Many things can wait. Children cannot. Today their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, their senses are being developed. To them we cannot say "tomorrow." Their name is today.
Interpretation
Nurturing children is a priority that cannot be postponed.
This quote emphasizes the importance of immediacy in providing care, attention, and opportunities to children. It underscores the critical developmental stages that children undergo, which require our active presence and commitment now rather than at a later time.
In practice
A speech at a parenting seminar emphasizing the importance of spending time with children.
I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat. For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away. How to seal myself up now?…It no longer matters to me who receives what I submit. What I carry out is, in that respect, greater and deeper than I, I am merely the channel.
You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul.
Now my belly is as noble as my heart.
Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today.
What does it feel like to be a parent? What does it feel like to be a child? And that's what stories do. They bring you there. They offer a dramatic explanation, which is always different from an expository explanation.
It's interesting when you're old enough to take a new, objective approach looking at your parents, frame them in a way where you are actually taking yourself out of the equation and just look at the things that are true about their life.
My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum?
A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.
All parents believe their children can do the impossible. They thought it the minute we were born, and no matter how hard we've tried to prove them wrong, they all think it about us now. And the really annoying thing is, they're probably right.
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