speak to me!

"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. . . "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."

KAHIL GIBRAN

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when I first read that, I realised where my parents had gone horribly wrong. . . and now I'm a parent of teenagers, I realise how hard it is to get it right (not that I let my parents off on that count, you understand)
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so. . . teenagers! what's it all about then?
I must say, sometimes I am at a complete and total loss
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you try and give them a helping hand, and everything just turns in upon itself. . .
. . .but you love them so much, their pain pains you (or is that just me?); perhaps this is why laundry was invented, to take your mind off it all. . .