Freedom has a Meaning

To transcend this cage of life, that would be the ideal. There is no need for chains or bars, if you only learn how to let go. And it is time for you to let go. You do not want to acknowledge it as such, but you know it in your heart to be true. Your children are not for you to keep bound forever, for they were never really yours in the first place, but rather beings who you were charged to look after, who were in their own right supposed to enjoy a sense of freedom. They belong to the world and unto themselves, in the same way as you yourself.

Fly free, that is the goal; that has been the goal for humans since the dawn of time. Yet, we cannot seem to be able to let go of the ground. The truth is, we cannot fly. We may wish to grow wings, we may build planes to take us above the clouds, we leave behind our roots in search of something better, but in reality, we trap ourselves. Metaphorically, we are chained to the earth, we are bound to what we are taught. So metaphorically, we can fly. All it takes is looking at life with a different perspective. It may take us a long time to leave the comfort and familiarity of our families, some never do, but we can only taste true freedom if we take the chance to try the change, experience the unfamiliar.

You need to learn that children will walk away from you one day. They will return of course, the way that a bird will return to its roost after a long day, but if you don't let them leave, they cannot grow. And all life is growth. Growth is the seed of living.

So let them go. Watch them soar higher than you could have dreamed. Your job is to hold them up when they feel like they are going to crash and burn.

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.

On Children, 

Kahlil Gibran