On Children... Kids and Caterpillars...

I saw this butterfly on the way to work and thought it seemed quite an appropriate reflection of things at the moment; Life with Teenagers...
 All the things that butterfly had been subjected to in order to metamorphose into this delicate creature... Thorough the driving force of Nature, it had duly passed through the various different stages of life... From ungracious caterpillar, occupying its days in a seemingly aimless manner, devoring all around it, to the pupating mass inside a hard chrysalis shell that gives little or no indication as to the marvel that lies within, and finally the air-borne butterfly that flies far away from our terrestrial concerns but will grace us with its presence from time to time...

I'm not quite sure which stage my children have reached, but we are certainly nowhere near the airborne...although I myself would like to take off to the skies. I too would love to escape the relentless nagging (mine!) and frustration and rage as young wings have to be momentarily clipped to avoid disastrous flights and land-bound missions. In the process my own feathers have been tarred and tarnished as I begin to understand the expression "to cry tears of blood" since the salty variety has momentarily run out. I wonder why all of this has to be so hard... Well, apparently we do get through this baptism of fire, but for the time being, a lot of wings are being singed, nerves frazzled and patience grilled on both sides of the generational gap.
Our offspring will be our children for life, well beyond their childhood years. However, for them to advance they have to leave us behind. I just hope the flight path is a little similar to that of a boomerang, in some respects at least. And that what they leave behind isn't bent too far during the teenage years...

                                               On Children -  Kahlil Gibran
                                     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.

Butterfly (last September) - this must have been a mother as it's looking the worse for wear!