Your Children Are not Your Property

Published August 28, 1986. People living in Utah are noted for being highly devoted to family life. We usually assume responsibility for our children and genuinely try to guide them through life. We work very hard at being good mothers and fathers. Sometimes I wonder if we try too hard. Perhaps, as parents, we try and do too much alone.

For some time, I have thought that parents should be willing to do two things (1) assist others with their children when the need arises; and (2) request other adults to assist us in rearing our children when we need the help.

There are undoubtedly times when other adults can do things with your children that you cannot do. And on occasion there may be some unique things you can do with your talents and skills for the children of others. We simply need to be less competitive and more cooperative when rearing our children.

The need to do this became more evident for me a few weeks ago. I was home alone. I decided to do some yard work and went outside. There I found a neighbor boy walking down the sidewalk. He was crying.

We knew each other. He had been over to our house several times to play with one of our boys his age. But that afternoon he was alone. I asked him what was the matter and he said, in between sobs, he was thinking about leaving home. Running away. No one seemed to understand.

I tried to joke with him a little to try and cheer him up. He laughed when I told him I had even felt like running away sometimes. After talking to him a few minutes, I mentioned there were some cookies in our house and asked him if he would like one. He said yes and wiped away a few tears. I went in and came out with a handful. He began to munch on one. I told him on occasion my children felt like running away from home. They, too, felt like no one understood. He finished one cookie and asked for another.

I suggested he walk down the sidewalk and back a few times, and he would probably feel better. He might even want to return home. He said he would give it a try and asked if he could take a few more cookies with him while he walked. I gave him the ones that were left, and away he went. An hour or so later I was glad to see when he walked up to his front door, stood for a moment, and then went in.

For the sake of our neighbors, I was glad I happened to meet their boy while he was giving serious thought (at least at the moment) to running away. I want to be able to help others with their children when I can. And on the occasions when Susan and I need the help, when our children feel bad and may even want to leave home, we hope there will be some other adults further on down the street to intervene. And perhaps they also will have a cookie or two.

We all need to assist each other in rearing our children. For they belong to none of us . . . and yet all of us at once.

Several years ago. Kahlil Gibran wrote the following:

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.