On Children
Reflection by Lise Johnson
Dr. Johnson earned her undergraduate degree in Health and Society from Brown University, and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School, where she is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics teaching and supervising both students and residents. Dr. Johnson has spent over 30 years in general pediatrics, 19 of which have been devoted to newborn care as Medical Director for Well Newborn Care at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is an author of the Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) system Handbook and has been trained on the NBAS. Currently, Dr. Johnson serves as the Principal Investigator for a Health Resources and Services Administration-funded randomized controlled trial examining the use of the NBO to support first time mothers of late preterm newborns. She is the Associate Director of the Brazelton Institute
I was a new mother when I first encountered this poem, in musical form sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYAkcL36aCE
When the experience of childbirth is fresh, it is sometimes counterintuitive to accept the separateness of our babies. They are the blood link to our partners and our ancestors - my eyes, his hands, my grandmother’s smile. Their joy is our joy, their pain our pain. How are they not us?
Gibran sets us straight, showing families their place in their children’s lives. These words have been a guidepost for me as both a parent and a pediatrician. Remain clear-eyed on who this person is and nurture that real baby, awaken from your dreams and your nightmares.
Do not say you are proud of your child but rather that you admire her.
Do not say you are ashamed of your child but rather that you weep for him.
Know that you have more to learn than you have to teach.
Aim for the light that dwells in all of us, connects us, yet surpasses our understanding.
On Children
By Kahlil Gibran
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.