 entering into the month of Ramadhan. Now, I used to be, I have to confess, a perfectionist to the extent that I visited a psychologist and told her that no matter what I do, no matter how often I clean the house, no matter how often I do the laundry, cook wash dishes, pick up, scrub toilets that the work is never done. And I told her that I felt like I just simply wasn't enjoying my family and children the way that I should. So, she's a very lovely woman and she told me, look, you're spinning your wheels. There is no such thing as the perfect, ideal housewife and household wherein nothing is out of place where everything is sparkling and organized, that life with young children is necessarily messy and unpredictable. And that I needed to accept that and move on and actually start enjoying my life and my children. So, I am framing my advice from this valuable perspective. I had to make a shift a transition from perfectionism to what works for me, i.e., it's good enough for me and I'm going to move on, I'm going to move forward with that. So, my advice is do what you need to do to make Ramadan right for you. Not for your mom, not for your aunt, not for your sister not for your best friend, right, the one who's always put together inoculate house, five course meal on the table. Do what's right for you. Because what works for that perfect friend what works for your mom, what works for your sister, what works for your aunt your cousin might not necessarily work for you. So you have to do what fits your situation. Too often we read books that talk about the ideal Muslim woman. I've actually come across books by that very same title. And while I appreciate the sentiments by the author, the reality is that there is no such thing I believe as an ideal human being unless we're talking about the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam or an ideal situation. And we know that our beloved messenger peace and blessings be upon him dealt with many situations that were less than ideal. So I think we all need to for want of a better term cut ourselves in slack, right and understand that the good Ramadan, the rewarding Ramadan the uplifting Ramadan is the one that works for us, right. So it's within that spirit that I offer this advice. And sometimes I think that the people who write these books and they sometimes a lot of them tend to be men haven't spent a lot of time around young children. I would venture to say that, right. So this advice is definitely for mothers of young children. Let go a little be in the moment and cut yourself some slack. In fact, the idea of cutting yourself some slack is kind of interesting because I don't think the word slacker and mother belong in the same sentence. As mothers, whether we work inside the home or outside the home, we all work hard, wear many hats and juggle and balance multiple responsibilities. Ramadan I think should be that time to unplug a little bit sit back and enjoy those beautiful children enjoy the tranquility in your household. Not necessarily the tranquility that's brought on by having a Martha Stewart catalog type home, but the tranquility that's brought on by knowing that you have given each person in your household his or her do the tranquility that's brought on knowing that you are fulfilling your own personal spiritual goals. So it's within that spirit that I offer my advice. Now let me say that I do have certain goals that I have set during this month of Ramadan just because I've embraced the good enough approach I've left off the ideal perfectionist approach and I've made the shift to the good enough that works for me approach doesn't mean that I don't have goals. So before I offer my making Ramadan right for you rubric and I apologize for the illiteration let me talk about my personal goals that I've set this year they're attainable and I think goals need to be attainable but I think that by having achieved these goals God willing that when I reached the end of the month that I would have felt like I accomplished something and that's the idea behind these goals. Now I did say that I want you to tailor my advice to your particular situation but I think there's one piece of advice that in my world in my view is non-negotiable and that is less screen time. Yes that's what I said ironically I'm sitting in front of a screen and making this recording but I want all of us to go into the month of Ramadan and make a pledge that we're going to spend less time in front of screens and more time cuddling with those delicious little people called children. Less time in front of screens and more time on our prayer rugs must have in hand contemplating on and reciting and memorizing the word of God. Less screen time and more time just being in the moment focusing on those wonderful things called hobbies perhaps or interests that don't involve Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram so please less screen time for everybody. Another thing is less cooking time. This might sound a bit counter-intuitive given the fact that when you fast 15 or 16 hours a day naturally you're going to start to anticipate that iftar meal at the end of the day. However I have noted that in many of our amazing Muslim cultures that women often find themselves in the kitchen from daybreak to sunset. So I think it's important to reevaluate that and to see what you can do right now to make Ramadan meal time a little easier right? I used to follow food network quite a bit. Don't do that as much now but I remember reading a piece of advice from a chef Masaharu Morimoto and one of the things he said about cooking was it's not something you think about he says you just get in there and do it and I think I would relay that advice to everybody here. Don't think about it just do it. Jump in the kitchen prep as much as you can get it out of the way so that when Ramadan comes you can just jump in that kitchen and do those meals, get it over with and focus on something more important. Again being with those delicious little people called children and also sitting down on that prayer rug taking that most half, opening it, reading it having time to actually make not just a paragraph but picture this ladies a whole page of Dura'a imagine that you can do that during the month of Ramadan. It just means you might have to adjust your routine and your schedule a little bit. So my goals, less screen time, less cooking time and also less housework because here's the deal. The more you cook the more dishes you have and there are of course counters to clean and stove tops to clean and all that good stuff Now obviously we can't issue housework all together during the month of Ramadan unless we're fortunate enough to have housekeepers There is the matter of clean clothing for everybody As Ansa Tamara Gray said in her beautiful speech Green and Our Feminist Manifesto that she gave at Zaytuna Women were not created to do laundry Women like men were created to serve Allah and to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So do what you need to do to reduce your burden of housework so you can focus again on what's important during the month of Ramadan because I don't think that on the day of judgement we're going to be called to account about how sparkling our dishes were. I think Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will call us to account as to how we used our hours during the day and during the night in devotion to Him and service to others Now part of service to others indeed is cooking and cleaning and feeding and all of that. That's all part and parcel of Ramadan but don't let that become your whole Ramadan. Make sure you have some time for yourself. And then finally let me say it as far as other goals that I have during the month of Ramadan I'm not the most artsy and craftsy mom however I do want to do at least one possibly two special projects with my children celebrating the month of Ramadan. I particularly enjoy those Faanus lanterns I believe they're called Faanus. The lanterns that come out during the month of Ramadan especially in places like Egypt and so it's my goal to actually do some of those for the house and to also put up lights. You see Ramadan has to be joyous and special for our children. Not because we're trying to compete with Yuletide but because children don't understand abstract esoteric explanations of the inner dimensions of fasting but what they do appreciate is the house is beautiful and festive and is decorated and mom and dad seem really happy and really enthusiastic. This must be a special time of year and it is indeed a good thing to be Muslim. So those are the goals that I have set during the month of Ramadan and this concludes the first part of my presentation and for the second part I will share my ideas regarding making Ramadan right for you. Thank you. I want to talk about making Ramadan right for you. So I came up with this very simple little rubric based upon the Ramadan acronym. When I thought about it I said to myself, you know what? The R in Ramadan should stand for the idea of routines. Routines are of supreme importance during the month of Ramadan because what happens during the month of Ramadan is that Ramadan brings its own particular set of routines and these routines of Ramadan force us to change and realign our own routines right? So we find ourselves doing quite I think an amazing balancing act as Muslim moms as we welcome the month of Ramadan because think about it we get up these days it's going to be well before 5 a.m. or so you know so we're getting up to prepare our, our pre-dawn meal right? That means that hopefully we would have gone to sleep at a decent time. So just getting up, preparing the food, presenting that meal making salat al-Fajr, worshipping after Fajr getting everybody ready for the day even though people aren't going to school there were still routines during the day. Thinking about iftar again like I said carving out time for personal worship all of these things force us I think to bring together different routines into one sort of coherent piece that one sort of coherent strategy that allows us to have a smooth and harmonious day. So routines are very important during the month of Ramadan. You know I am a firm believer in bedtime for children. I know a lot of moms waive that requirement during the month of Ramadan and I understand why because we want to have a chance to go to the masjid pray tarawih you know obviously before that experience the communal iftar but I do feel that when children are very young that they don't have the attention span just from a developmental standpoint they don't have the attention span to sit patiently quietly during a 20 raka'a tarawih prayer so my advice to moms is to either establish tarawih at home or just go to the masjid for part of the tarawih. Obviously if you're fortunate enough to live in a community that provides child care every night during the month of Ramadan feel free to go to the masjid but I personally am of the opinion that children who cannot sit quietly that it's best for them to stay at home so as to avoid disrupting the experience of the other worshippers. Now older children should be able to sit quietly for at least a certain length of time and I think it's important to show older children that we belong that you belong to a community that this is your masjid about which you care a lot that these are your fellow worshippers right so again for me I generally stick to routine bedtimes for my children during the month of Ramadan with some rare exceptions if we're invited to iftar somewhere or on the rare occasion that I do take them to the masjid for Salat-e-Tarawih but I believe that bedtime routine is important. Now as far as the routine of getting up for sahur obviously the older your children are the more you are going to want to encourage them to do that and that's why I mentioned the whole thing about less screen time it's not just less screen time for us as moms but also less screen time for those older children because the thing is if they're falling asleep with their screens in their hands they're going to be less likely number one to sleep well than number two to want to get up for sahur so again consider the way they're going to bed and how they're going to bed if you want them to get up for the pre-dawn sahur meal. Another thing about routines is that as moms we understand the importance of meal time and Ramadan forces us to think about meal time in a different way all of a sudden meal times go from being 8am to 12 noon or 1pm and 6pm with snacks in between to maybe 5am and 9pm right? So that is quite an adjustment to make if your children are fasting obviously they are making that adjustment with you but if you have small children who are not fasting my advice is to stick to the usual routine of the meal times for your children with maybe a slight adjustment to introduce the idea of fasting to them right? And then another thing too with routines we're not just talking about routines of waking and sleeping but also discussing your spiritual routines your Orad which is a term that a technical term used by some of the ulama to denote a regimen that involves Quranic recitation ad-kar or dhikr, remembrance of Allah various ad-aya or du'a or supplications a time for contemplation and meditation as well and usually these Orad are done in the morning and in the evening and sometimes around Asr depending upon which teacher or sheikh might have given these Orad to you so it is important to have a specific time of day in which you sit and you read Quran, you make your dhikr and you make your du'a and this time really should remain non-negotiable and sacred to the extent possible now obviously as anyone with small children knows that you are definitely going to be making adjustments to that schedule but there are times I think that you can really kind of carve out a little bit of time for yourself unless you have an infant in which case you're on call 24-7 but you know one of the times that Al-Qazali mentions in his book Beginning of Guidance as well as the Ahiyah or the Medin for that matter is the time right after Fajr between Fajr the first prayer of the day and sunrise that's a very important time and I think it's a blessing that Ramadan coincides with summer break this year which means that instead of frantically ending Fajr prayer and rushing to get everybody ready for school and work and so on we can actually take some time and sit on that prayer rug and really make it a beautiful Fajr prayer and have a wonderful post Fajr period of reflection while everybody is still hopefully asleep so carve out those routines and especially those spiritual routines for yourself now the second part of my advice here Ramadan right for you the first part is R from Ramadan equals routines. The second part is A from the month of Ramadan so A is for alignment what you want to do is you want to make sure to align your routines and your goals with your family's needs right so for example a family that has older teens is going to have an entirely different set of routines from a family that has infants and toddlers so just make that adjustment as needed you can for example be a lot more flexible regarding meal times when your children are older versus when they're really little and you have to feed them a lot and on time right so just keep that kind of thing in mind. Another thing too is that you're going to have to make some alignments to your goals based upon your family's particular needs. A family with older children should definitely have as its goal getting everybody up for Sahub and having Fajr prayer and congregation for example. A family with small children not so much it might be the opposite getting those children to sleep past a certain time so that mom and dad can enjoy that early quiet period in the morning so again A is for making alignments to these routines and your goals per the particular needs of your family right that's R A. Now what is the M for so the M from Ramadan is basically the idea of measuring right you want to be able to measure your progress um you know this is in a way based upon the idea of the smart goal it's specific and attainable and measurable and all of that but I don't want to make it too scientific but you do want to have some way of measuring your goal and I think a good way is just like emotionally where are you right I'm not saying you have to like observe and analyze and record data but emotionally how do you feel at the end of the day and how do you feel at the end of the month of Ramadan do you feel like you've met your goals are you at peace with yourself are you content do you feel that you've been productive that time was used wisely do your children seem happy do does it seem like they've learned something from the month of Ramadan is your spouse pleased and is your spouse content are you looking forward to aid with the sense that yeah we had a really great Ramadan and we're ready for aid we're ready to celebrate our accomplishments or do you almost have the sense of dread likes the panel I can't believe that it's a read already and my Ramadan is gone and what did I do so again you know a way of measuring um your goals is is very important now that's our routines a um alignment of goals and routines for your families needs and measuring progress now a is accepting that you will definitely have setbacks because that is the sort of nature of life with children it is as um my psychologist said um and she's a psychologist who actually diagnosed my son of autism so she's always been very kind of sympathetic understanding person kind of helped me to put things into perspective but she did you know that life with children is necessarily messy and unpredictable so you know what if you have a day that you couldn't get to orad just try again tomorrow don't beat yourself up about it if you happen to serve frozen pizza for iftar it's okay you're not a bad mom okay those things happen sometimes so accepting that that these things happen and just moving on right and maybe just preparing a little bit more so that you can have a more gratifying day um the next day right and understanding that ultimately Ramadan is not about having a perfectly segmented compartmentalized day but Ramadan ultimately is about three things right that inshallah during the first month the first part of the month of Ramadan we attain unto God's Rahmah or his compassion that during the middle part of the month of Ramadan we attain unto Allah Ta'ala's forgiveness we earn his forgiveness inshallah Ta'ala and that during the last part of Ramadan we attain unto Allah Ataq Milanaar right that that salvation right salvation from the fire that's really what Ramadan is about now the next part so r again is for routines a is for aligning goals and routines to meet your family's needs m is for measuring progress a is for accepting that changes might need to be made and life happens d is for dad and I mention fathers because fathers play a hugely important role and I think sometimes um you know we sort of um underestimate the role that dads play developmentally in their children's lives our Islamic discourse is a lot of it is about men as providers men as going out and working and um earning a livelihood which is wonderful except the fact that al-wama al-Rijal al-Qawamuna al-Nisa in Surat al-Nisa ayah 34 is not just about men being financial providers but about men modeling spiritual leadership and mentoring to their families so it's very important to encourage husbands um and fathers to step into that role especially with their sons because they should model the type of behavior that you'd like to see from your children during the month of Ramadan they need to see dad praying and being enthusiastic about fasting and helping mom out and going to the masjid and just being joyous during the month of Ramadan ayah the ayah in Ramadan is for allies so you need to have allies and this is especially for single mothers for example you know you want to have that supporter friend for example or relative or family member who can help you to set aside time to pursue your own spiritual goals that's the person who's going to come and watch the kids so that you have time to go to the masjid and be part of the community I think it's very important to enlist those allies um it's important to have allies no matter what whether you're married or single right you want you want that person to be the person who respects the fact that you're reducing screen time during the month of Ramadan so you know and so the person who has the television on all night while you're at their house you know you might want to have a talk with them again you want people who are really going to support you in your particular goals during the month of Ramadan you know an ally is the person who's going to be happy for example a supporter is going to be happy with that simple meal that you cooked during the month of Ramadan if they expect a 10 course meal from a harried busy mom I'm not sure if I would call them an ally an interesting guest yes but not as supportive as they could be unless it's potluck in which case that's different right so A is for having allies people that are supportive of these goals during the month of Ramadan and finally N is for next year thinking ahead to next year and this is where the measurement part comes in if at the end of the month of Ramadan you see that well you know I didn't really reach all of my goals or I felt like I reached part of this goal but not the rest of it or this goal just didn't seem right for my family you know it's perfectly okay to make changes and adjustments and ask Allah to allow all of us to experience the barakah of enjoying this Ramadan and the next inshallah ta'ala so I pray this advice has been of benefit to all of you may Allah accept our worship and our standing and our fasting and everything or during the month of Ramadan may Allah bless you