You're such a mother! my daughter often tells me - when I get too involved in my adult children's lives - or the lives of their friends. (That's a kind way of putting it...)
A while back I found a poem that helped me understand my "parenting problem." I can't remember where I found the poem, but I keep a copy among my favorite things, where I can re-read it from time to time to remind myself that my children live in a different world from the one I lived in when I was their age (just as my parents' growing up years were so very different from my own)...
Our Children Cannot Go Back
by Gladis and Gordon DePree
We
have come over a long road
to the place where we are now...
in human experience
and in our knowledge of God.
It is an impulse
stemming from good will to say to our children,
"this is the way I have come...
you must learn this way..."
But our children cannot go back
to the land from which we have come.
God has asked us to bring them
to this place
and from here
they must be strong to go on
into a new world
which we may never comprehend.
No comments:
Post a Comment