Note.

Upon re-reading, I realise that this article has flattened out the complex experiences of mothers who work at home. In a more careful analysis, there’d have been discussions of how female household labour is configured within the economy. As well, I should have been more careful about my presentation of immigrant housewives — by no means are they all passive, or quiet. Nor are all their children invested in traditional gender roles.

I also want to note that my parents did not do everything on their own. Though their choices continue to be thought of as slightly bizarre by most people, they did have support, most notably from their relatives, most of whom were dirtpoor and live in villages in Sri Lanka. I make this explicit because I don’t want to hear that I or my parents are espousing some kind of “Western” feminism that is alien to rural/traditional/South Asian Islam. Additionally, I want to recognise that they could not have gone as far as they did without that familial support. Families who don’t have access to those kinds of networks are necessarily shunted into more constrictive formations.

– June 22.

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“If a woman has a child [and] she abandons that responsibility in pursuit of an empty career or the idea of making her mark on the world, she has completely misunderstood the great importance and the great responsibility that she has been given by God, in that the fruit of her womb is before her.”
“So if a woman brings children into this world and then dumps them in a daycare centre … and if she thinks somehow she is doing something more important by going out and working, I think there’s something very seriously wrong with her maternal instincts. Because abandonment in the animal kingdom, abandonment is alien to animals.”
“I am amazed that there’s children out there that are really struggling to find a purpose to their life in a world that is telling them constantly, including their parents by abandoning them, that that they are worthless.”
“If you don’t listen to your soul, you’ll end up on antidepressants.”
- Interview with Hamza Yusuf, undated.

My father is a very forceful man and he looks it. In high school, my male friends tended to melt away from around me whenever my father appeared. He’s also, in many ways, very conservative: he wears a thobe on a regular basis; is an ardent supporter of the Tabligh Jamaat, which he credits with restoring his faith when he was young; and has often talked favorably about the niqab. He is a strong believer in following the sunnah, though I sometimes think that in emulating the prophet, he’s got him confused with god.

My mother was one of — if not the — first Muslim women in Gampola to become a doctor, this despite the rampant sexism and racism of the time. She excelled in her studies and later in her work, even when dealing with the rampant sexism and racism of Saudi Arabia, where she spent a decade as an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist. When she married my father she didn’t wear a hijab. It was after she’d become a mother of two and moved to study in England for a while on her own that she decided to adopt it, because she felt that it helped her keep the faith in what was then not the multicultural UK we know now. When we migrated to Canada nine years ago, because she was an International Medical Graduate, my mother had to do a series of requalifying exams. My parents made the joint decision then that it would be her — and not my father’s — income that would sustain our household. To that end, while she spent most of the day studying in university carrels, and later being a medical student, my father put aside his own career ambitions in engineering so that he could stay at home more often. He took on jobs with flexible hours; invariably these were jobs that paid little: tutoring or low-level engineering positions, the kinds that are physically taxing for old men and disheartening for someone who was capable of much more. Continue reading this entry »