My First Post

Bismillah ((I start) In the name of God)

My Ballers

A couple friends and I decided it would be great to jot down our home-school journey, simply for ourselves. May be one day we will look back at these times and think, "Alhamdulillah, I didn't do a terrible job after all!" So here I go...

Praise Allah alone, I have been homeschooling for almost 5 years now. It hasn't been an entirely easy journey, but surely it has been exciting and encouraging. I think every homeschooling mother hits a point (every few months) and thinks, "This is awful. What was I thinking? I can't handle this!" But when you regroup, gather thoughts and lessons, and really analyze everything your child has learned with you, you're re-motivated and excited to continue.

After I prayed Asr yesterday evening, I sat looking around our classroom. Then in deep thought my eyes focused on the carpet. I started thinking about my own education, religious and academic, and how I've put everything on hold to homeschool my three beautiful boys. Most of my friends were relishing the fact that their kids were back in school after a one week Thanksgiving break. Here I was, no break really, and back to the same routine. I thought about some of the important female Muslim figures that are currently taking media by storm and couldn't help but focus on the word "Important". I had always wanted to be a social changer and now at 30 years old, I haven't changed a thing. 

As I focused on the strands and loops of the carpet, I began to wonder if this carpet square was the world, where would I be? I focused onto a much smaller square that had many loops, then onto one loop that had many many strands, then thought to myself, I would be on a single strand, just one of the tiny fibers that makes up the strand. That's how unimportant I felt.
There I sat, once again, with that feeling that many stay-at-home moms and home-school mothers feel- feeling unimportant.

It's a very difficult feeling to shake. You need constant reassurance, optimism, and a solid group of friends on the same boat to not let this feeling bring you down. However, sometimes it gets you.

I continued looking around the room and thought, if I focus on educating my children well, teaching them to be capable and generous people, giving them the tools to become boys and then men who bring about change to a world that's falling apart...wouldn't I succeed in my dream to become a social changer? 

At that moment my middle son, M, came running to me because he cut his finger in the door. I am important. Important to the most important people in my own world, my children. 

Abdullah ibn Umar reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Every one of you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. The leader of people is a guardian and is responsible for his subjects. A man is the guardian of his family and he is responsible for them. A woman is the guardian of her husband’s home and his children and she is responsible for them.

Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6719, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1829

I won' be held accountable for societal change, but I will be responsible and held accountable for how I raise my flock of sons. And when I think about having to raise 3 Muslim boys in a temptation filled society, it seems like a terribly IMPORTANT responsibility and a job only a dedicated mother can handle.

I am important.