Motherhood

Letting Go ... Letting Be … Bearing Witness 

Talking about our children has been one of the most curious and meaningful parts of the new marriage Felica and I have entered. Perhaps that’s because each of them are so very different. There is TJ, her son, who moves through the world with a perspective that feels unfamiliar to both of us. Then there’s my daughter, Brianne, who is pursuing a deeply nontraditional vision for her life. And Natalie, who carries within her a deep well of insight and perspective. Then there is Felica’s daughter, Kirsten, who passed from this earth a few years ago—before I had the chance to witness the full expression of her powerful talent.

Felica and I have so many questions about how best to relate to each of them. On this Mother’s Day of 2026, I find myself reflecting on the powerful framing from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.

On Children

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, 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.

What an incredibly difficult assignment for any parent, and perhaps especially for a mother, who literally saw a being come from their own flesh.

Your children are not your children …

A mother’s mind must protest: “Look how much I’ve poured into them! How can they not be mine?”

Of course, if you watch their journey - as Felica and I are watching TJ, Brianne, and Natalie - and as we imagine Kirsten as she may have become, it becomes clear that they are their own beings, called to the account of their own souls.

How, then, might we view this incredible passage over time?

First, there is the pouring into them and their lives, in all the ways that a child’s unique circumstances demand not as we might wish, but as they need.

You may give them your love…

Then comes the continual and painstaking process of letting go; not just getting out of their way, but getting over ourselves, beyond our attachments.

… but seek not to make them like you.

At some point comes the time for letting be. allowing them to be and to become who they fully are, and especially who they are not. To accept them. Period.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

Finally, we bear witness. At some moment, we arrive in amazement, wonder, and awe to see them - and the fruit they bear - which we cannot claim.

… they belong not to you.

Seeing True in Reality and In Practice™

Isn’t it remarkable that the best of motherhood or fatherhood isn’t in our doing, but in what emerges through children?