Difficult daughters

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

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.

I love this poem. It sums up a lot of what I’ve learned in my 24 years as a Mom. My daughter and I are totally opposite in most ways. Since she was small, she has never ceased to amaze me with her contrasting attitude and I’m sure she feels the same regarding my differing ideas. Before she was born, I could have never imagined how unmatched a mother and child could be regarding temperament. I had rose-colored dreams of us being warm and fuzzy best friends. Where I got that idea, I can’t imagine – since my mother and I were certainly opposites as well. Is there a pattern here???

So this poem seemed to provide some clarity to this mother-daughter mis-match. All this unlikeness is OK…Jennifer is allowed to be Jennifer… I am allowed to be me…and my mom was allowed to be mean… uh…I MEANT…was allowed to be her

Actually, I feel liberated by the lessons in this poem. I am so much more comfortable with our opposing attitudes and choices. I wish my mom could have read this poem too. But then, she would have hated it…and I guess that’s OK too…that was her style…

(We were supposed to write about difficult people, right?)

This post is for you Mom! I Love You and I miss you,

Your Difficult Daughter who is the mother of your difficult granddaughter…

Lesson for Today:

Difficult Daughters…Maybe it takes one to know one…

 

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