Sh.Kamal Elmekki

Responsibilities of Raising Children

Brothers and sisters in Islam, today in this khutbah we're going to be talking about some aspects of our responsibilities of raising children.

We begin with the verse in Surah at-Tahrim, Allah says:

Allah is saying: O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from a hellfire whose fuel will be people and stones. And upon this hellfire will be angels that are stern and severe, that do not disobey their Lord in the slightest, and they do what they're commanded.

So in this verse we see that it is our job and responsibility — and it's primarily our job and our responsibility — to protect ourselves and our families from the hellfire. So it is partially the masjid's responsibility, it is partially the school's responsibility, but first and foremost it lies on the parents.

And that's why Allah, even though He could have told us the advice of Luqman, He made sure to let us know that Luqman, the father, is the one who gave his son this good advice. Allah could have just given us the lessons in ayat, but He let us know that it was Luqman, a father, telling that to his son — so that we get that lesson and that wisdom:

And when Luqman said to his son while he was admonishing and advising him...

So we see the importance of the father in particular also giving advice. Because typically children spend more time with their mothers, and so they receive a lot of advice from their mothers — but the advice from the fathers has a different perspective and a different angle, and is therefore much needed.

Tarbiyah Is More Than Providing

Now we think that advice and raising children is the mother's job. So if the child does something wrong we immediately blame the mother — she didn't raise him right. Or as they say in Arabic, tarbiyat niswan — your mother raised you, she's the one who nurtured you. It's hands off for the father.

And most discussions with children — when you look at how tarbiyah has become — it's: "Did you finish your schoolwork? Did you eat? Finish your food, finish your plate. It's cold outside, put on a jacket, put on a sweater." That's what tarbiyah has become. Tarbiyah is now giving and providing. You're taking care of your children, that means you're giving them what they need, you're providing what they need.

And notice this — when a child does something wrong or gets in trouble in school, or does something breaking the law, whatever it is, look at the language that the parents will use. They will mention the giving and the providing. So the father will say to the son who just did something wrong: "Don't I put a roof over your head? Don't we always have food and you're provided for? Any of the clothes you want we get, the toys you want, the tablets, the phones." He starts immediately mentioning that I did tarbiyah — I provided for you. But that's not it.

One time — this is in the east coast — I was teaching in a weekend school. And after class, one of the parents was talking to me. And then his son came in and said "give me $20, we're gonna go watch a movie." So they start having this little debate, and he's giving this complaint about how he's always asking for money and everything. Then he pulls out the $20 and gives it to him. And the whole time I am waiting for the father to ask him: "What movie are you gonna watch?" He never asked him. Until the boy left, he never asked him. It was all about the $20, it was all about the providing. But he never once said, "What is this movie you're gonna go watch?"

Knowing What Your Children Are Consuming

So many people are not aware — more, alhamdulillah, are becoming aware now — that you need to know what's in the children's programs. Some parents go to Common Sense Media, which is a website that mentions for every movie, children's or adults', every kind of bad word and it rates it — the positive messages, the violence, the bad words, everything. Some parents are very aware. They go check that before their children watch any children's program, because of all the direct and indirect messages that are hidden in children's programming.

So some parents are very aware that they need to be on top of everything. Even with the issue — and our community is divided on smartphones — should you give your child their own phone or not? And we have almost a 50-50 split in our community. But at least, if you're gonna give your child a phone, you have to give them a talk on preparing how to handle this device. Because as we know, it can be something very useful or it can be something very damaging.

I met a man in Ramadan — this is in the east coast — and it was the night before Eid, the last night of Ramadan. And he tells me: "I have only fasted one day this whole month" — because of his addiction to haram images. And they don't have any device at home; he watches it on his phone. Since he was 14 he had this addiction. So the idea that you can just give your child a device like this, that will give him access to the whole world, without an instruction or an instruction booklet — it's just unfathomable that you wouldn't.

And the idea that someone's life and his deen is being destroyed because of his phone — but to consider the solution of getting rid of the phone was like kufr. "How can you be in the year 2020-whatever and not have a phone?" It was just beyond. But you'd think anyone who's being doomed because of this device would take it and destroy it to a million pieces. But it was unfathomable that he would get rid of the phone, because that's what people do today — they have phones that they're completely attached to.

Having a Realistic Picture of Our Youth

Some of the solutions are also to recognize what are the problems and the obstacles. For example, sometimes we don't have a realistic — an accurate finger on the pulse, as they say. We were at a conference one time in Toronto, and it was a youth conference. There were 1,000 young men and women, all teens in the room. And every time we went back to the speaker's room, everyone was so amazed and proud of the fact that 1,000 of our youth are sitting here learning their deen instead of being out and doing this and engaging in haram. They're here learning their religion.

And you're only seeing one small cross-section, so you think this is what our youth look like. And with us was a prison chaplain — an imam in the prisons in the area around Toronto. And he said: "You're so pleased with these 1,000 youth that are sitting here in this Islamic conference." He said, "Just the number of Somali young men in the prisons around Toronto — not in the prisons in Ontario, not in all the prisons in Canada, just in the prisons around the city of Toronto — just the Somalis: 3,000. That's just the men. Not counting women, not counting Arab origin, not counting Desi origin. Just the Somalis. Three times the amount that's in the room."

So sometimes people just look at — and imams also do this — they see the best of the best. The imam spends his time in the masjid, he sees the best of the community. He sees the children who memorize the Qur'an, because he stays within that circle. If he stepped a little bit outside of it, he will see things that he won't believe. So sometimes it's just having an unrealistic look and not really having your finger on the pulse.

Coming to the Masjid Only in Emergencies

We have another problem: sometimes people come to the masjid for the emergency — to fix. This woman brought me her son who is doing drugs, stealing cars. Again, this is in the east coast. And he was not raised with any of the values of Islam for 16 years. And now that he's getting in trouble with the law, she expects me to be able to magically fix him in one hour. It doesn't work like that.

But the sad thing about this story is that by the grace of Allah, this man actually started praying and started behaving. And the minute that happened, the mother pulled him out of the masjid. "You're just the solution." But we don't want a religious child on our hands — just to fix. We don't want a bad child, but we also don't want a religious child.

Children and the Masjid

Other extremes will be the masjids themselves — the masjid doesn't want the children there. And alhamdulillah we don't have this problem at Clear Lake Islamic Center. But we were starting an Islamic weekend school in one masjid, and the first thing we did is we spoke to the adults. We told them: "You're good at lecturing about how our children are being lost and they're not coming to the house of Allah and they have no connection to the masjid." The minute we bring them to the masjid, these children are making noise, and the wudu area is wet, and they're running around in the musallah. What do you think children are going to do? That's what they do. So you're either going to be patient while they learn to be part of the masjid and love the house of Allah — or you don't want them at all. But don't give me the speech about them coming back to the masjid.

Are You Approachable to Your Children?

I measure a litmus test for fathers: if your child has a problem, will they approach you? Will they go to their best friend? Or will they come straight to you? If they want to tell something to both their parents, are they going to come to you — or will they go to their mother, and then their mother has to wait until you're in a good mood, and then she cooks your favorite meal, and then when you're ready she can break the news to you? If that's the case, that means we're not close enough to our children. If they can't come to us with problems — and growing up in America is just riddled with problems.

The Trap of "Boring"

Beware of some of the things that children use. One of the most powerful weapons children use is this word: bored and boring. So you take them to a lecture, to a khutbah, to a class — and they tell you "I don't want to go, it's boring." Teach them that life isn't just all entertainment and laughter. This is not how life is. And you don't leave something important because it's "boring." And it's not boring — we're telling stories and jokes, and the only thing left is to put on a clown suit and come out of a clown car. All this stuff — and then the minute they say "it's boring" or "I'm bored," that's it. "I cut you off from it, you don't have to go if you're bored."

What about math? What about physics? What about other things in life that are boring but are necessary? Don't fall for these. Taraweeh — "it's boring, I get tired, it's long." The same kid will play sports for 3 hours, but taraweeh for just 40 minutes is the longest thing in the world. Don't fall for that.

Building Taqwa, Not Just Rules

It's also important to not spy on your children. One of the scholars said: "The way I raised my child — I got him to understand and to be conscious of the fact that Allah is watching. And I told him: 'I'm not going to spy on you. I'm not going to look out and try to find out what you're doing. Because you can hide it from me — I'm not with you 24-7. But you can never hide it from Allah.'" So he said: "I raised him to be aware of the fact that Allah is watching."

So let that be your first strategy — that Allah is watching, and they're aware of that. Not that they're going to hide from you. And we've seen all kinds of horror stories — even parents who think their daughters are wearing hijab and they're not even wearing hijab. All kinds of stories. But the whole point is that when you're not looking they can do whatever. But if you teach them that Allah is always looking, then you don't have to spy.

And I said this before one time and some parents came to me and they tried to see how permissible it is to spy — "at what point can I spy?" Don't let that be your first technique. Don't let that be your first technique, that you're going to spy and uncover dirt on them.

It Takes a Village — But We Don't Accept the Village's Input

We always say it takes a village, but we don't want any advice from the villagers. We always talk about "it takes a village to raise a child." And then one child hits another — if any parent talks to them, even gently: "Why are you talking to my child? Nobody talks to my child." But when it takes a village, and always accepting whatever behavior that comes out of our children...

Yani — we had an incident where three children came and there was an adult woman doing babysitting. And they start to bother her and harass her. And when she got to the boiling point, then they pull out their phones. So what do they videotape? An adult screaming at three "innocent" children. And they do this in high school all the time — they will aggravate their teacher until the point where they're going to explode, then they pull out their phones. And then you just see this teacher exploding on the children. And what happens? The parents fall for this stuff. So the parents were saying this adult shouldn't be "traumatizing and terrorizing the children" — and they're giggling in the video. We're in the village. What happened to the village?

So today — and this is the modern parent — "Don't talk to my child, don't correct my child. That's my job." When you're not doing your job, what do we do here? So being open to this idea that your children's teachers — yes, they will raise your child, they will correct them, they will teach them morality, at some point — especially in private schools perhaps, more so than in public schools where they don't care as much about morality.

So these are just some of the issues that we need to be aware of. Parenting here — you have to be on your toes and you have to be aware of everything that's happening 24-7. And you have to be able to have open and clear discussions about everything. There's no topic that you leave for someone else to talk to your children about, because most of the time they've already Googled it, they know about it, they watched a video about it, or their friends informed them about it. So it's best for you to step in as soon as you can and give them the proper moral and Islamic perspective before things get out of hand.

I ask Allah for His forgiveness. Indeed, those who ask for His forgiveness shall be the successful.

Expressing Love and Affection

The last point we have — and it's not necessarily a point that everyone has an issue with, but a lot of people, and maybe especially fathers, have a lot of problems showing the proper type of affection, letting people know that you care about them.

One study found that the hardest thing for family members to say to each other was "I'm sorry." Just a simple phrase — "I'm sorry." Siblings find it hard to say it to each other, couples find it hard to say it to each other — just to apologize, which means you're admitting that you made a mistake, that you were wrong, and that you're trying to make amends.

They say that having a feeling and never expressing it is like having a gift and never giving it. Just imagine someone who has a gift — a special gift they bought for someone — they've got it wrapped in a nice gift bag and it's just sitting there and they're never going to give it. So having an affection that you never express is just the same way.

And that's why early on, our Prophet ﷺ taught us this — to show affection to your children. Abu Dawood narrates that a man was with the Prophet ﷺ and then another man passed by. So he says:

"O Prophet of Allah, I love that man."

So the Prophet ﷺ says: "Did you tell him?" He says no. "Go let him know." What is the value of loving him and then you're not going to let him know that you have any affection towards this person, or that you care for them? Just keeping it to yourself — what's the value of it?

(Sunan Abu Dawood, Book 42, Hadith 5124)

And that's why — he was with the Prophet ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ kissed his grandson al-Hasan. So he says: "I have ten children and I have never kissed any of them." And the Prophet ﷺ tells him:

"The one who does not show mercy shall not be shown mercy."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5997; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2318)

Balance: Affection Without Losing Authority

As we sit in this room, we have a mixture of people. We have people who are not very affectionate — so make sure you push yourself, even if it's beyond your comfort zone, and show this affection. Show love and care to your family members, to your children.

And then we have people who are at the other extreme — and we've discussed this before — where they think that they call it "soft parenting," they call it just being your child's friend. Where did you ever see being your child's friend? Where is this — one hadith, one ayah? You are not a seven-year-old. I understand having a friendly relationship, but you're not an eight-year-old like them where you can be their friend in that sense. There has to be a person, a figure of authority. Even if you're a fun, relaxed individual — at the end of the day you're a fun, relaxed individual in the place of authority. The authority has to be there. It can't be anything else.

And if you think that works — then why do we have so many problems with children today? And if the psychologists tell you that's the best thing that works, look at youth today. Why isn't it working better then?

So with that we ask Allah to make us of those who recognize the truth as clear truth and follow the best of it, and to make us of those who recognize falsehood as clear falsehood and abstain from it.