Our Children Are Not "Ours"

For all the “lost” parents, latter-day Peter Pans in the role of responsible adults; for those who had sweetened their internalised idea of motherhood and fatherhood, only to find themselves improvising, swept along by a rollercoaster of emotions, hoping to do the right thing at every parenting moment. For all of you, for all of us, here is the motivating and comforting reflection of Stefano Biavaschi. Let us trust life a little, without needing, or being able, to control absolutely everything.

Your Children do not grow because of you; rather, they grow you.

They are your educators, for they wait for you to be good before they imitate you.

And when you say: We will give life to a child, do you know which life you are giving? Not theirs, but your own.

If you have not understood this, it would be better to gird your loins and move on.

And when you say: Our Children are our cross to bear, rejoice that they have nailed you down, keeping you from falling into the abyss.

And also when you say: Our Children take up so much of our time, ask yourselves whether all that time taken from you would really be better spent elsewhere.

In their childhood, listen to your Children, for on their faces there still lingers some fragment of the smile the angels clothed them with.

When holding their hand, do not rush them, but walk at their pace, for they wish to heal you of your hurrying.

Do not give them gifts; give them yourselves. Gifts are your alibi for not giving them you.

Place yourselves in their hands, for they hold the wisdom that you have lost.

Call them by name, and they will call forth the child within you, the one you could not revive on your own, and they will let it play in the garden of Life.

And in their adolescence, listen to your Children. Much of the wall they often raise against you in those days was not built with their bricks, but with yours.

Do not ask of them things you yourselves do not do.

If you are wise, it will be enough to simply be yourselves.

But if you are not, do not overload them with limits without pointing out their destinations; show them instead the beauty of those destinations, and you will achieve more than by showing them the dangers of possible abysses.

Do not be distressed if, having taught them the rules, they do not follow them. In truth, they would tremble with fear if those rules did not exist.

Their transgressions are there to test the truth of those rules. At other times, they are meant to call for your reproach, as proof of your love for them. If they hurt you, it is because you offered them your vulnerability. Or because you gave without teaching them how to give.

Sometimes they will leave you, slamming the door behind them, but even as you watch them go, the ships on which they sail have holds filled with the gifts delivered by your kind words. And at the first storm, they will take refuge in you.

You are the sowers of their fields, not the reapers of their harvest. And your mission is to give always, even when the blade of their freedom cuts your hands.

In their youth, finally, listen to your Children. With astonishment you will see that they have overtaken you, that their ship has passed all the first reefs, and now has before it only the most dangerous reef of all: you. For they will be called along paths of fulfilment that you do not know, and blindly you will try to bar their way.

But the plant is given the power to generate, not to contain what it generates. Do you believe your plans are greater than the plans Life has? Do not hold them back, then. You have given them your life: now take it back, by giving them the gift of letting them go.

Clear your heart of every craving to receive, for if your flute is not hollow, the renewed melody of Life will not be able to pass through it.

If you live out this perfect act of giving, you will know how to love them in their new form, and then, whether they are Children of your own blood or Children chosen by the heart, you will have completed the third step of your own growth.

You will then be able to hear the universal notes pass through you, and you will understand that through you, Life has composed a new song.

Author: Stefano Biavaschi, from “The Prophet of the Wind”.