According to Kahlil Gibran, love occupies the most important place in God’s creation. Love is not created by us but is sent from above and it directs everything in our life as it sees fit. In this poem, Gibran illustrates how love works in the intimate relationship of parenthood. Gibran wants us to understand that our role as parents is only ’stewardship’ and nothing else. In the line ‘Your children are not your children’ Gibran tells parents to be aware that a child is not a thing to be possessed by us because we have not created ‘life’.

A child is eternal life itself and is a gift from the abundance of existence. As parents we may have brought them to the earth. This has happened so because we have been chosen to be a vehicle and so we are nothing else but a passage. It is life’s longing for itself that brings children to earth, as sons and daughters. Since children are not lifeless things we cannot possess them. That is why the prophet categorically states that ‘Your children are not your children’.