We are not our children

Emotions are such inner compasses of where we are in our lives and how we are feeling at the present moment. They are gauges to what we can and do not want to take yet why do we cast them aside, push them to the background. Why do we override them the majority of the time rather than letting them guide us to where we need to be?
I think it’s because we have been conditioned from children to do what’s best for everyone else and not ourselves. We are told how we should behave in certain circumstances, we are told what to wear, what to say to the extent that we lose our authentic selves in the process. Or if we don’t lose who we are completely we become confused about who we truly are.
I look at my children and see how they are growing and changing and how I want to shape them so they don’t experience the issues of abandonment and loneliness I experienced in my growing years. And sometimes I overpower them too much because I am trying to shape them into near perfect beings because in my parent mind I am trying to protect them from any sadness and hurt. I always know when I have overpowered them because I can see the light go out in their eyes, I see them hanging their heads in disappointment because I failed to see their individuality, failed to listen to their desires. And whenever that happens, I get a pain in the pit of my stomach but sometimes I can’t pull back because I feel I know better than they do because I have the battle scars of life to prove it and they don’t yet.
But am I right? Should I be letting them gain their own battle scars because though they came through me, they are not me. They are part me, part my husband, part themselves and part the Divine so I can’t and won’t know all the answers for them because I am only a small part of who they are.
How do we as parents know when to draw the line to allow our children to blossom into the individuals that they are without filling their heads with our dreams, limitations and fears? I pray that I am able to give my children wings so they can fly rather than giving them wings then clipping them so they are never able to get off the ground.
Because as the great prophet Khalil Gibran says,
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not of 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 arrow 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.”
I pray that I accept I am not my children and cannot live their lives but can be strong enough to be there for them whenever they need me without judgement or expectations.