Allah gave mothers an awesome but joyful task

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16: In Islam, we are taught that paradise lies at the feet of the mother.

Reverend (Maria) Seaman has spoken of teaching and nurturing from the womb and indeed that’s where Mother’s influence begins; with it never ending; it does not end at the child’s birth, nor during the raising of the child; Mother’s influence never ends and continues throughout the child’s life, shaping and moulding what that child is to become.

The role of the mother in the Islamic family is as equally important if not more as the role of the father, who is the provider and protector of his family.

Not only does the mother go through both the joys and difficulties of pregnancy and giving birth, she dedicates the whole of her life to nurturing and caring for her children.

It is her responsibility to raise and to educate her children to be righteous and pious human beings.

She cooks, cleans, nurtures and educates, she is also responsible for their spiritual, emotional and physical health and well-being.

In return, children owe their mothers care, love, affection, respect and dutifulness.

The task Allah gave to mothers is indeed awesome and can seem overwhelming; but equally so, the joys are great.

Accordingly, the reward for a righteous mother is nothing less than Paradise and in this life, she is esteemed and honoured.

Mothers bear a heavy task; they must nurture and teach, and most of all discipline their children.

Without proper discipline, children can and do go astray.

We really do not want that. How horrible the fate of a child that has not had proper discipline.

I have seen mothers cry buckets of tears when their beloved children end up on the wrong side of life.

Giving children their every desire, not disciplining as we should is called ‘spoiling’.

And when we spoil our children we really do ‘spoil’ them.

Just think of what the word spoil means — to ruin, mess up, blemish, blot, destroy.

Responsibility

Certainly, no right thinking mother wants to be responsible for such dastardly results but this is what we get when we fail to undertake our roles in the way we should.

We as mothers have to love firmly and fairly and not withhold proper discipline.

I remember with my own children when they were little, some of their ‘rudeness’ was so cute.

But I had to put tongue in cheek and deal with the inappropriate behaviour appropriately and immediately.

I always thought “the behaviour may be cute when he/she is two years old, but not so cute at twelve years and even uglier at twenty — so I better nib it in the bud now!” 

We as parents have to remember that these children grow up and if we have not nurtured them properly they will grow into not so cute adults.

Children are like gardens — they need constant care and weeding to become productive and beautiful. I have a wall plaque which reads ‘Home is where your story begins’.

Children need, require and desire discipline; children want perimeters and guidelines.

Parents, especially mothers do their children a disservice; a grave injustice when we do not administer consistent and appropriate discipline leading to proper guidance and direction for them to follow.

Then again sometimes even when parents/mothers do as they should, our children still end up disasters.

My sister-friend Caroldey always quotes the words of the poet Khalil Gibran who when a woman who held a babe against her bosom said: “Speak to us of children”.

His response was: “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.”

Even when with the best upbringing, our children sometimes go astray, the consolation lies in the fact that when we know as parents we gave it our best shot.

We need not kick ourselves thinking what horrible parents we are because our children have obvious flaws. It doesn’t mean that we are completely the deciding factor.

Our children eventually have to make their own choices and become their own individual persons.

Allah says in the  Noble Quran (Koran): “And we have commanded man to be good towards parents; his mother bore him with hardship, and delivered him with hardship; and carrying him and weaning him is for 30 months; until when he reached maturity and became 40 years of age, he said, ‘My Lord! Inspire me to be thankful for the favours you bestowed upon me and my parents, and that I may perform the deeds pleasing to You, and keep merit among my offspring; I have inclined towards you and I am a Muslim’. (46:15).