Parents of Schoolgoers  Discussion Forum

There have been some very interesting viewpoints and quotes in the last two threads especailly the quote from my favorite poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran who incidently loved and adored his mother and literally exalted his mother to the status of the most ideal woman in his life. But wisely such a man chose not to marry but preferred to make observations on marriage such as the one below:
let there be spaces in your togetherness
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you
Love one another, but make not a bond of love
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup

This quote applies not just to marriage but to almost any relationship above all the one between mother and son where the attachment is most severe. If there were love between mother and son a mother would give her son space to grow into an adult become a man, marry and become a husband and then a father and so on. But if a mother is only attached to her son then she might always want that son to be a kid who will depend on her and never let him become a man capable of being a husband and father. I think majority of Indian women make this mistake because they are conditioned to think that if they produced a son they have triumphed and their security is assured. This has to change, until that happens this MIL-DIL problem is going to remain.
Another observation after reading Job's post, the Indian woman has changed a lot over time. But the Indian man is the same man that his Grandpa was or his father was. Men will have to change to accomodate the changed, changing woman. The Job kind of mindset will never work any more only propagate mesry for all including himself.
vimpi replied. 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.