Childcare–affordability, and childcare during school breaks/sick days!?

Schools–dropping off and picking up, also finding an accommodating position within these hours or a sitter for after-school pick up.

Resume Gap due to being a SAHM–not a big worry, but add that to being a mom, a plus sized one, and an “older” woman—Arghhh!

I get sick a lot, and have carpal tunnel-ish symptoms.

At the moment I have no work clothes.

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I may need to be able to earn a full wage at some point as well, and function as a single parent. Despite all this I want to stay positive and hopeful, that I can find something within my range that I can do.

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Nerve wracking, isn’t it? So much for staying positive. It lasts about a minute. The obstacles to becoming a self sufficient provider for your kids, as a woman, and a person without a “career” or “marketable skill” are just enormous.  Damn.

Almost makes fixing a marriage or accepting your lot look easier. Sell yourself for ease of existence. Sex for security. For food and shelter. Accept your lot and change your attitude–a la religious doctrine or Stepford Wives.

I’m mad at myself for not being a strong woman, a well worked woman, a person who knows themself…before getting married and producing kids. It would help so much to know firmly that I CAN take care of myself. Even if you choose to stay home and raise kids, it is beneficial to know you can fall back on yourself if need be, it might even give you a paid hobby–you know something “grown up” to do on the side, once they get older. Once you have kids, it is so much harder to get your footing and find the time, money, or childcare arrangements to get yourself into a better position. Men can be damn good husbands but they will never fulfill you. You need to fulfill yourself first, and keep doing it once married and with kids.

Filed under: Uncategorized ]]> http://ummmalaak.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/need-a-job/feed/ 0 Aischa http://ummmalaak.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/creative-every-day-theme-for-january-new-creative-every-day/ http://ummmalaak.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/creative-every-day-theme-for-january-new-creative-every-day/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:30:02 +0000 Aischa http://ummmalaak.wordpress.com/?p=1045 ]]>  

Creative Every Day Theme for January:  New

We will see what comes of this…maybe my lovely sketch book will become filled, maybe I will enjoy a routine of a small daily challenge…

I have about 2 hours totally free during school days and plenty of time when the kids are home and playing.

Inshallah.

What the hell have we done to ourselves!? We no longer have access to the environment, for food and survival. We have traded so much in, and made it difficult to survive with dignity, on very little or to put a positive spin on it–by the blessings of our ingenuity and hardiness.  I do not think we can turn back the clock and live primal* anymore. I know everything is very complex, and I am in no shape to argue the merits of modern society vs. close-to-the-earth living like I’d like to.

Nowadays, with the economy, debt, inadequate amounts of affordable housing options, fear of loosing your job, your health care,  squeaking by….It’s just too much. We can’t even feed ourselves because we have no place to grow food, and people don’t garden enough to share with those that can’t. We can’t easily afford a plot of land to erect an affordable dwelling.  You can’t really live in a tent with out getting harassed. You can’t even pitch a tent on private land with permission from the owner (this was something I read a long time ago). Where do you go when everything falls apart? I feel so much has to change about how we live. We live in fear, and we are not coming together in meaningful and effective ways yet.

I recently read Ammonite by Nicola Griffith which was pretty neat because it both offered the experience of very sheltered, modern women of the space age and that of what I’d call a very advanced, low-tech, close-to-the-earth, tribal society—of women. The main character has to adapt to living unplugged from convenience with the native population, and is forced to change to survive. In the end it was all worth it. Yes, she lost fingers, got sick, gained hideous scars–but she came out a wiser, richer person for it. Anyway, I found it uplifting. Loved the book, loved it’s message.

*If you know the right work for this, please share. I can’t seem to find what I need. Primitive comes to mind, but it has a rather derogatory feel to it.

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I posted this over a year ago and it is still relevant, especially so with what is going on in the world.

The Antidote • Grains of Sand Magnified X 250 (via thepegelow:).

Goodreads | Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood by Karen Maezen Miller – Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists.

Also testing buttons and apps….

This is so fitting given all the wonderful, soul saving discussions going on on facebook right now. I was hanging by a thread with my faith. Ready to just move on, if not for the havoc it would wreak on my family. In the end though, Islam is for me. I have to wear blinders though, and remember to just look at the Quran, and the bare bones rituals of worship to remind me of what a beautiful religion it can be.

The other stuff, I am ready to let go of (inshallah): fatwas, not offending anyone by being (politely) myself, ignorance and racism, place of women and children in the masjid or community, piety focused on “proper” clothes, etc…  All that crap. Yes, crap. I’m sorry to say that this is the only fitting word for it. My three biggest issues left are: crappy husbands, the whole Sufism vs Non-Sufi Islam, and swimming. Not that I swim anymore.

Starting with swimming. I am utterly ashamed my kids don’t know how to swim. Nor have they been around enough natural bodies of water, for the sheer joy of the experience. Don’t tell me I can just swim in hijab, because you know what, it is thoroughly awful and a royal pain to have to change in or out, especially with kids. And it just feels awful having wet cloth everywhere. Having a pool in your own home, surrounded by tall trees blocking the neighbor’s view is another story, but not mine. I miss nature, I miss swimming. I grew up mucking around ponds and rivers. Later we were blessed to swim in the Merced river, a pristine flow direct from Yosemite Valley. It soothes the soul to be in such water, surrounded by such beauty. Now I can’t swim anymore, my muscles are gone, and moving with clothes in water, as you know is not fun. The cost of an Islamic Swimsuit is prohibitive, especially since you can’t try one on to make sure it fits.  As the Mom, the job of educating my daughters is on my shoulders right now, since my husband is busy with work and school.  Hearing the swimmers on the other side of the fence at our local playground, makes my soul yearn for water. I will never reconcile this injustice!

Bad Husbands. God. No wonder the Islamic World is in crisis. I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard, though I am sure you have heard your share. I am stunned by the ignorance and arrogance of these men, some of whom have done things that would justify instant divorce or castration. Sorry. I make sure to thank Allah for what I have and make dua for these women, and sometimes, I make dua for the men to get a clue.  How can we advance as an ummah if our men are not good husbands? Why are women so scared of divorce? Some of these women think they will get jannah for suffering with patience. Something is seriously wrong with marriage in Islam, whether is is abusive husbands, marriages for green cards, or overseas problems like crazy expensive barriers to marriage.  My heart aches. May Allah heal us. Make people humble and kind to one another, not make marriage hard, and guide us. Amin.

The last issue is me, wavering between the allure of austere Islam, which I enjoy for it’s straight up approach and Sufi Islam, for the color and joy I see in it. I’m not comfortable with some aspects of Sufism, but I appreciate the focus on improving one’s self and brotherhood. I am also a sucker for farms and any lecture that has rooster or cow in the back ground–this just appeals to the child in me who loved the hippie farms my parents took me to. The straight up, non-Sufi Islam appeals to me, for it’s lack of spiritual frills. When I converted I was a skeptic atheist, sort of drawn to, perhaps, pagan beliefs. So I spent time in a lot of new age books stores in the last year before conversion, and I worked in a bookstore down the street from a natural healing school. I loved our customers, but I could never take them seriously. And as much as I loved the new age shops, and wicca–it just didn’t do it for me, other than the incense and crystals. Sufism sort of fits into this because the new age shops all had the Idries Shah books, which interested me though they always felt tailored to not serious, not practicing psuedo Muslim hippies. God forgive me for all this bashing, but this is where my stigma comes from, and where my interest in straight up no nonsense islam comes in. However after awhile it is not fulfilling and certainly not helpful for a convert who is ready for something more. I mean, after you learn the basics, what next?  Perhaps this is a failure on the part of immigrant mosques to address the spiritual needs of converts in the long run, after the high is gone?

I don’t care anymore. I am not going to write off anyone. Every Muslim, is Muslim. There are people and places that may suit you better, alhamdulillah. Go where you need to go, go where there is love, and inspiration. I’m still stuck trying to sort out conflicting information, hadiths can be found for and against everything it seems. It is more than I can handle to sort out, I admit this, I’m still confused. I don’t want to read anymore hadiths. You are lucky if you whole-heartedly fall into a category of Islam that you and your spouse are comfortable with.

In the end, let’s see. 1o years, and not much has changed. Having a husband and kids sort of slows you down, unless your spouse is active and encourages you to be active. I struggled a lot with trying to maintain my deen while being overwhelmed as a mother. My kids are older now, not old enough to be patience during jummuah, and my home situation is not conducive to getting out for a much needed halaqa (of any sort).  I got over the post-partum depression, more or less, and was able to pray on time again. That period was really difficult, not being able to maintain prayers really does a number one’s self esteem.  Nowadays thing are better, though I have often felt like giving up on Islam.  My iman is still low, but I’m working on it. Trying to reconcile being me, who I am , who I was, and this secular dunya that I love—- with the spiritual side of myself. Not easy, but I am hopeful. I am tired of this facade of self-suppressing piety. I am ready for something authentic, yet halal.

Meeting like minded sisters via blogs and then facebook, has really helped fill in that empty, isolated feeling. I miss some of the blogs that I used to read, that are no more. It’s rather sad to see a blogger disappear, not that they owe anybody an explanation. Inshallah I do look forward to my situation changing, because I am ready to move on and do my part in the community regardless of any fitna.   All the lovely sisters that I know are spread across the globe, maybe by being brave and true to oneself, we can like minded people at home too. And meet up when we get to travel, inshallah. We are a network for each other. I love you all.

10 years as a Muslim, and I am still trying to figure out the middle path and how to meld who I am, with who I was, and who I “should” be Islamically.

10 years and I still need to learn Arabic. Need or want, either is fine. I want the beauty of the quran recited to be heard as words I comprehend.

10 years, and now I have to be a better Muslim so my kids will respect me when I teach them about Islam—something I wonder if I am qualified to do considering my internal quandrys and deviations. In college, how many times did I hear that word “dichotomy”? I used to laugh every time I heard this word, and here I am—a dichotomy. A whole, partitioned into two halves. Myself, the one with my past, and my preferences for life, and this other Muslim self. I really would prefer to be whole, but I am skeptical they can be one. Can religion make one crazy? Ugh!

Holy Cow! Am I a hypocrite these days? God help me!

I need directions. Step-by-step directions. I need clarity and renewed iman.

I need to find my love for Islam again. I need to learn how to coexist with myself or how to cauterize the part that grates against Islam.

Reflections on the Convert/Non-Convert Divide: In Search of Belonging By Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

and for something more personal, please browse the comment’s section for other bloggers:

Convert Truths Blogival

From my fav local Imam, Imam Luqman Ahmad. Please check the comments on the first post for excellent commentary:

The Decline of American Muslim Indigenous Communities

The Decline of Indigenous American Muslim Communities, by Imam Luqman Ahmad Part 2: Self Splintering

The Decline of Indigenous American Muslim Communities Part 3: Undervaluing the Muslim Woman