COUPLE RELATIONSHIPS: children

FAMOUS QUOTES

• "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you." (quote not included in the episode)

  Khalil Gibran

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS FROM THE EPISODE'S AUTHOR

• The real triumph of a relationship with children will be independent children who live their own lives and make their own decisions.

• We shouldn't burden our children with our own desires in order to enjoy them.

• THE TROPHY SYNDROME:

This consists of having children to show off and have everyone talk about who you are when they see them; a "trophy" to boast about and increase personal pride, but never to help them be themselves, even if their decisions are contrary to ours.

• Children are not a solution to resolve pre-existing problems in a couple, with comments like: "We'll have a child to be closer."

SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

• To what extent do you think children can strengthen the relationship of a couple without a solid bond of love?

  Reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of this and the qualities a couple should have to help their children be happier.

• Do you think it's important for children to be able to achieve their parents' wishes? Would you be willing to put your own wishes before fulfilling your parents'?

• Do you consider the option of having children essential for a couple? What arguments would you offer to a couple frustrated by the inability to have children?

• Examine the following image of a wooden bridge over the sea carefully, clicking on it to enlarge it, and describe the feelings it produces in you when comparing each of its slats with the moments you spend with your children, the sea being the adversities of life and the relationship of a couple with their children, the wooden bridge itself:

Link to the episode on YouTube:

Link to the episode on Spotify: