the experience, for me from the dawns to dusks of my current life and many moments inbetween
KAHIL GIBRAN: The Prophet
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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.
KAHIL GIBRAN: The Prophet
.
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.
*
PHILIP LARKIN: This Be The Verse
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They f*ck you up your mum and dad
They may not mean it but they do
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you
But they were f*cked up in their turn
By fools in old style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy stern
And half at one another's throats
Man hands misery onto man
It deepens like a coastal shelf:
Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself
*
ok, so they don't eat my upside-down pineapple cake; ok, so they prefer their father's mashed potato to mine; ok, so one of them only likes bananas and one of them doesn't like red meat and one of them won't have pasta on the same plate as garlic bread; ok, so none of them make their beds or tidy their rooms; ok, so they fight and bicker and argue and and and; ok, so I remember once saying to my mother, when she told me that I had to eat up all the food on my plate because didn't I know how lucky I was to have food on my plate because there were "starving children in Africa", "can't you send it to them in a box?", because the plate had been brought out of the fridge where it had spent the last five hours because I hadn't eaten the food on it at the last meal and still didn't want to, and I only ever said that the once because I learnt the consequences of answering back and sometimes I think it's a shame mine haven't (ok, so most of the time I'm glad I brought them up to answer back and speak their minds and have confidence in their own beliefs); ok ok ok ok
.
I get it! (which only makes me wonder why my parents didn't)
.
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and this one, isn't about being a parent (as far as I know) but sums a small but significant part of it up, for the moment, for me
ee cummings: i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars
apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
