 As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, thank you dear sisters and brothers for being here as well as those who are on the live stream watching. Today is the first day of a three-week or three-part series called Quranic Parenting that I'll be presenting, inshallah. I'm really excited to do this finally with the MCC community. It's actually something that I did a couple of years back for another group, the Get Quranic app. And alhamdulillah, I found it a very beneficial class just to have the discussions with the parents, a lot of great Q&A, a lot of great conversations, so I'm always welcome and open to that. For those of you who are on the live stream, obviously it's going to be a bit of a challenge, but those who are in person, and we do have these, we will have these in person every week. You're more than welcome to come, and inshallah we can hopefully have a really great discussion here. So I do have slides and a presentation, so you can see the slides behind me. So I'll go ahead and jump into it, bismillah. So here's a bit about me for those who don't know me. I am, alhamdulillah, a mother. I have two sons, age 13 and 10 now. I've been teaching for a long time. I also offer classes, workshops, alhamdulillah, a variety of different topics. I do spiritual counseling on a per-need basis. I have a book, alhamdulillah. I also create content, but one of my favorite things to do is actually teach adults and children, so that's why this topic is something that I really enjoy, anything that has to do with parenting or involves the family, and I'm bringing these concepts of like emotional intelligence and other things that I will try to infuse into my presentation. So with that said, the first theme for this, I'm sorry, the first session, the theme is intentional parenting. And so I wanted to begin with this because of course as Muslims we always begin everything with the Bismillah, and we're taught that anything that does not have the name of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala is fruitless, there's no barakah in it, so we should always begin everything with the proper intention. And it's interesting that that is something that we are taught because think of why wouldn't you start something with Bismillah, the only scenario that you wouldn't is likely something you shouldn't be doing in the first place, so it makes a lot of sense that we should always ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala for blessing and guidance when we do anything, and unfortunately in some of the different things that we do in life, we forget this point, and then we wonder why things don't go well, why things don't go right, because we don't ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala for his blessing, and it's so essential to do that. So intentional parenting, let's look first at parenting today, because it is not quite what it was intended to be, right, in terms of just what we're seeing, some of the numbers are startling, and this data, there's probably even more updated data that we can pull from, but this is still something that we should know, just the fact that a lot of women are coming to parenthood later in their life, the trends that we see in our society and in some of our cultures even, to delay marriage as well as parenting until much later in life. There's of course in some cases that's necessity, some people have no choice, in other cases it is a choice, it is making the decision to either not marry for whatever reason, or have children for whatever reason, or to push it until much later in life. So it's just important to know what the trends are today. And here in terms of also data with how parenting is experienced once people do have children, so that's delaying parenthood, but now once they have children you see that there's a lot of struggles that people are feeling. So women, for example, all right, alhamdulillah, so the point being here that a lot of the attitudes around parenthood that we're seeing reflected in the larger society may have begun to influence us even if it's subconsciously, so we need to be aware of what's happening, right? And this is why, you know, again looking at how parenting has changed, we're now in a time where gender roles are completely being redefined as we know these conversations are happening all around us, right? Of course there's economics and the family goals or objectives have also changed from how they were in the past before people used to marry to preserve, you know, lineage, to there were other economic considerations that in the modern world are not as much of a concern. It's a very subjective, personal, you know, relationship between the two individuals as opposed to entire families or villages or tribes that you see in other traditions or other cultures. And of course we talked about the cultural shifts and attitudes towards certain things that we will not openly mention here, but you can read the slide, and also about monogamous relationships, you know, the fact that we have a lot of promiscuity in the society around us. All of this is, you know, definitely influencing, unfortunately, some of, you know, the way that people see marriage today. And then, you know, religious affiliation and commitment to values, conservative values was also a very important part of why people got married. They wanted to have life partners that they could, you know, mold and have a beautiful, you know, relationship with and grow their family to have continuity of their religion and their practice. So all of these things were more common in the past as opposed to now where people will even marry outside of their faith, right? So they're open to those types of things. As long as they connect well with the person, they're not really looking at how does that play out once you have children, you know, and grandchildren, you know, what is the family going to look like or what is the faith going to look like, they're not looking at those things. So the mindsets that we have as, you know, parents is really important. We have to make a decision, and this is what intentional parenting is, is do I want to have a worldly parenting mindset where all I think about is money and following what we call the American dream for those of us here in the US, you know, this idea that I want the house, I want the car, I want the, to be the soccer mom or I want to have, you know, these certain groups that I belong to and my children are in certain schools and everything is kind of scripted from a worldly perspective, right? Do I want that or do I want other worldly parenting philosophy or is that my mindset where I'm really thinking about parenting as a means for my other, for the other world, right? That this is part of the journey of this life as we know we're travelers in this life, right? And part of the journey is that I will have my own family, I'll have a partner that will help me to navigate this complicated world because the final destination is the Akhira, right? So the mindsets are totally different. The first is thinking entirely about how to benefit from this dunya, how to maximize the profitability or the, you know, whatever, you know, if it's wealth that they're looking at or lineage or whatever, but it's very centered around the world, whereas the other mindset is actually looking at the next life and their, all of their decisions thus are informed by that goal, right? I'm looking at my Akhira, therefore even in my partner selection, in everything that I do from that point forward, I am considering always, is it going to benefit me in the Akhira or is it going to harm me? Very different mindsets, right? And so, again, just to, you know, anybody want to take a guess? What do you think the cost is to parent one child today? Anybody? From, like, infancy to adulthood. Any numbers? Right? Well, we're in the bay in the San Francisco Bay Area, so that actually could be very accurate with gas prices going up and home mortgages. I just said a million, but the average cost is actually 233,000 to raise a child from birth to adulthood, and now you're looking at, that's one child, so imagine multi-sibling or multi-children households, how much the cost adds up, and of course, this is spread over time, it's not one lump sum, but imagine the stress that that can induce on a family, right? And this is why we know when you look at divorce, a lot of the reasons for divorce actually does come down to finances, right? The financial stress of maintaining a home wears down the couple, and a lot of times it does have to do with this, you know, all of the different, and if you come from very different philosophies or just attitudes about wealth and money, then it's going to even cause more tension, right? So just really important to know that, and then, you know, we shouldn't be surprised because look how we start parenting. This is what every young bride, when she's thinking of becoming a mother, or even before being a wife, this is what she's looking at, right? Which is the excitement around the baby. So we get very swept away with all of the, you know, just the celebration of it, which is of course, it's a beautiful thing, it's just to celebrate, but if you forget that you have to now raise a human being, right, it's not just baby showers, and birthday parties, and onesies, and cute photos for your pregnancy, and you know, it's not just that, you have to actually raise a human being and protect them from all of the craziness of this dunya, are you up for the task, and what preparation have you made for that, right? Because it requires preparation, and some of us are learning on the job how to be a parent, and this is, you know, I always say, because I've done a lot of parenting classes, and I've found, sometimes, masha'Allah, in attendance singles who are not married yet, and they're here, and I'm like, that, you are so impressive to me, that you are single, you're not married, but you're doing your homework, you are studying for the big exam, or the test, right, way ahead of time, as opposed to those of us who, you know, are in crunch time all the time, so we should be, as Muslims, preparing our youth for these types of very real experiences, marriage first, obviously, parenting, we should be having these conversations much earlier, but a lot of times, because we're thrown into these situations sometimes, or we get swept away, we don't have the conversations that we need to be having, and then the stress of it all just, you know, takes over, so here, this is another very important reminder of the intentionality that we have to have around parenting. Parenting is, again, about what? It is about tarbiyah, it is about raising your child to know who Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is, that is the most important objective of parenting, and that's why we are tasked, right, all of us, we have the responsibility of teaching our children, and preserving their fitrah, of making sure that they stay in that pure state for as long as possible, that is the task of every parent, right, so this requires to have, you know, everybody has to be on the same page, if a family is, I mean, a couple comes together and Allah wills that they have children, and they're not even having this conversation about how are we going to teach them their deen, and their values of their deen, but we're more worried about, you know, what school to put them in, what pre-school, because we want them to learn their ABCs. I had someone recently, and I honestly, well, Allah, I don't know if she was joking, it was kind of shocking, but she said that she had put her child in a STEM robotics, and I think they were two or three years old, okay, and you know, and I didn't, I don't know, I don't want to presume, and I don't want to make judgments, but I think we have to kind of think about what is the urgency of a child that young learning robotics, or learning STEM, or learning anything of the physical world, right, they'll learn naturally, children are natural learners, and they're going to learn by play mostly, that's the number, you know, young children, that's how they learn, but the fact that the parents are thinking of putting their kids in these types of programs ahead of time, and maybe not giving as much consideration to, you know, do they have, do they know their Aqidah, do they know who Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala is, do they know about, you know, the angels, and the prophets, all of the six articles of faith, the five pillars, have we given them any of these lessons yet, or are we just more worried about can they read, and then do they know how to do math, you know, and you see a lot of urgency around those topics, and this is what intentional parenting is about, is really about confronting what your lens is, what is your worldview, what are you thinking about, what is your concern, what are your priorities, and making sure that you understand you have a huge responsibility before Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and a manna, and again, are you clear about your intentions? So the three questions, key questions that every prospective parent, so this is even before we have children, so imagine there are going to be a lot more questions afterwards, but the three questions at any point of your parenting that you want to ask yourself is, why do I want to become a parent, right? For what reason? And if you already have your children, why, you know, do you want to have children? And I remember a conversation I had with Mashallah, a very knowledgeable brother many years ago, he kind of posed this argument that he thought all parents were very selfish, and I said, what do you mean? He said, I think a lot of parents today are very selfish. They make, they have children for the most selfish reasons, so I pushed back a little bit. I said, what do you mean? Like, you know, I said, well, what if someone wants, has a lot of love to give, and they just want to be a parent because they love, they want to love? He said, that's selfish because you want to receive love, right? So he went through all these different reasons of how if you really look into the intention, there's a lot of selfishness. He said, where do you find the parents who say, and these are his words, that I want to raise the next Salahuddin? He said, where's that parent? You know, that I want my child to be righteous and to do incredible things, to go out there and to, you know, be an example for the rest of humanity and to have the best character and to learn, and where's that intention, right? He said, that you'll hear lineage, you'll hear, you know, I love, you'll hear all these reasons, but at the end of the day, if it's not for the sake of Allah, it's a selfish reason, and that's really important to think about for a moment. Like, why do you want to become a parent? Is it because to please your parents, because you've got pressure from your in-laws and your parents, like, okay, it's time to have children, that's what you're supposed to do, right? So I just don't want to hear their complaints, because, you know, at a certain point when you're newlywed, that's always the question, right? You go anywhere, oh, so it's been a year now, it's been, in some cases, oh, it's been a month now, you know? Why aren't we hearing good news about a pregnancy? So there's pressures sometimes we feel, but that's not the reason to become a parent, right? The reason to become a parent is for the sake of Allah. So questioning that intention, and then again, how do I plan to prepare for parenthood? So now that you have your knee as straight, what's your plan? What are you doing? Who are you talking to? Have you met with anybody that can give you guidance? And some of the obvious, you know, things we mentioned, like taking classes in advance, but there's also, you know, things that we can do that are, like, look for parents that have children that you feel are doing something right, you know? We can all look within, I'm sure, our families or our communities, and we will find families that somehow there's something there, right? You see children who have really good, adab, right? I mean, I'm actually, Mashallah, impressed. Look, we have little beautiful ones here, and we don't hear a peep out of them. Mama, you're doing something right. Mashallah, mom and dad, if the dad is here too, very sweet children, because it's in their nature to want to play and speak, but somehow they've understood, right? So there's, but within our community, we'll find these examples of people who have really beautiful, at all stages, and so speaking to them, like, what formula did you use? How did you, how did you do this? Help me. I need, you know, guidance, right? To have a plan, and of course, as I mentioned, learning about the rights of parenting and just how to prepare is more, is essential, but also speaking to people who have the experience. And then when do I plan to get started? So these are the questions that someone who is interested, obviously, in becoming a parent should really be asking themselves, that's what intentional parenting is, right? And then what parenting is and what it isn't. So again, just having a clear understanding in summary that it is in a manna, it's a trust from Allah. Our children, as much as we love them, some of them look identical to us. How many of us have baby pictures of ourselves and our children? And we're like, oh, wow, we look so similar. We're carbon, you know, copies of each other. We're not, though, they are independent, you know, creations. Allah made them separately and they are actually souls. And this is an interesting perspective. All the souls were created at the same time, right? In the primordial realm that we were gathered. So our children's souls and our souls are the same. It's our bodies that differ. So you have to remember that, that they belong to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. They are an manna, right? For us as a trust to preserve and protect, but they do not belong to us. And I think that's really hard to accept because we're very territorial over our belongings and our children feel very much like they belong to us. And of course they are entrusted to us. But at the end of the day, if we don't see that they are the property of Allah, just as we are the property of Allah, just as all of us are the property of Allah, then it can affect our way of treating them, right? Because if you treat, you know, something like it's yours and only yours, you may not take care of it very well. Like right here, I have my phone here, right? And you can see it's pretty used this case, right? It's old, but maybe I'm not as careful with this as if, here are my sister-in-laws here, if she handed me her phone and said, can you watch this for me? Which phone do you think I'm gonna take care of much more, right? I'm gonna be very careful not to scratch, not to drop, not to do anything. But this phone I might drop, but it's okay, you know, it's mine. So when you realize that your child is Allah's, you're not gonna treat it like I can do with it or him or her whatever I want. No, you cannot. Because you understand they're not yours, right? Of course, parenting is itself a son of the Prophet, so I said I've had children. It's a gift and it's also a test of our faith. We have to keep that part of it real too. We will be tested through our children, we will be tested through our loved ones, we will be tested with many people that we may come across or that are in our families or that we know. And that's just a reality of dunya, right? So that's what parenting is. What it isn't is what I mentioned earlier, that there's some marital right of passage. Like, oh now that you've been, now that you're married, it's time to have children. If you again look at it like that, your intentions are off. It's also not something that we do for fun, right? Because again we get swept away with just the excitement of it. It's also not a way to exploit oneself or one's family and or to parade one's, you know, children or treat them like trophies, clones, minions. So if you see your children like little servants, yeah go do this for me, go do that for me. And that's all your relationship is with Allah. You're in trouble. They are not your servants. They can serve you. And part of your job is to teach them khidmah service of humanity because this was again, it's prophetic quality, it's a beautiful virtue and it's humbling so that they are prepared in their spiritual relationship with Allah to see themselves as servants of Allah, right? So it's all a gradual process. Serve your parents, serve elders, serve, you know, people of need, whatever that, you know, of coming here for example, they have a food pantry, serve people who are in need, serve, be in the service of people. And that is a very spiritual edifying process, right? So that's how we can teach our children to serve, but not because I said so because I'm your mom and dad and you better do as I say. That attitude is very different, right? One is tyrannical, right? Which is a, and it can be abusive because what happens when the child says I don't want to, right? If you tell the child, a child to do something and you feel entitled to their service and they say I don't want to, oftentimes the tyrant, the inner tyrant comes out and we start threatening, we start really being, we can be very harsh. This is all completely, you know, I mean it's wrong on every level, but where does it come from? It comes from the attitude, the wrong lens, right? Because you're looking at your children like they are yours to do whatever you want. So it's very important that we understand what it is and what it isn't in Islam. Now this is also an important part of parenting, is that at a certain point all of us, all of us should actually renew our, our relationship with our creator first and foremost. I mean we do that every day, right? In terms of our, you know, Shahada, we're always renewing our faith with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'a during the prayer throughout the day, but also when it comes to these types of relationships that we have, we should frequently or try to reassess or revisit, I should say, our intentions all the time around many things, but especially when it comes to our children. So what is a parental vow, right? A vow is something that you make, right? It's something that you are very clear about. It's a very transparent, intentional statement expressed or felt within you. You can express it verbally. That you're putting forth to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'a, kind of what I mentioned with that, what that brother had stated, like the parent who really wants great things for their children and they openly make that dua, make that intention, make it a very, you know, clear goal that they want, right? And so now when we talk about Quranic parenting, I wanted to bring some examples of this exact type of a scenario. So one of my favorite stories is the story of Hannah Fakud, who is the mother of Maryam A.S., right? Now, before she had Maryam A.S., she really wanted children, but she struggled with infertility. And so she saw a mother bird feeding its chick and in the moment of witnessing this beautiful, you know, just in nature, she's watching this, she felt so compelled to make this very beautiful dua to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'a to please give her a child. And she made a really earnest, sincere dua that she will pledge, right? Whatever Allah gives her for his sake, right? And so here's this verse, my Lord, indeed I have pledged to you what is in my womb consecrated for your service, so accept this from me. Indeed, you are hearing the knowing. So after she made the dua initially and she found she was pregnant, this is the the vow that she made because she made the dua for bearing a child. He accepted that dua and now she took her vow and she said, I want to, you know, offer you this, you know, this what's in my womb for your service. And then when she, so Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'a again the story, if you read the story of Maryam A.S., when she was born, she was born as a female and at that time Hannah was thinking because when you offer your child for the service of Allah at that time, it was boys, right? That's what she was thinking, I'm gonna have a son and then, you know, I'll, you know, offer it to the, you know, to Allah. But Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'a Allah willed for her to have a daughter and she was of course startled by that but Allah's Allah reassured her and of course we know the story of Maryam A.S. She's one of the four perfect women and who she became and her incredibly harrowing experience. But who was she? She was dedicated to the, you know, to the worship of Allah. She had her own chambers, right? Where she worshiped Allah all by herself and she actually had miracles happen to her. One of the miracles that she had is because she was known to be so devoted in her practice, she rarely left her chamber that she she would have fruits that were out of season come to her and Prophet Zakaria, you know, he was left in charge of her and he would come in and ask her, where did you get this plate of fruits? And she said from Allah, they were out of season. So it's like if they were winter fruits at the time of summer, summer fruits at the time of winter and they were gifts that Allah will bring to her even though she never left the chamber to go get them. So this is who she was and of course there's so much to learn about her. But the point is when you make a vow as a parent and you fulfill that vow, right? Like if you want, for example, how many of us have looked at our children and said, Ya Allah, I want to raise a hafid of Qur'an. Like I want my children to all be hafid. I want them all to have the crown of the hafid, you know, which is one of the great honors of all the people who memorize the Book of Allah is on the Day of Judgment, Allah will raise them right with crowns so they'll be known. But how many of us think of that when before we even have children? Or I want my child to be a great, you know, da'i or shaykh or qadi or qadi or whatever. But like how many of us have those types of real goals as opposed to oftentimes I want them to be what? A doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, make a lot of money, wealth, and we think of the dunya. So a vow in this context is obviously devotion to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know, it's something where you really want your child to be something great in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then, you know, this other beautiful da'a, I see, so, you know, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protected, Maria Maria Salam from what? And all of her descendants from from shaytan. So this is a special gift that she was given, right? And that's part of the the vow that her mother made that she was protected in that way as well. So we have the parental vow, right, which we mentioned. And now we have the other part of being intentional as a parent. So that's the starting point is we have that proper intention with the vow. Now we have to remember the importance of prayer. Like continuous da'a for our children is such an important aspect of parenting. It's not enough to just, you know, I know when they're babies or when they're small, we worry about their safety, right? We worry about some harm coming to them. We're very protective. You'll see people hanging, you know, little, little, what do they call them, Taoise, right? On their children. They'll do all these things. I know people who would put like their boy, like infants in, in, in, you know, girl clothes because they were so cute and everybody always thought it was a girl anyway. So they wanted to protect the boy from Ain and Nazir. So they would just dress it as a girl if they were going in public or put like, you know, black, I know someone who told me that that's what their mother did. They would put like black dots with their eyeliner all over the face to kind of make the child not look as cute. So naturally, we thought we think of protection for our children when they're small. But as they grow into adolescence and teen years, you feel there's this this part of the relationship seems to change. You know, parents don't really think about this as much because it's almost like you've handed off. I taught them how to pray. So now, you know, they can do it on their own. And yes, we may in our general, all our protect my family say that. But doing protective doors for your children is really important. So at nighttime, for example, when they're asleep, it's really important to continue that tradition, you know, that you as their parent, their guardian, the one that is responsible for their protection, that that's one of your roles as a parent as I'm going to make active dog seeking protection every single night, because we just don't know what, you know, where the harms come from this world is designed with you know, unpredictability, there's just a lot of unpredictability. And so if you are taking your relationship with your children, you know, as we're describing it as this great trust and also that you're responsible for protecting them, then you'll find the means to constantly seek out ways to protect them. So yes, making those laws at night, but also having a culture in the household, where you are doing protective doors together. So we had earlier a vicar here. Alhamdulillah. And I don't know how many of you are familiar with a word, right? So this is a copy of Imam al-Haddad's ar-Ratib al-Shahar, which is one, it's just a formula of protective doors from the Sunnah Quran and Sunnah that Imam al-Haddad put together for us to practice as, you know, Muslims to seek protection. So there are ar-Rat, which is these types of formula prayers, specifically for protection from harm that all families should be doing, right? We should all be doing them because there's a lot of, again, they're coming from every direction, right? And there's a lot of wolves and sheep's clothing in this day and age, a lot of people who seem to, you know, be friendly and want, you know, to, you know, that they're very nice and they have, you know, a lot of offerings for young children. But their agenda is to destroy children. They're, they want to defile children. And Allah will make them obvious, but we have to not be so naive to think that, you know, everybody is just so nice. No, there are a lot of people in different areas who don't want the best for our children. They want, you know, to basically promote their own agendas through our children. And so we have to really protect our children. And the best way to do that, of course, is to teach them and to help them navigate these different things, but also to make dua, right? So, sorry, I skipped a slide here. So, so making dua is very essential. And that's what this word or a practice like a word will do is it'll give you as your family something that just makes you feel like you're creating this protective shield around your family before you start your day, right? Before you go out to school, go out to work, before you leave the house. If you have young teenagers who are beginning to drive, they should know the da'as for leaving the house, for getting in the car. And you should train them as young children to always practice saying your protective da'as so that by the time they're in, you know, high school or college, when you have to send them away to live sometimes in another state, that you've given them all the means, right? To protect themselves, inshallah. And you're not staying up at night, because I speak to a lot of parents who have so much anxiety. They're literally on, they're surging with anxiety hormones throughout their body, because all they think about is the fear, these fear of like this happening to my child, that happening to my child. And so how can we protect them when they're away from us? We can teach them how to protect themselves and give them a direct relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, right? So part of our job as parents when they're young is to give them habits, because habits are so good to form when they're younger. And that's where, you know, I mentioned this the other day with some friends, but like something as simple as, you know, entertainment for our children, right? A lot of us are, we have the Disney Plus, the Netflix accounts, maybe even songs and music that our children really like to listen to a lot of offerings, right? When it comes to that kind of stuff. And we habituate our kids to like those things. And then, of course, we have devices and iPads and constant games. The problem with creating habits like that is they they are, they're first of all designed to be addictive, right? So all of those things are they get into the brain and the child doesn't know how to tell the difference. They just keep wanting to do it. And they don't have some, they don't have the ability to stop themselves. So you're forming, even though it's giving you a break sometimes. And I know we all had to rely on these at a certain point. But at the end of the day, if you continue to do those habits all throughout their childhood adolescence, then don't be surprised when their teenagers and you they get their phone for the first time. And all they want to do on this is entertain themselves, right? Because that's all they associated with it. Like I have my phone now, just like I had my iPad when I was younger. So I'm going to get apps and games and and watch YouTube and TikTok and social media and just spend all my day on listening to music and consuming harmful material because I was habituated to that in a different way from a young childhood, right? So we need to do better and become more creative about the type of media that we expose our children to, right? And so Quran becomes part of the offerings that we should start with our younger children. They should be listening to Quran as as a beautiful, you know, event of their day, not as a subject that they have to learn and strict and it's you better learn it and memorize it. If you're doing that to your children, don't expect them to have a very good relationship with Allah. You know, don't expect them to have like they'll ever want to go to the masjid and learn where they ever want to listen to the Quran. If it becomes this harsh thing that you use to control their behavior because you want them to memorize and you're just worried about again having maybe your sister-in-law's child did their, I mean, when the child was seven and now it's a competition. Don't do that. Your children just they're yours and you and you have to really not worry about competition with these things. It's very toxic and this is all shaitan. So don't do things like that because I've seen it as a someone who used to teach Quran to young children. I've found it very troubling the attitude that a lot of parents had with their children's progress. It was very much about how much are they memorizing and how like it's numbers to them. And it wasn't about planting a seed of real love and connection with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala's book. So you have to change your attitude about all of these things, but specifically with the book of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala because if you can teach them to have a really strong relationship with the book of Allah and enjoy it, then you can also teach them all of those laws and they start to again have a bond where you are not really in the picture anymore directly with them. And that's the goal, right? In the beginning we're holding, we're hand-holding until we get them to a place where we can let them go on their own because that's what they're going to do anyway. They're going to have to traverse the dunya alone. We're not always going to be around. And so if we don't teach them how to do that, but with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala to protect them and always be with them and that they know that they go to Allah, right? When they're having anxiety, oh there's a dua for that. Oh I'm sad, I can read you know this particular surah because this reciter from my childhood I remembered every time I felt sad I had this beautiful playlist that my mom put together for me, my dad put together for me, and as soon as I heard that reciter, right, I felt inspired. And if you don't know I should mention it here just yesterday. There was an app that was released by a very close friend of mine. She's also a teacher here in the Bay Area. Her name is Ustada Mariam Amira Brahimi. Please make doff for her. She put together an app on iOS and on Android Google called Qa-R-I-A-H. This is an incredible app. Why? Because it's the first app of its kind to feature all female reciters from around the world. So moms with little girls you have to teach, show your little girls the power of the the female reciter because in the West we don't have, we don't really have these, this very, it's not very common here, but if you go to other parts of the world there are female hufadh, female, you know, Qadiyas that are the win championships. They're in competitions and they, if you hear them, their voices are incredible, powerful, they, they, so they're really very inspiring, but we should create that content for our children, right? So that they know that from a young age I don't need to go and turn on Netflix when I'm bored or Disney Plus because I'm bored, no. I can do something that is beneficial to me and this is where creative parenting you know comes into play too, like coming up with ideas to teach your children not to rely on those mediums you know, and I, you know, I'm speaking as someone who, you know, I teach about social media literacy because I did the research a long time ago and I saw how harmful it was, so for my own kids I had very strict rules about this, they were, it was rigid and it works if you, if you can commit to it, but you have to do it, which is no matter what, this is the limit, if it's 30 minutes a day, one hour a day, and it's only this medium or only this content, you are the parent, you are the rule maker, they are subject to what your rules are, but if you give in and you cave because you're tired and you think, oh it's okay, you're gonna create habits that will spiral and then they become very difficult to maintain because the child knows now, right, that you give it to them once, so if I whine and I kick and I scream and I make a fuss, they might give it to me again and then it's over, right, so you have to draw a line and if you're fixed and say this is it, that's it, no more and then give them alternatives, of course, you know, like this is something else we can do, you will see that effective parenting come through for you because you're breaking these habits that a lot of our kids now are, they can't break from, they're addicted to these mediums and so it's just something to consider, but the reason I brought all that up, because the doa of the parent is so important but we need to also teach our children to make doa for themselves and so here are some beautiful verses from you know the Qur'an where Prophet Zakaria is teaching us how again to make these doa's, right, my Lord grant me from yourself a good offspring, indeed you are the hearer of supplication, so that's before you have children really seeking again the best of offspring and indeed I fear the successors after me and my wife has been barren, so give me from yourself an heir, so again relying you know on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and really looking at your, you know, that you are constantly you know in need of him, it's so important that we realize that because we we kind of sometimes think that these things are automatic, oh I'm just gonna try to have a child and I have it, but it's all from Allah and if you make your intention connected to his pleasure then inshallah he'll give you through that child, right, and so some but all of these you know verses are to remind us to make intentional doa's and continue to make doa for our children, right, who will inherit me and inherit from the family of Jacob and make him my Lord pleasing to you so important that we constantly ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make our children pleasing to him, not pleasing to us, not pleasing to our in-laws and our parents and the family and the community, that's where the trophy child comes, but that they truly are pleasing to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right, that Allah loves them because they're good children, they have good akhlaq, good tarbiyyah, and they and of course all children are pure and beautiful, but that they continue that, right, even into adulthood and that's the power of the doa of the parent, and then another really important aspect of intentional parenting is self-reflection, right, the success that successful parents understand the importance of having high expectations, working hard for them, but also knowing that outcomes are not up to them, so we should always have high expectations with our children, that's very good to have high himmah, right, so always want success from them, always put them on the path of success and work towards those goals, it shouldn't just be like lip service, but then ultimately you have to surrender to whatever Allah decrees because we cannot predict the future and we cannot script our lives, if we all could, life would be very different, we would be in jannah, right, if we could all write a life plan and then have it all unfold, what would be the difference, you know, between that this dunya and jannah, because jannah would be, oh, it's a wish list, isn't it, like when you think of jannah it's your list of all the things you want, so this dunya is, we don't have that type of control, and so it's really important to remember that outcomes are by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right, and here are some relevant verses for us to think about that, so again asking for virtue or really having high expectations, holding ourselves to account, but then ultimately surrendering to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's decrees, so in chapter 25 verse 74, and those who say our Lord grant us from among our wives in offspring comfort to our eyes and make us an example for the righteous, so this is again really important to come back to high, you know, intentions, high, you know, virtues and goals in terms of what you want for your children, to make us an example for the righteous, and then chapter 46 verse 15, and we have enjoined upon man to his parents good treatment, right, his mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning period is 30 months, and then you go down further, my Lord enable me to be grateful for your favor, which you have bestowed upon me and upon my parents, this is of course the dua for of the child for the parents, indeed I have repented to you, so recognizing your own shortcomings, being very, you know, holding yourself to account is so important as a parent, you try your best, you want to be grateful, but you're also going to make mistakes, and that's why toba is so important, and then the final verse here, so in Allah let the believers put their trust, surrendering to the will of Allah is so essential, because there's going to be things that we just don't expect, I've had, we just had earlier a sister here with us who mentioned the loss of a child, which of course is the most devastating of all tribulations that a person can experience, but that is a reality that a lot of people deal with, every where and every day, this happens, and so people's faith are put to the test in this way, and that's the design of the dunya, but you have to just know that there's wisdoms that we will not understand, and there's answers to questions that we will not receive in this dunya, but the believer has such a strong yakinah and conviction in their Lord that they don't question beyond, you know, the fact that Allah decreed it is enough, but having that attitude before, you know, problems or tribulations arise will help you to cope when they do, so when you are prepared, that's why we remember death, that's why we remember to have perspective about, you know, the temporality of this life, is because if you're thinking on those terms regularly, then when life hits you with something hard, your heart is much more prepared, as opposed to those who are lost in the dream, right, of this world, because this is like a dream state, for those who are not awake, like really awake, the dunya is a dream state, because it's full of illusion, full of false promises, false hopes, right, there are a lot of people who just invest their entire, you know, existence into chasing the dunya, but then subhanAllah, Allah can take it away like that, right, and so that's where we have to remember that chasing the dunya and, you know, being caught up in anything that takes us from Allah, subhanAllah, is a major delusion that so many of us can find ourselves in, and the best way to break out of that is to remember the seriousness, the gravity of existence, of life, of death, of all of these things, and at the end of the day it's all temporal and we just have to put our trust in Allah, right, so the summary for today's theme is that we have to have a single mindset, we can't be of two minds when we come to parenting, I can't be chasing the dunya and want the other life, I have to make a decision, which one's more priority, if you live for the akhirah, then the beautiful thing about the obvious answer here, which is living for the other life, is that when you choose Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and choose the other life, Allah will facilitate for you this dunya, right, He'll make things easier for you, but if you choose the dunya and start to pursue all of those worldly things, then you will actually have a lot of hardship, it's because you're not making the right decision, and so it's kind of like you're working against yourself when you pick the dunya, even though it feels like you're working for yourself, right, you're worried about money, and you're worried about status and power, and you know all these things that people throw themselves into, you actually end up harming yourself, even though it feels like you're working towards a goal, because this world is temporary, it's going to be over, but the next world is everlasting, so obvious choice there, and then to purify and renew your intentions, really important at every stage of your parenting, why are you a parent, what am I doing, why am I doing this, and how do I see my children, are they just property of mine, I just see them as my property, and I can say and do whatever I like, or do I genuinely believe that they are the property of Allah swt, and I have them for a temporary time, and I don't even know how long I have them for, and I better make sure I take care of this property and give it back better than how it was given to me, right, that's the challenge, giving it, you know, returning to Allah swt, his property in the best state, right, establishing your vows, what are your vows as a parent, right, really important that we, that we have vows, like what do you want to, why do you want to be a parent, and what do you hope to have your children, you know, become, or how do you see them in the future, what is your dream or goal for them, right, and then make sure you're making laws regularly, it has to be every single day, I can't imagine that a parent would go to sleep at night without making a true, you know, da'a for their children, we should really think about that, like if I am spending my nights watching my favorite shows and falling asleep at the tv, and I don't even think about this, and don't, you know, I mean, this is why we're kind of in the state that we're in, is we've abandoned these very clear obvious practices of our deen that we're always taught to constantly make da'a, ask Allah for guidance, you're worried about your children, like I have parents all the time who come to me and worried, I'm so worried about my kids, is there iman, you know, they go to this school, they go to that school, and their friends are like this, I don't know if their, you know, their faith is weak, their faith is this, and then when you ask them, so do you, you know, how often do you get up for tahajjud, oh, you know, it's so hard, I'm so tired, get up, get up, make it a priority, if you're going through a trial with your children, wake up, in that sacred time that we know is, you know, dua is mustajab, Allah is seeking out who's, who's got prayers so that I can answer them, and you're gonna, you know, pick up the phone and call people and complain about your children, but you don't go to the one who can actually change their state, so we have to be better and realize we have means, Allah has given us the means to find solutions, but we're looking always in the world, you know, for means, picking up the guidance counselor, this sheikh, this person, what about Allah, he's the one who can flip your child's heart, you gotta go to him first, and then, yes, you can figure out other people, but if you're not doing that part, there's a problem, right, so the parental prayer, and the weight of the prayer of the parent, we have to know it, and remember to hold yourself accountable, if you hold up yourself a mirror every day, which is what the process of muhassabah is, right, muhassabah is taking yourself into account, so every day, before you go to sleep, the best part really, I mean you could do it even in bed, when you're laying there before you're dreaming, is to just think about what did I do today that was a low point for me as a parent, did I yell at my child, was I disrespectful, did I teach them to lie, sometimes we teach our children very bad habits, because we're doing them and they're modeling us, and if you did that, it's okay, make a staghfir, ask Allah, forgive me, I need to do better, but renew your intentions, if you're not even doing that accountability, then you're not aware of yourself, and the cycles repeat, habits get formed, your children learn from you, and then you find yourself in crisis mode, so self-accountability is essential, every day, and also look at the high moments, yalla, we had a really beautiful discussion today, or my child got up and prayed, for example, without even me asking them to, they did it on their own, yalla please protect that for them, yalla please make them always be the type that pray on their own, I don't have to hound them, did you pray, did you pray, did you pray, why are we doing that, right, we have to figure out why don't they want to pray for themselves, instead of just being that nagging voice that bothers them, and then they feel like I don't want to ever pray as soon as I leave this house, don't use, you know they say like insanity is when you use the same situation over and over again, thinking it's going to have a different result, so you have to know as a parent that at a certain point if something isn't working for your child, you have to have a different strategy, and that's why it's important to know your children, right, and really pay attention to their temperaments, you can have three, four, five children in one household, all completely different personality types, but if you have a one-size-fits-all model parenting, you're not going to be very effective, but if you see your children, right, like our teachers talked about subhanallah, something called you know the nada, the eye of the parent, it's a very powerful potent look that the mother especially has, and I'm speaking mostly to the sisters here, but you know the mother has a lot of power in the way that we validate our children, right, so if we give our children that I, that I see you, I value you, I respect you, I love you, you matter, right, I take your opinion into consideration, I'm not just talking down to you because I think you're just this annoying child that I have to be quiet all the time, if you disrespect your children that way, don't be surprised when you're 60, 70 years old and you're in need of their care and they're talking down to you the same way, it's going to come back, right, but if you honor your children and you respect them, you listen to them, yes, you know, my kids know when I'm working, if they come in, it's a rule, you know, I have to, if I'm on the phone I have to put it away, if they will ask for a hug no matter what I'm doing, all right, it's hug time, I can't, that's it, and they will, they'll guilt me and I told them, do that, if I am ever so engrossed in my phone or work that I can't stop to hug my child, you should tell me so that I feel, oh, I'm sorry, but they do it, you know, and now, Alhamdulillah, we have that established relationship where they know that is a need for them, they'll come in and I'm sure you have the little ones here, you know, they need affection, but if we're too busy cooking, if we're too busy on the phone, if we're too busy doing our own stuff and we shoo them away and dismiss them, what we're telling them is I don't, you're not as important to me as all this stuff, and yes, there's, you know, balance, I'm not saying you have to completely sit there all day and stare at their face, you know, but make sure your children never question that they're not important to you, if they feel they, you let them walk away from you feeling that someone else or something else is important above them when they're young, it's really gonna affect their confidence, right, and their, their, their overall, there's a lot of things that can happen with that because you see all these kids who have deep insecurities and it comes from the home environment a lot of times because they didn't get the parental love and affection that they needed, so when they're young it's so essential that we see our children and then watch what happens because when they feel seen as their young adolescents and then they go into adulthood, you will feel seen as well, they'll speak to you with respect, they'll listen to you, they'll come to you when they have problems because you've created an environment of trust, of love, but it starts with us, right, so there's all these things that we have to do as parents to remind ourselves of these things but holding ourselves accountable is the way to get there, if you don't hold yourself accountable then you just think you're doing the best job and it's good enough and that's, it's never good enough, we always want to be better, work hard and then of course like letting go of outcomes, alhamdulillah, so this was the summary of the theme for today, if there are any questions I'm happy to stick around for a little bit longer, any questions? Oh yeah, there's a mic, inshallah, alhamdulillah, that's good, oh yucky, well thank you, jizaki lachana for coming, mashallah, I really, you know, we kind of, because it's the first time we're opening up post-covid, we didn't know what to expect but I said let's try, there might be people who want to come and mashallah, your children are so beautiful, may Allah protect and preserve all of them, I don't think I've ever attended a session with this many children and not had a peep out of them, that is like amazing, mashallah, mashallah, alhamdulillah, and not to say that I would have a problem with that but it's just there's something clearly that they, that you're doing right, continue, alhamdulillah, yes, oh yes, absolutely, so this weird that I mentioned, if you do a search right now, I'll give you the link, okay, if you have your phone out, let me actually see if I can display it here, maybe I can do that because for those who are here, let me see, yes, it's muwassala.org, so this is, and they have, sorry you know what, let me do the actual pdf search, pdf, weird, so there's two different weird, oh sorry, of course it's going to do this, so one second, so the weird that I would recommend, it's not just me, it's actually our teachers, is called al-wirda latif, which is the second one, this one is for group recitation, but the one that, that we read in the morning, for example, my family, we read this every day, we have this in the morning playing, there's a YouTube video of this, that you can find, there's actually a lot of YouTube videos of recitations of this, this is a free pdf, so you can print it at home, if you go to this website, which is muwassala, m-u-w-a-s-a-l-a, but the easiest thing to do is just do al-wirda latif, take a screenshot of it, or a picture of it, and do a pdf search of that, just do pdf, the title, it'll come up, it's the first link, and then go to YouTube and also search al-wirda latif, and you'll hear the 18 minute one is the, is the proper duration, some of them are shorter, like 11, do 18 minutes, very easy, when you're cooking breakfast, you're getting the kids ready, if they go to school, have it playing, if you have a bluetooth speaker or just on, just play it, and it's inshallah, after time, you'll find that they've memorized it, because if they're younger, they'll memorize, it's a really beautiful thing that happens with the brain, is you could just passively memorize, so inshallah, but do this every single day for yourself, your family, may Allah protect us all, protect our homes, inshallah, but wa yakee, alhamdulillah, any other questions, alhamdulillah, wa yakee, thank you, barak alafiqum for attending wa shala, alhamdulillah, you know it's really important that we have, you know, these, I mean, we come back to our community and have these types of gatherings together, because we're all in the same boat, you know, whether our children are older or younger, we all need each other, we need these reminders, so I'm really grateful to MCC, please make dua for everyone at MCC for facilitating, and all of the, all of you for being here, thank you, alhamdulillah, we'll see you inshallah next week's all closed out in dua, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim wal-asr Inna l-insana la fi khusr, Inna l-ladina amanu wa amilu s-salihati wa tawasu bil-haqi wa tawasu bil-sabr, Subhanak Allahum wa bi-hamdaka wa bi-hamdaka as-shadu an la ilaha ila anta nas-taqfiruka wa natubu ilayk, Allahumma salli wa sallam wa baraka ala Sayyidina wa Maulana wa Habibina Muhammad, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kathira, Subhanu rabbika Rabbil a'izati yama yusifun wa salamuna al-mursaleen, wal-hamdulillahi Rabbil al-alameen, al-hamdulillahi. Jazakum Allahu khayr and again everyone, thank you so much, inshallah. We'll see you next week. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.