“Mommy, am I autistic?” It was a question I hadn’t expected as I drove with my then-13-year-old daughter on our way to a doctor’s appointment. We’d never hidden it, but my husband and I did not want to label her at an early age with any kind of diagnosis. We…
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Ever since November 7th, I have been struggling with sleepless nights. I toss and turn, thinking of my three-year-old son, worrying what this country has in store for him as an American Muslim. How can I help him navigate the bigotry and sheer ignorance he will surely encounter? How do I prepare…
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As a parent, making sure your kids are getting enough sleep is one of the most important things you can do for their health and dispositions. But as you probably know quite well, such a natural process comes with a variety of challenges — everything from kiddos who leave their…
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Munira Ezzeldine and Noha Alshugairi, American Muslim counselors, educators, and moms, have published a parenting book for Muslim parents – “Positive Parenting in the Muslim Home”. At a time when Muslim parents in America are struggling to help their children cope with the stresses of rising Islamophobia and a sense…
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My kids’ best friends and their mom, one of my best mom friends, are Jehovah’s Witnesses. There are a lot of things I love about that. At my kids’ preschool, parents often talked over the unexpected challenges of parenting. I quickly found that I could relate best to Melinda (not…
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Genetics counselor Lama Eldahdah spends most of her time thinking about reproductive probabilities, but when she sits down with Muslim patients who are battling infertility, the conversation rarely focuses on odds. “Religious people say it’s God’s will, non-religious people say it’s statistics,” said Eldahdah, who works for Chicago’s Reproductive Genetics…
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“Hold it.” “Hold it.” “Ten more seconds….” “Done!” Participants in the Ramadan boot camp class collapse onto their mats after holding the plank position. Omari Grey (known affectionately as “Coach O” to his clients) pushes his class to achieve at least a two minute plank – a strong core is…
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In 1982, I began fasting half-days during Ramadan for the first time, my hands painted with henna in celebration. I was in Mrs. Campbell’s third grade class; the only Muslim in a school of more than three hundred children. She growled my name “So-fee-AAH! We do not write on our…
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Last night, while I was putting my nine-year-old daughter to bed, she asked the question I’ve been both anticipating and dreading. “Mama, someone at school told me today that if Donald Trump gets elected, he would make all the Muslims leave the country. Mama, are we going to have to…
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Western etiquette dictates that there are three topics never to be discussed at a dinner party – personal finances, politics and sex. Somehow my Indo-Pakistani /Muslim compatriots missed the memo on the first two topics. At parties I am routinely asked what my husband makes and how much we paid…
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