A question: “Do all parents love their children”?
“Yes!”,
“Of course!”
“All parents love their children”,
are some of the answers I get when I pose the question to any Muslim today.  

Typically, I get a confused and a surprised look as well.  “How can you even ask such a question?” seems to be the thought underlying these puzzled looks.

My answer to the above question is as follows: Yes, No, and Yes.

The First Yes: The Instinctive Love
What kind of love you mean when you ask me “Do all parents love their children?” determines my answer.  If you mean the instinctive love that God puts in the hearts of every mother and father, then my answer is absolutely yes!  That instinctive love that is a force driving parents to work on providing, nourishing and protecting their children is there.  We can’t deny it and we have no choice whether to have it or not.

Two things to note about this type of love: humans share it with animals, and:

Instinctive Love can be very destructive
This instinctive, inherent love that parents have for their children can drive the parents to actually kill their children!  This happened before and since it was likely to happen again, Allah (swt) reminded us twice in the Quran not to kill our offspring out of fear for their poverty.

In Surat Al-‘An`am, verse 151, we read: “... kill not your children for (fear of) poverty, We provide (sustenance) for you and for them” [1], and in Surat Al-‘ssra’, verse 31, we read: “And do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We give them sustenance and yourselves (too); surely to kill them is a great wrong” [2].

One thing we learn from that is: the fact that all parents have this instinctive love for their children, does not mean that parents would never do anything that is harmful to their children.  As a matter of fact, if that instinctive (animal) love is not moderated or controlled by a more mature and rational type of love, parents are likely to do many irrational things that are very harmful to the welfare of their children including, but not limited to, actually killing them.

Nowadays, parents don’t typically kill their children physically out of their (the parents’) fears.  They do, however kill, i.e.  hamper their children psychologically: mentally and emotionally.  This is why, that instinctive love has to be modulated.

The No
If you ask me the question “Do all parents love their children?” and by love you mean a mature, emotionally and mentally balanced love, then my answer is a resounding No,  for the very fact that not all parents are mature, emotionally and mentally balanced.  It depends on the parent in question, and we have to consider each case separately.

The Great Resistance
Just thinking that there could be something mentally or emotionally “wrong” with their parents is something that Muslims today have great resistance to even considering.  And when they consider it, they usually consider it in-passing or globally.  I usually get some dogmatic answers or blanket statements when I challenge some of my clients to see their parents are they really are: humans (not God), with shortcomings (not infallible), and people who might benefit from professional help.

“Oh! But they did the best they could”
I didn’t say they didn’t.  Sure they did the best they could given who they are.  I am talking about if what they did was wrong; if what they did hurt you; if you still get hurt because of what they do; and if there is something that can be done to help both of you.

“How can I say that about my parents?”
I will write a separate post on this since I found Muslims believe Islam prohibits them from attributing anything “negative” to their parents.  My reply usually goes as follows:

• “If your mother got the flu, can you say ‘Mom has the flu’ or would you go ‘I can’t say that about Mom’?  If your father has cancer, can you say ‘Dad got cancer’ or would you go ‘how can I attribute such a “shortcoming” to my father’?
• Then I ask “What is the difference between saying ‘My mother has cancer’ and ‘My father has depression’ or ‘My mother is emotionally-disturbed’?

I found that it is not necessarily Islam or the Love of God that prevents Muslims today from entertaining the possibility that some of our parents could be mentally and emotionally sick.  It is the shame and fear that prevents them.  There is stigma in our consciousness against seeing that:

1. Children are afraid. They believe that they will be displeasing God if they do when the Quran tells us “Oh you who believe be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses to Allah, even if it is against yourselves, or parents or relatives" [3]
2. And parents have problems with their children seeing them that way and/or with seeing themselves that way as if they are supposed to be perfect (When I see that, I think of rulers of Muslim countries who have problems accepting there could be anything wrong with them or with what they do).

I find it ironic sometimes that children will rush to help their parents when the latter suffer a “physical ailments” and that parents have no problems asking for help for that, but we tend – with the same sense of urgency – to avoid anything that can point to a “psychological ailments” that our parents may be suffering from when these ailments are one and the same; they are simply two faces of the same coin.  Our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) told us more than 1,400 years ago “Verily, in the body there is a piece of flesh: if it is sound, the whole body is sound and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt” pointing to the fact that science had recently proved: if your thoughts & feelings are sound, your body tends to be sound, and if your thoughts & feelings are corrupt, your body suffers.

I believe
After many years of being involved, one way or another, with social “issues” in our Muslim community,
I believe a lot of good can be achieved; parents and children can save themselves lots of sufferings, if we open up a bit and accept the following simple ideas [4]:

• It is not wrong to say that some of our parents suffer from emotional problems.  At least, it is not Islamically wrong if we do. (We don’t need to actually go and say that to our parents;  but in cases where such a move is needed, there is nothing wrong with it)
• It is better, and actually easier, to treat emotional/psychological ‘disturbances’ early and not wait till the body breaks down with a severe (and sometimes terminal) illness, and when the latter happens, it is more effective and more important to treat the underlying and mental/emotional dis-ease,  than treating the physical manifestations of such dis-ease (disease).
• Lots of harm is done in many Muslim homes because one or both of the parents is psychologically sick.
• Sometimes, children become as sick (or sicker) than the parents thus perpetuating or magnifying the problem
• Sometimes it could be a sign of arrogance (kibr) to deny that

The Second Yes
I believe that deep down, we are all loving creation.  Even with the parents that are emotionally “disturbed”, I believe that below that disturbance we can find Pure Love since it is part of our Fitra (inherent human nature).  As some of us get out of touch with that Fitra, some parents lose touch with that Pure Love and act out of their egos: their fears, their lust, their greed, their anger, their pride, ... etc.  If these parents work on healing themselves – and everyone can if they are honest and committed – then my answer to the question “Do all parents love their children?” is Yes.

More on this subject later InShaa ALLAH,
Salam for now
Ahmad
[1]- Quran: Chapter 6: The Cattle, verse 151.
[2]- Quran: Chapter 17: The Night Journey, verse 31.
[3]- Quran: Chapter 4: Women, verse 135.
[4]- For me, they are facts but the reader does not have to agree with me.