Why you must let go of your children
“Why must I let go of my children? They are my children. I gave birth to them, I bore them all of the 9 months. I raised them and made them to how they are today.”
This could be in the minds of some mothers, but let me share with you why you should learn to let them go, be it you are a mother or a father.
It was only in the last 6- years or so that I was introduced to the term temporary lendings, maybe I did come across it before but more in the concept that the World we live in is a temporary place and the Afterlife is a permanent place. I was reminded that none of what I think I owned here is actually mine and that includes my children and spouse. What hits me the most was “my children are not mine but temporary lendings from Him.”
When I truly understand that phrase then I understand that they are my responsibility for me to look after while on this Earth but to ultimately be returned to Him. That was also when I learnt that yes it’s my duty to bring them up into good Muslims but I must learn to let them go at some points because they are after all temporary lendings to me.
Why I brought up this matter was when I saw how some parents are not willing to accept that their children are merely lent to them. They are not willing to let their child go no matter the children’s age. They want to hold on very tightly to their children even after their children are full grown adults in their 30s and 40s.
It’s sad when the child is in her 40s and the mum is still not able to let go that she may have other commitments, that she cannot be spending all of her free time with her mother anymore. What is worse is when the child keeps feeling guilty about being away from her mother when all she is doing is also fulfilling her duty as a wife.
This is where I feel that as a parent especially as a mother we have to learn to let go. We have to learn to understand that our children are not ours to keep. That ultimately our children are mere temporary lendings to us. Let not our love and strong feel of longing for our children incapacitate them to the extent that they can’t live a life of their own. It makes our children feel guilty to even be away from us when they have grown up and grown into filling shoes and roles of being a worker, a spouse or even a parent themselves.
Another possible detrimental effect is when the child does not know how to be independent. Every task and decisions have been made by the mother all along that the child does not know how to live a life for himself. This is not being fair to the child who may end up struggling to live his life with the passing of the mother.
Loving does not mean holding on, loving means letting go so that our children can develop to the best versions of themselves.
I am sharing a poem by Kahlil Gibran about parenting below which I feel we as parents have to learn in the process of letting go.
Your children are not your children.
They are 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 thir 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 make 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 also loves the bow that is stable.
Kahlil Gibran