growing a life...

Deepak Jain

(shared from facebook)

"According to me, the function of the parents is not how to help the children grow -- they will grow without you. Your function is to support, to nourish, to help what is already growing. Don't give directions and don't give ideals. Don't tell them what is right and what is wrong: let them find it by their own experience.
Only one thing you can do, and that is share your own life. Tell them that you have been conditioned by your parents, that you have lived within certain limits, according to certain ideals, and because of these limits and ideals you have missed life completely, and you don't want to destroy your children's life. You want them to be totally free - free of you, because to them you represent the whole past.

It needs guts and it needs immense love in a father, in a mother, to tell the children, "You need to be free of us. Don't obey us - depend on your own intelligence. Even if you go astray it is far better than to remain a slave and always remain right. It is better to commit mistakes on your own and learn from them, rather than follow somebody else and not commit mistakes. But then you are never going to learn anything except following -- and that is poison, pure poison." 

~osho~

My personal addendum:

 To some degree my parents did this but not with religious matters or church rules. Those were definitely toe the line, or else.  My experience was that many times allowing or forcing me to stumble along and  learn things the hard way without guidance was unkind. They could have sat me down and told me of options in various scenarios, explained possible outcomes of different choices, and then gently guided me into what appeared to be the most favorable outcome for everybody.

Also, I don't believe that Osho's advice in this regard is "one size fits all". Some children are born with very clear ideas about how to live their life. Others...not so much.