presents
The Idea that Children Are Your Possession Is Wrong
The whole idea
that children
are your possession
is wrong
They are born through you
but they do not belong to you
You have a past;
they have only future
They are not going to live according to you.
To live according to you
will be almost
equivalent
to not living at all.
They have to live
according to themselves
in freedom
in responsibility,
in danger,
in challenge.
That’s how
one becomes
steeled,
Parents down the ages have carried the idea
that children belong to them
and that they have to be
just carbon copies of them.
A carbon copy is not a beautiful thing,
and existence does not believe
in carbon copies;
it rejoices in originality.
Once you understand that your children
do not belong to you
that they belong to existence,
you have been just a passage
you have to be grateful to existence that it has chosen you
to be a passage
for a few beautiful children
But you are not to interfere
in their growth,
in their potential.
You are not to impose yourself upon them.
They are not going to live in the same times,
they are not going to face the same problems;
they will be part of another world.
Don’t prepare them for this world,
this society,
this time,
because then you will be creating
troubles for them. They will find themselves unfit,
unqualified.
You have to help them
to grow beyond you;
you have to help them
not to imitate you.
That is really the duty of the parents
to help the children
not to fall into imitation.
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