If the father is never at home, it’s not a home; it’s a house.
If the mother of the home does not have time to speak to the children or the father, it’s not a home; it’s mere accommodation.
To make it a home, you need to have a family.
To make it a family, you need to have communication.
To be able to communicate, you need to spend time with each other.
You need to put your phone aside, turn off the WiFi at ten in the night.
Or, at nine, switch it off so that none of you are on your phone, including your children.
We tell our children: “You are on the phone the whole day or the whole night.”
You know what? If they could, our kids would say: “Mum, you too are on the phone the whole day, the whole night, every day, every night; I am only on it once in a while.”
There are many ways of getting hold of you if there’s an emergency. But if you do not have time because everything to do is with internet then why do you have a family?
What’s the point? May Allah (swt) help us help our children.
The globe is struggling today. People are being brainwashed into extremism and one of the reasons is that the family unit is no longer as solid as it was. If the family unit is solid, the communication is good and there is a decent understanding; we go to pray and listen to lectures together; we will be able to guide our children and go to places that are meaningful where they would have a balanced upbringing and they do not have to resort to something that is bad and evil. They don’t have to do things behind our backs because we have good communication. The minute their mind is deviating slightly, we will pick it up in a discussion we have with them because we have daily discussions. A lot of us do not have daily discussions with our children.
I asked one man: Do you ever kiss your daughters?
He said: Daughters? No ways!
I said: You don’t kiss your daughters?
He said: No! How can I do that?
We are talking about kissing them on the forehead, kissing them on the hands, embracing them, and telling them; I love you! I love you so much! I miss you!
Send them a message; your sons and daughters are growing up. How many of us have teenage sons? We never message them. They have phones and they get messages from the whole world but they never get a message from Dad, maybe not even from mum sometimes.
Message them: I am at work, thinking about you. Love you! Miss you!
Don’t be old school and say: “How can I say: ‘I love you’ to my children?”
One day, I gave a talk about how important it is to say I love you to your wife. An old man came back to me, and he said: “I never ever say that I love you to her but I know she loves me”, and I said: “Uncle, your generation is already gone; you are one of those fortunate ones who have remained behind.”
To the new generation, you need to say twenty times a day minimum that’s why everything is free, Subhan’Allah!
Internet: Free!
Whatsapp calling: Free!
Because they know you have to send it, but the problem is we send it to the wrong number. May Allah (swt) forgive us really!
Saying good words to your children is an act of worship.
One day the Prophet (sa) kissed al-Hasan ibn Ali (rtam) and he was a baby (his grandson). Al Aqra ibn Habis was sitting near him and he said: “You kissed your grandson. I have ten of them, and I have not kissed even one.” The Prophet (sa) said: “Whoever does not show mercy will not be shown mercy.” (Bukhari)
To kiss your children is a Sunnah; it’s an act of worship.
Transcribed for Hiba by Hira Naqi Khan
About author
