Notes on Siddhartha and Parenting

Your children are not your children

For many, the life-changing force of Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha derives from its depiction of the spiritual life, but I will always remember the parable of the rebellious son and the powerless sage. The scene shows how other people, even the ones we care for most, are not our own.

The spiritual seeker, Siddhartha wishes that he could teach his son what he knows:

But look, how shall I put him, who had no tender heart anyhow, into this world? Won’t he become exuberant, won’t he lose himself to pleasure and power, won’t he repeat all of his father’s mistakes, won’t he perhaps get entirely lost in Sansara?

The wise ferryman, Vasudeva, replies:

Would you actually believe that you had committed your foolish acts in order to spare your son from committing them too? And could you in any way protect your son from Sansara? How could you? By means of teachings, prayer, admonition? …Which father, which teacher had been able to protect him from living his life for himself, from soiling himself with life, from burdening himself with guilt, from drinking the bitter drink for himself, from finding his path for himself? Would you think, my dear, anybody might perhaps be spared from taking this path? That perhaps your little son would be spared, because you love him, because you would like to keep him from suffering and pain and disappointment? But even if you would die ten times for him, you would not be able to take the slightest part of his destiny upon yourself.

which father, which teacher – these words bring to mind Epictetus’s coaching from Handbook 51:

For how long will you go on deferring the time when you demand the best of yourself and put an end to transgressing right reason? You’ve accepted the theories. You’ve subscribed to the views to which you ought to subscribe. What kind of teacher are you still expecting, that you postpone the correction of yourself until he’s there to do it for you? You’re not a child anymore but a grown man.

The desire to be saved by another is perhaps not so different from the fantasy of becoming a source of another’s salvation.

It’s important that this episode occurs just before Siddhartha finds liberation. Siddhartha hasn’t come to terms with the reality that he cannot save his son. 

Often I am asked for resources to teach children Stoicism and there are a few good resources for this, but, of course, the best way to teach Stoicism is to show it. And that’s hard. Seneca offers the analogy of the fellow patient – we should consider his advice as though it were coming from an experienced fellow patient suffering from the same ailment. There’s wisdom in that line, but fellow patients rarely heal us.

Siddhartha wants to remove his son from the cycle of repetitive and predictable suffering, but cannot. At that very moment, he hasn’t escaped himself. Perhaps parents often can’t lead children to where they want to go because they too are stuck in one way or another.

Vasudeva states that, even if Siddhartha was enlightened, he would be unable to take the slightest part of his son’s destiny upon himself. It’s just not up to him.

The master’s prompt leads Siddhartha to liberation, but the guidance is subtle. For most of the book, Vasudeva says nothing. He knows that, at best, he can shift Siddhartha’s attention – but it’s up to Siddhartha to allow himself to be transformed. 

Perhaps the best statement of this is captured by Kahlil Gibran’s Prophet:

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.