A  mother was complaining about her children: [1]

"I don't understand what's wrong with them? How can they be so ungrateful? I provided for them the best of clothes, the best of houses, the best of education, the best of health care! ... We gave each one of them a car, sometimes the car was an old one but it was a car nonetheless ... Look at the rest of the people... How many out there can claim that? Many people would love to have the life they had!" On and on she went, listing the material things that she provided for her kids. And yet, the children would not wish for anyone to go through the life they went through.

How could this happen? How can the two views be so dramatically different?

One way to explain this is to look at how raising a child should be different from raising an animal in a household.

In case you never went through the experience, imagine what it would be like to raise a cat or a dog in your household. You would be providing shelter for that animal and it could be the best of houses. You would give the cat food and water, and it could be the best of foods. In the winter time when it’s cold, you make sure that you and your cat are warm and comfortable. Likewise during the summer, you look for places of shade for you and your pet. You bathe it, pet it, play with it, and pamper it.

If the cat gets sick, you do your best to treat it, potentially even dropping everything to rush it to the veterinarian, and it could be the best of vets. If you can afford to travel, you would take your cat with you on your trips. You may even hire someone to educate or more accurately train your pet, ensuring that you are providing the best training money can buy.

You will "feel" that you love your pet and may even wonder, "If this is not love, then what is"?

Truthfully, the way some parents raise their child is essentially the same as raising a cat or a dog. The same can sometimes be said about marital relationships, save some specific differences. Let me focus here on the concept of "upbringing".

In all evidence, there should be a difference between raising a child and raising a pet; a difference which quite obviously stems from the significant difference between a child and a pet.

The difference should be clearly established in at least the two following areas:

I- Communication:
* If we work on it, the level of communication that we can have with another human being is much greater than with a pet.

* We can't really know what a pet is thinking as it has very limited means of expression as opposed to a human being, to whom Allah (swt) taught made modes of expression [2].

* Not knowing what the pet is thinking, we project our own thoughts and feelings on it. This leads us to believe that we are "really close" to it. This emotional closeness, which may not correspond to reality at all as your pet may actually have very different thoughts and feelings, is often mistakenly interpreted as love.

II- A "will of their own":

* One of the characteristics of genuine love that parents should keep in mind is that children develop a "will of their own." After all, the main objective of parenting is to help children individuate into their own identity [3].

* In comparison with pets, people usually seek to foster the animal’s dependency. People don't expect their pets to grow up and leave home. Actually, they want their pets to stay put, remain dependant and simply lie near the hearth.

What about "divergent-wills"?

People generally like pets that don't have a will that diverges from their own. They are satisfied as long as their pets' will coincides with their own. In other words, they start getting annoyed with the animal and may end up getting rid of it altogether if the latter persist in protesting and fighting back against their master.

Therefore, with pets, a "divergent-will" usually results in expulsion from the master's life. This may happen later than sooner though, since some masters are really attached to their pets. They hope that they can develop their pets' minds and souls. They hope that one day they can get the pets back on track and hence, send them to obedience school.

How you react with your children in the event of "divergent-wills" is the defining factor in whether you perceive/treat your children as complete human individuals or simply as "your pets."

Unfortunately, in many homes when children develop a will of their own that differs from the parents', atrocities may happen. Some kids are even thrown out of their homes, although this ­ according to my knowledge ­ is not the norm in our Muslim community.

What is more common among members of our community is parents exerting huge amounts of emotional blackmailing where they try to manipulate their children with verbal assaults, the concepts of fear, guilt, obligation, and social image, threats of withdrawal of love, attention, and money, all in order to force their children to accept ­ lock, stock, and barrel ­ the parents' will. They do so with absolutely no regard to the children's spiritual and emotional state of mind, when one of the main objectives of Islamic education is the spiritual and mental growth of every educated individual.

Why does this happen? Because, unfortunately, we don't know what "genuinely loving another human being" is.

If you truly love someone, then your main and actually your only true concern should be the spiritual growth of that person.

Back to the story of the mother and her kids mentioned at the start of this article. How come the children, having had all that their mother claimed they had, would not want the life that they lived for anyone else?

One possible reason is that while they were given shelter, food, education, health care, and many materialistic things, they were robbed of the one thing any human being yearns for more than riches and possessions; they were robbed of their humanity.

wassalamu Alaykum
Ahmad
- Footnotes:
[1]- First posted on April 15th, 2006 on my Warriors of The Light Blog: http://warriorsofthelight.blogspot.com/
[2]- Check the post: http://warriorsofthelight.blogspot.com/2006/04/r28-ar-rahman-and-our-abilityright-to.html
[3]- Check the post: Train an Animal, Educate a Human Being.
* One reference consulted when writing this piece is "The Road Less Travelled", by Scott Peck.