Dhammapada dixit

"These children belong to me, these riches belong to me", thus says the foolish man, and his life is full of woe. Truly, one does not belong to oneself. Wherefore the children? Wherefore the riches?

The Dhammapada is a versified Buddhist scripture traditionally ascribed to the Buddha himself. It's literary value is disputed, but the wisdom of some of its sayings, like the quote above, seems to me beyond doubt.

I once tried to advise to this effect a woman who lived in an unhappy marriage and, as a result, pinned all her love, happiness and hope on her innocent baby son. Foreseeing a miserable youth and adulthood for the boy, a fraught relationship between the two, and a possible heart-rending break up of the sort I have known, I wrote to her: your son is not yours.

She wrote back, Oh, I assure you he is.