Being entrusted with another woman's baby is a noble station in life. It is a position of trust because children are most impressionable during their first years. During that period, the child’s basic character and self-image are formed.
I recently weaned my fifth child. Like all of her siblings before her, I breastfed her from birth until two years old, Alhamdulilah. Weaning her was an emotional time for me.
Becoming pregnant while breastfeeding can cause a conundrum: should you stop nursing your child? Will breastfeeding harm the fetus in any way? Can you continue to nurse your toddler after the baby is born?
Breastfeeding is a joyous and simultaneously unnerving feature of motherhood. Physically, it established a foundation of nutritional health that can have a positive impact on the child into adulthood.
Once upon a time, when I was a young, fresh-faced new Muslim, I used to dream about what life would be like after marriage. I thought about what the perfect age would be when I found my prospective husband and whether we would have children. Would it be right away or would we wait?
I’m an avid supporter of breastfeeding for those who choose it but I’ve never enjoyed the often polarized and unsolicited judgments that others offer up on the topic. Too often, breastfeeding gets presented as either love-it or hate-it relationship, a must-have or a mom-fail.
The recognition of skin color, racial identity, and lineage have been a part of human interaction since human beings have wandered the Earth. Our brains tend to categorize people at first glance.