Teenager? Not Yet!

I feel like I'm already raising a teenager. MashaAllah, she is still very polite and considerate, but it seems like I'm correcting or scolding all the time!! For instance, washing her hair has been a big fight lately. It has progressively gotten worse and worse to the point where I had to tell her that we are cutting her hair up to her shoulders (it is about to the middle of her back right now). I can't let her keep it long if she's not going to take care of it!

So today I washed it myself. InshaAllah she notices the difference. I'm trying so hard to not make her feel bad, but it seriously looked so gross!! I reminded her of the hadith that cleanliness is half of faith... we Muslims need to be clean. Allah gave us this body and we need to take care of it in this world.

Other note - I want to build bridges between myself and family members so we aren't the outcasts because of our different faith. It seems though that the similarities are far less than the differences. If we talk about things down to their core and root topics, we agree, but I think the general assumption is that we are too far removed to agree on anything so things I talk about are "extreme" or I'm just some hippy in the 21st century. It feels so political. When did politics get so entangled in religion? I mean, Islam promotes religion and politics being hand in hand, but we're in the country of separation of church and state. Hmph... yeah right.