roots and wings

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the dual aspiration for children, communities, or individuals — to have deep roots in heritage, culture, family, and place that provide stability, identity, and belonging, and to have wings that enable them to explore, grow, and reach beyond the familiar while carrying their roots with them; the phrase is attributed in various forms to multiple sources including the writer Hodding Carter and the poet Rumi, and has become a widely used expression of the parenting philosophy that loves children enough to both ground them and set them free; roots without wings produces cultural conservatism, insularity, and an inability to engage productively with difference; wings without roots produces rootlessness, anomie, and the inability to draw sustenance from connection to place and heritage; the balance between roots and wings is a central tension of modern cultural life