The 15-Minute Parent

The 15-Minute Parent

Parents today are glorified drivers, picking their children up and dropping them from madrasa, from football, from school. So much so that the only quality time a parent gets with their child is perhaps in the car, during which the parent is shouting at the child to shut up in the back seat while I drive please because I'm trying to reverse my car. Psychologists say the average parent gets 15 minutes of one-to-one time with their child.

As we enter into Ramadan, we have to change this. And to do that, we have to recall one of the greatest examples of fathers that we have had in the history of Islam — Ibrahim (AS). Ibrahim (AS), on the command of Allah, has left his child and his wife in the middle of the Arabian desert. And after many years, he returns to this desert with another instruction — to finally build the house of God himself, to build the Ka'bah.

The Choice of Ibrahim (AS)

Now, he has two options. He can hire a bunch of contractors, pay them a daily wage and somebody else can build the house for him — or he can build it himself with his own hands. He looks at his son Ismail (AS), a small lad, small grubby hands — how much is he going to be able to contribute to the building of this massive house that's going to be the Ka'bah, the house of Allah, for centuries to come? It's probably a smarter move to just ignore him and tell him to stay at home with mom while Ibrahim (AS) does the heavy lifting himself.

But no. Ibrahim (AS) brings Ismail (AS) to the construction site, and brick by brick, they build the Ka'bah together.

"And when Ibrahim was raising the foundations of the House, together with Ismail, [they prayed]: Our Lord, accept this from us. Indeed, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing."

Why Ismail (AS) Was Brought to the Site

But Ismail (AS), this small child, was brought into the construction project for one reason only. When you build something in-house — when children watch their parents sweat for the sake of Allah, bleed for the sake of Allah, weep for the sake of Allah, lose sleep for the sake of Allah — that child is never going to forget that sight for the rest of their life.

It will be imprinted, embedded in the fabric of their memory for years to come. Children do not remember stories, words on a textbook, blank ink on a white page. No — children remember most the live blood of their parents as they move, and as they sway, and as they bow in front of the Almighty.

And this is what shaped Ismail (AS).

The Crisis of Outsourced Tarbiyah

We have outsourced so much of our tarbiyah. We have outsourced their Quranic education, their skills. We have outsourced their secular learning. We've outsourced so much — what is left for us to give them?

This Ramadan has to be a game changer for every family that is hearing this.