9) Each of your children is also engaged in developing and mastering a hobby, maa shaa'Allah! Tell us about their hobbies, and how did you ensure they each picked up something productive to do for leisure?
The truth is, I didn’t ensure that each child had a hobby. My husband and I had decided that we would bring up our children without a TV in the house, so I just made sure that the children are occupied from the time they were little. Hence, we spent a lot of time doing craft and being creative.
The early stages were sticking, cutting and gluing and making things out of play dough. Then as they got a bit older, we ventured into painting, clay modelling and making things out of anything and everything; origami, paper flowers, beads, cards, glass jars etc. We also made our own books, writing stories and making our own book covers.
Except for really girly things, in many of these activities, I didn’t differentiate between the boys and the girls. The boys took part and had just as much fun. Then I taught the girls simple embroidery, cross stitches and sewing. Finally, as they became young teenagers, the girls learnt to use the sewing machine to make pretty things, re-purposed some things, sewed their own curtains and started a small business selling hand-made bag-sand hair bands in one cultural fair in Riyadh. People thought they were really pretty, maashaa'Allah.
At this current stage, they have become more advanced in knitting, crocheting and baking. One of my daughters, who is the artist, because of her love for colours, is also talented in doing make-up. Another daughter is keen in architecture and loves designing buildings from paper. Obviously, these are skills beyond my knowledge, so Youtube has been very useful.
I would like to stress that whatever the children have acquired in terms of skills and hobbies, maashaa'Allah, has been born not just out of the love to be creative.
More significantly, growing up without television naturally gave them the mind and desire to occupy themselves. Of course they also discover the added joy that being skilful makes you independent.
The boys also had hobbies like photography, graffiti art, T-shirt writing, carpentry and they are all keen football players, maasha'aAllah.
10) You were working as a teacher but stopped once you began having children and dedicated all of your time to them. After your last child finished her Hifdh, you yourself became a Haafidhah mashaAllah. You then went on to teach English at King Saud University in Riyadh, and enrolled in a post-graduate English-teaching diploma course (DELTA) at the same time while working, and you are now teaching at Prince Sultan University. What motivated you to continue pursuing your own education and career after all these years?
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen as gloriously as your question presented it to be. My motivation for going back to work was not to pursue the career I left behind for two reasons. First, I have always been happy and fulfilled as a busy and teaching mum. I never stopped teaching in the 19 years I was at home before I started working.
In 1998, when my number five was ready to start our home-school programme, I opened a school at the request of some friends who wanted to follow my teaching programme. We got together and turned every available room in my house into classrooms and taught our children. Each class had a 1:2 student teacher ratio and the results were amazing, maashaa'Allah. The school grew and other parents asked to enroll their children into our school and we started charging fees. It was a very successful school in terms of inculcating spiritual and academic excellence in the children. We called it Daar al-Qur’an and I was both teacher-trainer and the ‘head-mystery’ (as one child once called me) of the school. The mothers who came to learn from me became the teachers who were very committed to the cause and made the school a success.
As the students graduated and had to go to primary school, sadly, the teachers had to leave the school too, to be at home for their children when they come home from school. After five years, I continued running the school by myself until my last daughter went to school. In the last year of Daar al-Qur’an, I had the joy of training my eldest daughter who joined me to teach in the school. It was only after that year that I started working at the university.
With my children all in school, I took up a new job because it was very close to my house and I could leave after the children and be home before them. Again, having a career was far from my mind. It took me a long time to adjust being a working mother.
As for doing DELTA, it was a requirement that came with the job. It was both mentally and physically strenuous; working and studying while trying to run a family.
For the first time in my life, I felt unhappy in not having time for my children and husband. Working and studying took up most of my time and energy. Alhamdulillah, the older children stepped in with the Qur’an of my youngest who enrolled in the intensive mubakkir programme. It was a hifdh programme wherein the child finishes memorising the Qur’an at grade 4. The most painful thing for me was when I find myself being too tired to listen to the children talking about school or when I had to sit by myself because I was trying to study or had an assignment to submit. Alhamdulillah, I completed the DELTA after two years.
I decided not to pursue further studies after my DELTA because I don’t want to neglect the family the way I did. I am now teaching in Prince Sultan University and here I feel I could combine motherhood and working in a much better way, Alhamdulillah.
To Be Continue ...