In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful
Your Eminence Sayed, I have looked at your website and found much benefit in it, and I said to myself that perhaps you could help me with my problem, which in short is this: I used to be a young woman who was active in society, taking part in charitable works and other things, but after I married and gave birth to a child I have not been able to take part in anything; I have become confined to the home and have come to feel that I have no value in life… I hope you will help me rearrange my life, and thank you in advance…
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Honorable sister… may Allah the Exalted preserve you
Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings
We thank you for contacting our website, and we ask Allah that there be benefit in it. Your message has reached us concerning your problem of rearranging your life… and I am pleased to set down some observations which I hope will contribute to a positive push for you toward the world of active engagement…
At the outset, we must appreciate the concern for a spirit of giving that is not confined to the self—those narrow limits of concern—but goes beyond it to the wider circle, namely society, and to the public concern in giving. This is the most prominent trait of the responsible personality, and it is among the hallmarks of the faithful, risali personality heralded by the Qurʾan, the Prophet (s) and his pure Ahl al-Bayt (a).
The very thought of reconsidering things is in itself an important matter, for it is a means of developing and advancing the personality, so that the personality is not among those whose two days are equal, or whose yesterday is better than its today; for it is the state of continually acquiring more and progressing that is required…
I believe the most important point in what you mentioned is the shift in life from a somewhat free life to the life of motherhood. Here we should not overlook a very important matter… one that may fall within our concept of giving and active engagement in society… It concerns the mother's relationship with her child, or in other words, the mother's responsibility toward society…
Some may consider raising children an ordinary and marginal matter in life: either they are lax about it and pay it no attention, or they do attend to it, but as an inescapable duty imposed upon them… Both attitudes are mistaken, for attending to one's children and to the kind of upbringing they receive is a social responsibility before it is an individual one, because this child is fundamentally the product of the mother—given the long time she spends with the child at the beginning of his life—and he is her product for society, since she sends him forth to live among individuals with whom he must deal kindly, and to be a contributor and an active participant in works of goodness and in social, cultural or other development…
If the mother views caring for her son from this perspective, then, first, her mission will be clear to her with regard to the concepts she will instill in him… and second, she will regard this work as a contribution on her part and as social engagement.
This, of course, does not necessarily mean that the mother should be confined to the work of upbringing; she can add other positive works to her account… The problem, as it appears, comes down to the question of time, and here, by managing time in a correct and organized way, the mother can offer something… or rather, it is the management of oneself within time… For we have a great deal of time that slips away from us without our noticing; it is lost because we do not take stock of it and do not define it… The child may sleep for two hours while the mother remains waiting for him to ask for milk, or something similar…
Perhaps the first important practical step the mother can take in this regard is to take stock of her free time and set it down on paper, in writing or in a drawing—for example, by drawing a line representing her day, marked off by the hours, and coloring in the free periods… Then she will know which times are being lost, and consequently she will decide to make use of them, each according to its nature, for nighttime differs from daytime, and so on… And she will be psychologically prepared to invest these times, because she has identified them and come to know them…
Another step, after she has come to know, precisely and clearly, the times available—which may not be enough for some work she wants to do, such as taking part in a charitable society, a committee or something of the sort… is that she must look at the time she needs to carry out that work, for example, three hours every other day. Here one can look for solutions to create some room in her time, such as the child staying with one of the relatives during that time, or something similar… And here it is worth noting that whatever time the mother will need should not be like that of other women who have no children, for the arrival of a child must naturally have an effect; it is a task in itself, as we have mentioned…
Another important matter is the idea of alternatives in one's works. She may not be able to do a work she wishes for now, within these circumstances, but that does not mean stopping completely; rather, she must find another useful work that may support the original work in the future. For example, she may not be able to contribute substantially to large social activities, but she has time amounting to an hour a day that she can devote to reading and increasing her knowledge, or she can do some other work suited to the time available… The idea of alternatives is an important idea, so that a person remains continually active… and so that he does not feel he has come to a halt… even if it be only a little…
And as Imam ʿAli (a) says, “Do not be ashamed of giving little, for deprivation is less than it”—this applies to this meaning as well…
Please accept our greetings and prayers
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
www.mosawy.com