Monday’s essay looked at the parent who defends the discipline that hurt them. Today, I want to take this somewhere the essay couldn’t go, because this isn’t about a hand or a silence. It’s about words, and what they do to a person for the rest of their life.
Read this week’s essay:
In this episode:
I share a practice I’ve had to build in my own home, and I’m honest about how much of a work in progress it still is.
I talk about how normal a certain kind of harshness was in so many of our households growing up, and how differently we’ve all carried it since.
And I tell you about someone close to me who’s still living out something that was done to him decades ago, without even realizing it.
This episode is for the Muslim parent who’s caught an old word on the tip of their tongue before they could stop it, who grew up hearing things they’ve never said out loud to anyone, and who needs to hear that noticing the pattern is not the same as being stuck in it.
You’re doing better than you think.
With du’a,
Gulnaz, Halal Parenting.
If this helped, please let me know in the comments. Share it with someone who needs to hear this.
Reference:
“O believers! Do not let some ˹men˺ ridicule others, they may be better than them, nor let ˹some˺ women ridicule other women, they may be better than them. Do not defame one another, nor call each other by offensive nicknames. How evil it is to act rebelliously after having faith! And whoever does not repent, it is they who are the ˹true˺ wrongdoers.”
(Qur’an 49:11)
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