「子どもについて」

息子の友人に赤ちゃん誕生。
お祝いにちょこっと何か書いて添えようと思ったけど、お父さんになった子とは英語でしか話せない。で、本からの引用でごまかすことに。

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 thought they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
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.

quote from "The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran