Children” echo my thoughts on how I raised my own children, now 24 and 27years old. I am as proud of raising them as anything I have ever done. Maybe one day I’ll be enlightened enough to understand John Burstow’s comment, which I just now came across, but at the moment I think he is just a pessimistic snob. Linda lindau @entermail.net

Debbie Petersen · 25 June 2003

Hi John Burstow

I am curious…why so cynical…?? Don’t you think there is enough of that to go around as is…of course we need to be aware of the varying influences on one’s beliefs and attitudes…but i still prefer to believe that if people/children choose to do so they can be free thinkers…and their thoughts can be ‘their own’…

And as far as ‘wisdom’ and ‘reality’ goes…these are personalised perceptions…relative to who you are, your life experience, and what you choose to adopt as your fundamental beliefs…

I for one am quite appreciative of Gibran’s work…as a teenager reading the piece ‘Children’ encouraged me to strive toward developing an open mind…to formulate my own opinions on issues of interest to me and not to merely adopt the dominant paradigms…to not succumb to the indoctrination of the racist and apartheid society in which i was raised…

regards,
DEBBiE

Harvie Scott · 15 November 2005

I remember having this poem hanging on the back of the toilet door. I have read it over and over. Each year as I read it I would understand a little more and appreciate the analogies. It helps me today with four children of my own. The poem is truth and art all wrapped into one. I find it amazing that this poem has stuck with me still. The fact that I looked it up on the net so many years later still astounds me.

HoldYourHorses · 10 October 2006

As an adoptive parent, I find this piece particularly poignant. No matter what the origin of our influence on children, and them on us, the journey is the thing. Gibran talks only about the journey, and neither the beginning nor the ending. Parents provide a door and transportation through a time, and no more- and yet it is the most magnificent thing that we can be called to do.

Elaine Nash

Glenn Correya · 9 July 2007

Dear Mr John Burstow,

I saw your paraphrasing of Gibran’s “Children” on this website and seek your kind permission to use the verses on the BBC’s Have Your Say blog, in the context of the terrible tragedy that is unfolding in Pakistan’s Red Mosque.Those few lines capture the pathos of the moment most aptly.

Regards

Glenn Correya
Muscat

phyllis.donahue · 7 November 2007

I have never read anything so profound in my life, I have had one of the small works of Gibran and have turned to this poem as I argue with my daughter as she is decorating her first home. I never thought I would speak the words I said to her. I remembered this poem and used Google to find this site. thanks