Parenting & Family Quote by Kahlil Gibran

Parenthood, in Gibran's hands, isn’t possession; it’s physics. The image of the parent as a bow is elegant because it assigns you real power while denying you authorship. You supply tension, direction, and release, but the arrow is not you. It has its own flight path, its own drag and wind, its own inevitable distance from the hand that set everything in motion.

The intent is corrective, aimed at a timeless parental fantasy: that raising a child is a form of self-extension, a second life you get to steer. Gibran refuses that bargain. By calling children "living arrows", he insists on autonomy as something built in, not granted. The adjective "living" matters: arrows are usually inert tools, obedient to aim. These are animated, inner-directed, and therefore morally resistant to being treated as instruments of parental ego, cultural tradition, or unresolved ambition.

The subtext is also a warning about the seductive violence of control. Bows bend; they ache. Good parenting, here, requires accepting strain without turning it into domination. "Sent forth" carries a quiet inevitability, even a spiritual resignation: letting go isn’t a milestone, it’s the job.

Contextually, this line belongs to "On Children" in The Prophet (1923), written in the wake of mass displacement and modern upheaval. In an era when old certainties were collapsing, Gibran offers a portable ethic: raise with purpose, release without ownership, and measure love by how well it survives distance.