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
Er, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the conflict doesn't stop with being a teenager. That's something of a constant in the human condition. On the bright side, not all choices are irreversible. Sometimes you are given the wonderful opportunity of a 'do-over', but not always. Best to avoid the irreversible choices, if you can.
ReplyDeleteYou have the right idea on the "Don't do it because it is God's Law or it is haram!". Those can seem like cardboard shields in the rough and tumble of life. It is like you say, thinking through the "long term consequences"- to ourselves and others, that is more enduring, and I like to think of THAT sort of introspection as true taqwa.