The Best Roadmap

As teens, we are all just a step away from total collapse. One word, one rejection, one experience is enough to break us down and shatter our perceptions of who we are. It's scary knowing that we are so incredibly fragile and even scarier knowing that it's the people around us that wield the power to give us a blow that can bring us to our knees. That's why you have the tough guys that drive around and blast their music and refer to all girls as "chicks"-because then maybe people won't be able to see the confusion inside of them or the hurtful comments that they have to fight off of their seemingly unconquerable egos. It's why you meet girls who cocoon themselves in layers of personality, lip gloss, and laughter because then maybe no one can see the past in their eyes or the confusion that lies just beneath the Forever 21 clothes and Falsies mascara. We may all face it in different ways, but the bottom line is that being a teenager is scary.


As thorough products of the 21st century, my generation has grown up listening to Katy Perry sing about summer romances, and watched Drake and Josh wonder how they were going to get girlfriends. We've been wired to believe that promiscuity and needing sex-appeal is normal, and that for not doing it, we are the oddities. We grow up seeing our faith as a sort of fence restraining us from "fun" rather than an intricate roadmap that leads straight towards happiness. So when high school rolls around with its big promises, high hopes, and the beginnings of freedom, it's easy to lose sight of your grounding ethics and to relinquish them all in the pursuit of "fun".



When I was little, my mom always told me that "bad will glitter, and good won't". It wasn't until I entered high school that I fully understood the depth of that statement. The drunken pictures on Facebook, the funny stories by the kids who got high every day after school, they all made it seem like everyone was doing it, and like I was the only person actually following the rules. I was friends with all honors students, and in leadership roles within the school, and even they were beginning to doubt my way of life. My sophomore year was the first year I ever felt pressured, really pressured to do wrong. It was almost as if everyone was waiting for me to fall too, so they could validate their own decisions. I had friends tell me that I should buy tighter clothes or sneak out to Homecoming, or that I should date people behind my parents' back. I had friends dare me to take "a sip of the easy stuff" so that I could "see what it's like". I had to end a friendship with my best friend because she started making too many bad decisions and I knew it wouldn't be long before she dragged me down too. If you haven't tried to before, maintaining your coolness while still staying legal and halal (the Arabic word for legal) is pretty challenging.



Talking to some of my Muslim friends, I realized early on that I was in no means the only one struggling to keep with the lines of morality. The scary thing about doing one wrong thing is that it can turn everything else in sight gray. Lots of my Muslim friends had stories about being around friends that drank or frustrations with trying to fit in with their modest clothing in a world of yoga pants and leggings, and we all had the same sort of fear that we would be dragged down too. Because all it takes is one day, one day of being frustrated or angry and seeing what's glittery as actual "fun" and then you run the risk of turning everything in your sight gray forever.


As teens, there is a keen need for us to fit in. Despite what motivational speakers will come in and tell us, despite what that one weird hippie teacher in seventh grade preaches, within all of us lies the desperate need to be a part of some sort of an "in" crowd. That's what makes resisting peer pressure a whole lot harder than it seems. Because sometimes, fitting in requires sacrificing a part of who we are. It doesn't matter where you choose to put your child; public school or private school, Sunday school or a sports team, there will always be the forces of peer pressure around us. For me, I've learned that the best way to rise above it is to have a reason that plants itself within your heart for why you should follow the rules set down for you by God. A reason that is stronger than "it's wrong", and more substantive than "it's haram"(not permitted). Real, legitimate reasons like the effects of that negative choice on your soul, or the physical consequences, or the long term consequences that we would have been too otherwise naive to see when left to decide for ourselves.


In the lane next to you with our music blasting, we teens may seem like we don't have a care in the world. But beneath that lies a turmoil just as strong as unpaid bills or a faltering marriage. It's the turmoil within the soul: to be or not to be. The raging battle within us to find what exactly we even stand for, and who we want to be. Every day is a challenge. Because every day is the beginning of our lives. One mistake, one faulty choice can change the course of our lives forever. As a parent, you can snoop through your child's room, you can monitor their texts, you can even control who they hang out with. But there will always be places you forgot to check, texts that were deleted, and forbidden friends that they still hung out with. The best, most valuable thing that you can do as a parent is to instill within your child a firm belief in the necessity of their values. This belief will be reinforced eventually when they see the former high school partier still working at Jewel at 30, or when they see the girl that lived off of hookups be broken hearted and disrespected by the males in her life. Teach your child to love themselves and give them the best and most detailed roadmap possible.  Because there is only so long that you can be your child's moral compass- at some point, they have to become their own.


Samar

Not going when the going gets tough

As girls we fall asleep listening to stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  As preteens we watch shows like Hannah Montana and listen to songs by the Jonas Brothers.  As teens we watch movies like P.S. I Love You and Titanic and as we cry our way throughout the movie, we tell ourselves that one day, that will be us too.  We listen to artists like Adele and let the lyrics like "I had hoped you'd see my face, And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over" melt us away.  As young women, we go into the world expecting to find the love story of our lives.  But when we've hit 27 and no man has taken us to stand at the hull of a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and made us feel like we were flying, we give up hope and "settle down".  And when it's finally too late, we realize that what we did have was splendid in its own unique way, and that we spent forever trying to chase what was really only an illusion.

For the longest time, I believed in soulmates.  I believed that you lived your life trying to find them, and that sometimes you succeeded, and other times you didn't.  Then one day, I saw an old married couple dancing before a diner closed up.  That was the day that I realized it doesn't matter how much love or passion you have in the beginning, it matters how much you build till the end.  By that logic, you could marry just about anyone in the world, and with the right approach, create a marriage that worked.  Unfortunately, with magazines like Glamour and books like Twilight on the rise, the idea of "true love" and "soulmates" and idealized relationships have come to be viewed as normal and almost as expected as Biryani at an Indian wedding.

In my health class one day, we had  a discussion on how to have a healthy relationship.  "So what do you girls expect from guys anyways?", the kid sitting next to me asked.  A girl on the other side of the room answered, "We want a guy that we can trust, and that can be sweet, and understanding, and do the small things.  You know, like take care of us when we need it or like be there for us."  It sounds simple enough right?  But what surprised me was that, a lot of the girls in my class seemed to think that that was all you needed to have a healthy relationship.  I wanted to stand up and tell them that there were five languages of love, and that sometimes the way you and your partner communicated it could be in completely different ways and cause a disconnect.  I wanted to tell them that it takes more than an understanding guy to make a relationship work and that sometimes, roses or a sweet hug just doesn't cut it.  But I don't.  I keep my mouth shut, because who am I to dash the hopes and dreams of fifteen year old girls?  But walking out of my classroom, I find myself wondering if that's even a lesson that women realize through age and not just me taking the effect of my dad's therapist influence for granted.

When I was 14, my mom sat me down and told me in a nutshell "Hollywood movies make you believe in a lie".  Tough stuff for the girl obsessed with Nicholas Sparks novels to swallow.  I remember her telling me "you don't marry someone because of some special click or nonsense like that.  You marry someone because of what's in their heart.  Hollywood movies idealize love in a way that it shouldn't be idealized."  And there went my dreams of skipping through Ireland to meet my Irish accented, beret wearing soulmate.

Over the years, I've witnessed a lot of household disputes.  It normally goes like this:  my dad does something, my mom gets mad, and my dad in that infuriatingly calm voice of his, will explain himself.  My mom won't listen and then 20 minutes later, my dad goes back and apologizes regardless of who's fault it was, and somehow, they both end up laughing about it a little while later.  It's something I've seen often enough to realize is an extremely effective yet healthy way of disputing.  In every single wedding card to people, my mom writes something cheesy along the lines of "fight often so you can make up".  That's because, contrary to what most people think, arguments are actually healthy to a marriage.  Because when you stop arguing, you've also probably stopped caring.  It's the little things like that that have shaped the way I treat the relationships in my life.  I understand that long sessions of the silent treatment don't work (that and the fact that for me, being silent is virtually impossible) and that communication is what will determine the quality of your relationship.

What I'm trying to say, is that as kids and especially as teens, we need to learn how to have a healthy and dynamic relationship.  It's not instinct, because if it was, we would get in a lot less arguments with our parents.  The only way we can learn, is by watching our parents and the people around us.  Although the concept of the rise of failed relationships is not unique to American Muslims, we are certainly contributing to the demographic.  This means that it's not too early to teach your children how to learn to love, cherish, and respect one another.  And the best and most effective way to teach us, is by demonstrating it yourselves within your own relationships.

As contrary as it seems, you fall for people because of the simple details like their dimpled smile or the color of their eyes.  But what happens when the fact that they leave their dirty socks all around the house bothers you more than any look into their eyes can make up for it?  Then what do you have?  A marriage.  As parents, the most valuable gift you can give to your child is teaching them how to deal when things get rough in a relationship, so that they don't become that doomed 50% too.

Samar

Peeling Back the Bubble Wrap

It must be a strange thing to be a parent.  To be handed a squirming eight pound mass and sign your life off in exchange for theirs.  It must be strange because it reduces thirty year olds to making cooing noises and crawling around on the floor holding stuffed caterpillars with their six month olds.  It causes a parent to use every single ingredient in the pantry to bake a cake just to see what it would taste like with their curious three year old.  But even stranger than that is the fact that while watching your teenage daughter talk to you and defend passionately her point of view as to why she shouldn't have to do the dishes ever, you can see yourself.  It's mesmerizing, this mirror within your child.  And if you try hard enough, you can remember the anguish and confusion, and you swear to yourself that you won't let your child make your same mistakes.  You foolishly think that if you can bubble wrap every square inch of their world, that somehow nothing will ever hurt them.  You push out of your mind that sometimes, the real trouble lies tucked beneath their own skin, or within the folds of your family, or in the hallways of the school they spend 40 hours a week in.  And by the time they have become a teen, you have become so preoccupied with bubble wrapping any possible danger that you forget that sometimes, it's necessary to fall, in order to learn how to get back up again.     

Walking through the halls of a highschool, the layers of social strata are obvious.  There are the kids that walk as close to the wall as they can, as if invisibility is a gift rather than a drawback, there are the kids that make their life mission to stand out with dyed hair and piercings, then there are the kids that seem to succeed in every single thing they do without even seeming to try.  But despite the external differences, we are all the same underneath the surface.  We are all  trying to find just exactly what we want to live for.  It doesn't matter how much guidance and directions we are given from family and friends, at some point as a teen we will question everything we have ever stood for and believed in.

This period of uncertainty is nothing to lose sleep over-it happens to everyone, but it seems that parents within the Muslim community live their lives studiously trying to avoid the period of turmoil that their teen is bound to go through.  It's this reason that Islamic Schools seem to be overflowing with kids despite the gross bathrooms, ugly uniforms, and saucy students.  Parents feel that if their kid is surrounded by other Muslims that maybe they will keep the same values (as if values could be transmitted by osmosis) and the fact that the happenings at an Islamic School are the exact same as they would be at a public school seem to slip their minds.  From what I have seen and the long-drawn complaints/stories/rants of my American Muslim friends, Muslim parents are their own breed of overprotective.  And while many parents would argue that there is no such thing as being too safe, let me tell you: there is.  In my high school alone there are dozens of cases of the American Muslim kids that just needed to find a way to vent and deal with their parents stiffling rules.  There is the girl who sneaks mini skirts and tank tops in her backpack to change into in the school bathroom because her parents monitor EVERYTHING she wears, there is the boy who smokes pot behind the school on late starts so he can cope with his overly demanding parents, and the girl who drinks and puts an alarm on her phone so she can sober up before she gets picked up by her parents.  There are dozens more scenarios like these, and that's in my school alone.

So by now, you're probably wondering why you even had kids in the first place, and the answer to that is so that you could spend 100 grand on college, another 50 grand on their wedding, and  of course, the three in the morning calls when they really need you.  What a joy.  But if I could give any advice to parents, it would be this: let us fall on our faces once in a while-early.  As teens, sometimes we do need to touch the fire to know that it's hot.  I'm not saying that letting your kid fall on their face will work in your favor everytime, but I can tell you right now, I learned more from my mistakes than the three million groundings and lectures I ever got from my parents.  It's when you hold your kid back from making any mistakes that they go wild.  I can promise you, that with many crazy teens you see, it's not because they were born that way.  It's because at some point in time, they began to feel like they couldn't meet their parents expectations.  And although watching your kid reach for the flame may well be the hardest thing you have ever done, it may also be the most beneficial for your child.

For me, the most important thing my parents ever did was to have a relationship with me in conjunction to "parenting" me.  Through the yellings and fights and all of the emails that landed in my mom's inbox (she now reads them for entertainment), we had a relationship.  We truly lived.  Me and my mom had wrestling matches on the kitchen floor (okay we still do), and me and my dad danced in the middle of the road to Boom Boom Pow on New Years Eve, and we went out to breakfast at two in the morning just because.  It was the laughter we shared and the optimistic attitudes with which we all went about our lives that has made me able to respect the guidelines my parents set out for me.  They let me fall on my face and get hurt in order to realize that the path they had set out for me was probably the best path out there for me anyways despite all the "fun" other kids seemed to be having.  Although I'm not so sure my dad will have the whole "let you stumble and fall" approach when it comes to being behind the wheel...

Parenting, I would imagine, is like a huge balancing act.  You find somewhere on the spectrum between psychotic overprotectiveness and indifference, and try your hardest to be there.  And as hard as it may seem, sometimes the best thing you can do for your child is to pull back some of that bubble wrap so that they can learn how to deal with life when things get rough.

Samar

A Window Into My World

As teenagers we tend to think that we're invincible.  We think that we are impervious to any fatality or misfortune.  To us, the future seems like a God-given right.  But on Valentines Day I found myself at the funeral of my friend Bilal.  He wasn't my best friend, but he was a friend.  He was only 15 years old.  It made me keenly aware that each day is a blessing and not a right.  It’s a gift to be lived.



I am a teen.  Yes, I too get in fights with my mother, get grounded for texting at the table and for not being home by curfew.  But the one difference between me and the rest of American teenagers with pierced tongues and blue hair (aside from the fact that I have neither) is the fact that in addition to my American identity, I am also of Muslim faith.  As well as carrying my phone, lip gloss, and sunglasses in my purse, I also carry a scarf with me.  And in the middle of wondering with my friends what happened to K-Fed and why on earth Brittney is still trying to make a comeback, I get up to go pray (well at least I try to most of the time).  It's this constant goal of trying to attain moderation in my life that sets me apart from most teens.  Most days I delight in this task, it's like trying to separate Oreos apart and trying to get the cream all on one side (for those of you who haven't done that, it is basically the epitome of life).  But sometimes, trying to maintain who I am in a world where morality and ethics aren't well accommodated can be pretty tough.  Especially when I see so many of my American Muslim peers struggling and choosing the path of least resistance.

That's when I decided that my voice needed to be heard-and by someone else besides my mom.  I needed adults to understand that contrary to what they think, high school has changed.  Arguments with parents for the most part is like trying to convince a brick wall to walk- it's futile.  Adults think they hold all answers for everything (but if they did, wouldn't we have found a cure for cancer or a way for world peace by now?), and teens refuse to accept that and believe that they are always right (but if that was the case then teachers would be out of work).  It's a tough wall to scale and often times, parents just give up the battles and leave their kid to sleep in until 3 in the afternoon or play COD all night simply because they just don't feel it's worth the fight.  And most arguments end in slammed doors, tears, stormy silences, or if you're my parent, a four page email landing in your inbox filled with phrases like "why can't you ever understand" or "you're ruining my life!" (yes I know, I must be a delightful kid to parent).  So when it comes to issues like whether or not to go to Homecoming, or how to be modest while still wearing your volleyball uniform; issues only faced by the American Muslim teen that's still trying to be normal, it's essential that parents take the time to understand what it's like and empathize and try to age yourself backwards to the time when popped collars and jelly shoes were the most important thing on your horizon.

That's why I want adults to listen to me and not just see me as Humaira and Edmund's Daughter, or Lemon Bar Girl, but as the teen trying to give you a window into her world, so that when you're sitting in the car with your kid, battling over listening to NPR or B96, you can be able to slide yourself across to the passenger seat, and into your child's converse shoes, and see right through their eyes.  I want to tell you the struggles that we have, and the choices we face, and most importantly, how we feel about those choices.  I will admit, that as teenagers in a nation that is open and accepting to other kinds of people, and as a part of one of the most privileged groups in the world, we certainly have it good.  But that in no way lessens the struggles we face.

Samar