Naheed hobbled
painfully down the hall with her walker to her suite. Her mother met us in the hall and exclaimed, “You
are Naheed’s mother!” “No, No, Sahar, I
am not Naheed’s mother. You are her mother,” I stated strongly. How quickly our Muslim friends
can look to us as their mothers. It may feel like a high honor being bestowed
but in reality it is a situation we need to be wise about.
A Muslim family desired to return to Iran to
teach in a university. They wanted to leave their two teen-age children here so
they would have more freedom and opportunities. I’ll never forget the evening
the couple came over to our home and asked us if we would be the children’s
mother and father here. We were not prepared to take that responsibility on and
declined. Instant wisdom is needed in these kinds of situations. We believed it
was best they all stay together which was more important than freedom and
opportunities.
Amina is a stressed out university student. Her stress
had been building for years because her mom and dad fought continuously. She
made an unusual cultural decision and moved out on her own which brought disapproval from her community. She planned to distance herself from
her mom and dad. Barbara felt sorry for her and began acting like a mother to
Amina. An unhealthy possessive relationship developed where Amina began feeling
trapped. One day when the stress became
too much she moved back into her parent’s home temporarily. Barbara became
confused. By all appearances Barbara’s goal had not been to encourage reconciliation between Amina and her birth parents but to satisfy her own need of having a daughter.
If there is one thing Muslim women have in common it
is a love for their mothers and an overwhelming desire to have them close by; especially when they immigrate to the west. They feel lost without them. Their
search and yearning for mother reminds me of a clip on YouTube of Dr. Seuss’s book, “Are You My Mother?”(click). This is an excellent story to discuss with Muslim women. It is
natural for them to gravitate towards us to take the place of their mothers.
However, this comes with high expectations which we can not possibly fulfill
and may produce confusion and disappointment. I have needed wisdom to understand what my role and boundaries should be. The same goes for when a single mom decides my husband should be
the father for her teen age sons. It may all seem honorable and exciting for a
time but then we realize their expectations are too high. I’ve learned to be
cautious about becoming someone’s “mom”.
I prefer to have them think of me as “auntie” which doesn’t come with so
many expectations, or simply a friend. Even
then, I have discovered that Easterners have a much greater expectation of
auntie or friend then we have in our culture.
Ultimately, we are all searching for our heavenly
Parent, who can truly meet our needs.