 Hey, song like everyone hear me. I was invited here to be on the parents panel. So I'll talk a little bit about parenting. It's nice to see these kids here. I know many of you. Amen song like them. How you doing? I remember being your age and that's where I'll start. I remember thinking about Christmas and how exciting it was because I didn't have a lot of Muslim family around me. I spent 25 years in corporate America and one thing I noticed is that every the week of Thanksgiving things kind of change. Nobody can put their finger on it but in the office environment things kind of change. All these stressed out people just kind of chill out and then they start thinking about family. They don't think about their bonuses. They're worried about their bonuses because they have to spend money. That comes later in the year after Christmas and I watched them because I didn't really feel a lot of things about Ramadan. I didn't have any feelings in my heart. I was kind of dead. My teachers would talk about looking forward to Ramadan and I would be like why is my heart not connected? But I feel people around me feel for Christmas so I felt like I'm neither here nor there. I don't belong here. I don't belong there. I don't feel it for Christmas but I can observe them like I can observe a bunch of you know like a society like an anthropologist kind of observing them. And one thing I realized what they do is they number one they slow down. They really slow down. You know the thing that has to be like really urgently done it doesn't get done. It's okay. It's all right. They're kind of chill. It's almost like your parent is like man I know he's going to get mad at me but wow he's kind of chill today. I got away with one you know. The boss is kind of like that. Number two they kind of breathe. They take a long-term look. They don't they're not going to hire an interview and do those things in December. It's like no December's not for that. We're going to worry about that at the end of the year. They kind of chill out. What else do they do? They they listen more. They listen to each other. Instead of just work it's about family. Hey how are your kids doing? Where are you going on vacation? Where are you going to spend Christmas? They kind of listen because they're they're interested in something else right. All of a sudden they're interested in something else. And then what they do is they they sort of enjoy each other. They're really listening you know. It's not like hey Bob how are your kids more on the elevator you know. You're half-sentenced. Hey my kids uh oh okay bye see you. He gets off the elevator and leaves you know. They actually enjoy each other's words. They enjoy each other's companies. And that thing is they they feel a sense of love. They feel a sense of love for humanity. And because I'm the person that's in the office and I see them every day you know they they kind of I feel like they have a little more love for me. It's kind of interesting right. So if you're not connected to their society you can definitely feel a change. And so what I did was wonder why that change didn't happen in my heart. I remember when I was 12 years old I was Amon's AHA 12, 11, 13, 12. Star Wars came out. That was cool right. I didn't know how good Star Wars would be but then I remember when this second one came out the number five right they call it number five now uh Empire Strikes Back. Man I was excited but what's wrong with me? I don't look forward to Ramadan like that. What's wrong with me? You know I wondered I wondered because people didn't talk to me about what's the sister have I said. People didn't talk to me about the why. They talked to me about do this do that but not the why. So leaving Islam becomes a huge door just becomes a huge door and it's sad because you have to do it though about for your days. So it's hard being a parent now but I look back to myself it was always hard. 12 was hard, 15 was hard, 17 was hard. So my advice to parents is don't fall asleep on how hard it is to be a kid when you come home because you're Hamdullah you're here you're a Muslim. If you're listening to this live stream you're a Muslim Hamdullah but are you sure your kids are going to be a Muslim? Are you sure they're going to enjoy Ramadan? Are you sure they're going to care? I remember thinking I'm more excited about the kickoff to the football season than I am about Ramadan. I'm not happy to say that but it actually happened to me a lot. I can't remember the score of the first game it's just silly it's dumb but I'm looking forward so forward to that moment of the year why am I not looking forward to Ramadan because I didn't know the why. I didn't know the why so there's two things you need to know you need to know the why so always ask why and make your parents sit down chill out relax breathe listen let's help each other out and the other thing you need to know is you need to know the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam because when you look at how difficult his life was you kind of feel ashamed for complaining it's like it's not that bad I mean mashallah he he suffered through everything and Allah swt loved him as the best of creation why so that if you can look at his life you can bear man my favorite story of as being a parent just just my favorite story of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is a very simple story it's the fact that he sat down with a child who lost his bird like he was running an umma he had so much responsibility war enemies wanafya people destroying the religion but he cared about the kid who had a bird who lost his bird he cared about that little heart and if he cared about that little heart on the street of medina we should care about the hearts of our children it doesn't matter what your boss did come home leave that mailbox closed I used to have a friend he would tell me that he would hate it when his dad would grab the mail from the mailbox and come in the door because he saw the bills he got stressed out and he'd come in angry you take it out on somebody that's tyrannical like what did those children do to deserve your anger you're taking out the anger of the whole day onto the kids there's they're happy to see you they're supposed to be happy to see you I know someone who told me that when the garage door opens they just go oh man dad's home dad's home just brutal right but they love we we parents love our children I can honestly tell you that father loved his children I know I know who those children were and I know that father I went to college with him he loved his children but he didn't stop and think and so hum the law we have the ability to stop and think we have the ability to look at Ramadan and say you know what tonight tonight we can be 10% better but by the time Ramadan starts we can be 20% better just let's start to breathe let's start to chill out let's start to maybe maybe the kids could not fight throw paint on each other have a food fight and dad comes home that would help that would help and maybe the dad not check the the bills when he comes home that would help right we can all help each other out because it's hard being a parent it's hard being a kid so hum the law you know I raised my children I have three boys some of you know them Mashallah and my goal was it's a simple goal don't let them get lost like I did don't do what I did make sure you're looking at that little lamp in their heart and make sure that you're kindling it you're working it and I need to ask them you know if I'm taking you over here on Friday night you want to be here I got to find I can't just force you over here you're not going to like it so I try to take them places they they they liked tried to do things they liked so what can we do for Ramadan we can enjoy our community we can have a moonsighting festival we can go out there and if you don't have community you don't know there's two places in the Bay Area maybe three now but Lawrence Livermore Labs there's an entire bunch of families that come from moonsighting so in the community come out there take treats give children a great great night great beginning to Ramadan um bake cookies for your neighbours tell them that this is a Ramadan treat for you and see you know Mashallah just spread the baraka bake with them decorate I know a family that had a shukr jar so every night before Ramadan they would like really write little gratitude slips inshallah then they would take those slips they would make them into a chain they would decorate them out the door you go to the house you're like what does that change like all the shukr that our family has before Ramadan starts it's kind of like aiming your gun you want to aim your gun before you shoot it just kind of line it up this way line it up this way or it's going to miss so alhamdulillah there's a lot of things we can talk about I'm so proud of you guys to be here I mean God knows where I was on a Friday night you know probably out with my skateboard when I was 12 waiting for Star Wars to come um and uh mashallah there's uh so by advice with parents um before you have parents before you have children or even after you have children or even tonight if you haven't done it you got to get on the same page you've got to get on the same page and there's one very very important reason for that is because the mother is the teacher she's the nurture but the father is the validator right if you type into a file and you work all day and you type something and you don't save it you just close it it's gone so the mother does all the typing she nurtures the children and the father comes and says close boom gone religion's gone but if the father says save everything gets saved so the children look to the mother for learning they look to the father for validation the valid the father can just defeat everything if he's not on the same page so get on the same page um teach with love just remember one story if you have children just remember the prophet sallallahu sallam sitting with us with someone else's child because of their bird um um and make the home you know the home Islam has to work if your children are seeing that Islam's not working the home parents don't get along in law battles whatever god knows whatever you know i'm sure the therapists know all about these stories Islam has to work in the home otherwise you're opening a big wide door a truck can drive through it kids just going to take his Islam and just leave right so Islam has to work his parents we have to make Islam work masha'Allah you know i see the parents bringing you guys here when children play and make noise hey let them play and make noise they're happy they're jumping around the mosque i wasn't even anywhere near one so um you know lead with that um so i mentioned a couple things you know the the baraka jar the the chain you can make a light the house get lanterns do an art project and then decorate uh bake with the with the kids and share the cookies um go and go before Ramadan and work in a food bank just to prepare your mind for how hungry people are go to a food bank and work there and see people come by and get food just the morsel the morsel food that goes into a hungry person's belly just you know it's far greater than our fasting morsels and we know how sweet dates taste after Ramadan the pakora's the dates and the ru'afza whatever you get going um make uh make Eid make Eid morning a good a good day you know slow down so running around in Ramadan doing tons of iftars getting stressed out doing groceries slow down we're all we all have food on our tables invite people for simple meals spend time together inshallah so alhamdulillah you know uh i look forward i try to strive for the day that my i look forward to Ramadan more than i look forward to the next Star Wars movie i've outgrown those a little bit i haven't outgrown the football the excitement for football but mashallah i look forward to the day to strive to get get as excited about Ramadan inshallah i'm really excited my teachers have really put a lot of um knowledge in me about the why and so now i know so i don't feel lost i know i'm not enjoying christmas i'm observing but i'm enjoying Ramadan and then the moonsighting party that's that's out at larin slivermore lab i live for that i live for that and we play um some Ramadan music on the way over my kids sing and so we really enjoy that so jazakh ala khair for being here and jazakh ala khair for listening to me and uh you know we can all be better inshallah we ask Allah to give us this beautiful beautiful month like a gift it's like the weekend of the year right weekend of the year you guys all look forward to the weekend but the thing is it can't be too too crazy and busy we've got to just enjoy each other enjoy the Quran enjoy the fasting and the rest will come inshallah and then love the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and think about the boy with the bird assalamu alaikum