One good day we wake up and our kids have to go to University.
It is an important day that tells us that things have gone well, we have raised and educated them, they have grown up, and they have studied successfully enough to be able to go to University, it is not bad, many would have signed it long ago.

It is a transcendental moment in their lives because they have to choose what they want to study and in which University. The criteria for the election are multiple, from economic, geographical, linguistic, and academic such as the university ranking and acceptation requirements, among others.

Our opinion is important to them and we as mothers will have to decide whether to advise them to stay to study the race with us or if we encourage them to study it far, in another city or even abroad.

On the one hand, the latent umbilical cord leads us, as the first instinctive maternal reaction, to keep them at home, next to us. Although once tempered a little, our maternal generosity leads us to think that perhaps it is better for them to leave home, start a new adventure, get rid of us to mature, grow and be able to go out and give themselves to the world, for that they were born , for that purpose we have educated them.

Khalil Gibran tells us in his famous poem:

“On children“:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

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…

Some choices are decisive in the lives of our children, and this is one of them. It is our duty as parents to teach them the criteria on which to base themselves in order to know how to make the best of the choices, what can make them happier, accompany them in the process and… let them choose them for themselves.

In the meantime, we must temper and mediate between our personal maternal instinct and our social maternal generosity, and although it is not easy, in the end what will be the best for them will decanter the balance.

I am about to throw my first arrow… I have the doubt and I would ask Khalil how the poem ends, to tell me what happens to the bow once it has thrown all the arrows… in my case, thank God, I still have two more arrows in my quiver to throw before I find out.

And although I still do not know the end of this story, I can already say that I have had the wonderful happiness of shaping and sharpening my first arrow for eighteen years, and now, even if it hurts, I know I have to tighten the rope well, aim towards the sky and release it… he is ready, his will be the target!