A Mother’s Notes
From: Naureen Mallick
Assalam alikum Ustazah
As I was going thru my files today, I saw this piece that I wrote earlier this year….I just thought may be u might enjoy reading some aspects of ur students as mothers, and their sometimes unconscious impact on the next generation of ur children!
January 14, 2009
To a mother, the achievements of her child are always wonderful and a source of endless commentary. It is quite another thing if others can be similarly excited!
For the past 2 weeks, Yahya has exhibited a remarkable new ability.
Some days ago, as the two of us drove down to pick up my daughter from school (it’s a 15-min drive), I put on the first tape from the ‘Kitab ul Ilm’ set. My intention was simply to revise the book, and utilize the drive time. When we got to the school and Mariam climbed into the car, Yahya turned to her and said: ‘min lisani…qawli’ (as if to tell her what he had learnt just now in the car). To say that I was surprised is to put it mildly: At 2 years and nine months of age, Yahya only speaks in 2-3 word-sentences and the only ‘dua’ I have been able to teach him up till now is the ending portion of the one said on entering the washroom: ‘min al khubsay wal khabais’
The next morning, when I logged into the paltalk room, he started jumping up and down when he heard Ustazah reciting the dua for ilm and exclaimed: “yeh keh re hain…qawli…” Hmmmnn, so he was also connecting fragments of information?
Was Yahya in a new stage of linguistic development?
Why had I been unable to teach him any duas so far?
As I turned over these thoughts in my mind, one plausible answer that occurred was: may be he liked Ustaza’s voice and wants to learn the way she teaches. So as soon as we sat in the car the next day, I put on the “Rabbi Zidni..” tape and started from where we had left off the day before. Sure enough, when we got to Mariam’s school, the first thing he said to me was: ‘Rabbi..ilma’. Mariam and I spent the drive back home and the rest of the day teaching him ‘zidni’ until he finally said the complete dua. Progress!
I thought I had found a new drive-routine. So the 3rd day, on reaching Mariam’s school, I turned to Yahya and prompted: ‘Allahumma faqihna…’ (thinking he had moved to the next dua being taught on the tape). He didn’t finish the dua as I had expected, but surprise, surprise! Guess what he did say? “Hasbi yullah”. I looked at him in shock, until I recalled that earlier in the week, on the drive to school in the morning, when Mariam had complained about being unable to open a stuck door in school, I had taught her that dua. Apparently, Yahya had been paying attention too!
And so it was that that week, we concentrated on teaching Yahya ‘Rabbi shahri le..’
Then he surprised me again yesterday, when I caught him playing and saying to himself…..‘Rabbin Naas’….So Mariam reciting her morning duas aloud was also affecting his learning process! (Mariam recites her morning azkar in the car with me).
I started paying closer attention to Yahya’s babbling to himself when he was playing. Sure enough I caught portions of duas like ‘rabbana lakal hamd’ and ‘rabbil alameen’. Just today, I was praying and as he tried to run past me, and pushed me in the process, he muttered to himself ‘astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah’.
The bottom line?
Every Muslim parent tries to inculcate some Islamic values in their child, but sometimes we just don’t “see” it. We see other children and wow at their achievements as they roll off duas and other Islamic tid-bits. We are humbled into thinking ‘oh their parents must be sooo good…may be I am just not a good muslim parent…others have such great ideas on parenting…’ and son on. We tend to become dejected and demoralized…oh what’s the use of my trying?
What Yahya taught me was that a parent should never stop trying. One never knows what avenues a child is learning from. I may not be the only source of learning for him.
And that brought me to my second great realization: one should never underestimate the power of good company. Even in our homes, when we are listening to a lecture or tape, the words are also going inside our children’s consciousness. They might not always be able to understand or reproduce them, but the words become a part of the children’s psyche. Just like we hear of the pious women of days of yore bringing their children to the majalis of different shyookh, today we have the choice of bringing the voice of the shyookh to them.
Here was a message of hope for young parents: one should keep trying and never ever underestimate the power of dua and good intentions!
