Two Parenting Lessons from My Childhood

Bismillah.

As the mother of young children and as someone who adores her own parents, I have been reflecting a lot lately on my own childhood and how my parents parented.

Alhamdulillah, I grew up in a beautiful home where my parents always made time for us. I never felt that either of them was too busy for us. My mom started working when I was nine years old, but structured her hours around our school day. My father worked very hard, but played with us as soon as he came home and he always made time on the weekend for our family to have a day out together. We would go to the lake to feed the birds bread scraps we picked up from the bakery or had at home, play together at the park, go out for dinner together and then come home and watch The Road to Avonlea together. I remember they made a distinct and conscious decision that they would not spend weekends at their friends' homes for dawats like everyone else did because they wanted to have time for our family to really be together -- not just under the same roof where they would spend time with their friends and leave us to play with their kids, but for us as a family to be close to one another. Those outings are some of my fondest childhood memories.

Lesson One: Make a regular family ritual that you do together. I say ritual because I believe it has to be consistent and regular in order to really impact children and create a bond.

My mother wasn't a "no machine" and she is quite honestly the sweetest, most selfless lady I know masha'Allah, but there were a few things she really quite adamantly forbade me:

• The Phone. When all my friends began talking on the phone after school, my mother forbade me from ever giving our phone number to anyone. She simply said to me, "you spend your entire day at school with your friends. So when you come home, I want you to talk to all of us." When I became a teen and it was sometimes uncomfortable to tell girls I couldn't give them my number, I remember my mom telling me quite frankly that all young girls talk about on the phone is boys and that boys this age aren't serious or in a position to marry you. She told me when I got to University she would ease up a little because then I'd have friends that were mature and had education as a top priority.
• Hangouts. A natural extension of that was that I wasn't allowed to hangout with my friends after school or on weekends either. I didn't have my own social life, birthday parties and outings. I knew when I left school, I came home to my truest friends. As I grew up into a teenager, my mom became my best friend -- the one who took me shopping and to the movies, and that is where she imparted to me so much of her worldview.
• Clothing. My parents were traditional Pakistanis who came here in the 70s and had the culture of their childhood as their guide. They didn't force me to wear hijab, but my clothing had strict rules embedded in my thinking from a young age. Even at home, I always wore traditional shalwar kameez. I went shopping with my mom who did that deliberately so that she would be the one telling me what looked good and what didn't (as opposed to my friends),  and she always told me the honest truth, explaining that she couldn't let me make a fool of myself to spare my feelings at the moment. She also often told me that her mother used to tell her that "people look at models and wear whatever is trendy, but not everything suits everyone so don't be a part of the herd -- examine clothes to see if they meet your own style and suit you." All of this deeply embedded in me a sense of haya' (modesty). 
• Closed Doors. We were only allowed to close our bedroom doors for the few minutes it took us to change our clothes. "Privacy" is something that is really over-hyped in our times. Traditionally, people didn't have enough rooms in a house to be closing doors to their "own space". What are kids doing on their own that requires a closed door anyways? We were one unit. If one person were to close themselves off, the others would miss them.

Lesson Two: Rather than a long list of rules, teach children principles that will help guide their independent lives in the future and explain to them the wisdom for which you are giving them any given rule.