"A Place For Us"

   
     In Fatima Farheen Mirza's "A Place For Us," a young husband and wife born and raised in India move to America and have two daughters and a son.  Along with the typical challenges of most families, they also try to keep the culture, traditions, and behavioral norms associated with being Muslim.  They often experience the difficulties of assimilation and being a minority of a different race and religion.
     The children "were told not to question the way God worked, not to think too much into it.  That it was a mystery."  The daughters were taught: "Modesty - the highest value a woman can embody, and the most crucial.  Without it, a woman is nothing."  "It is up to the girls to do what they can to protect the boys from sin."  As the eldest daughter Hadia begins to grow up, "She knows her father.  His pride, his values, his adherence to religious rules.  They are more important than love."   She "became  more aware of her choices, of what was important for her to keep and what had just been an inherited, unexamined habit."
     The son Amar "detests, most of all, the importance placed on maintaining a sense of decorum that feels stifling, false."  He realizes "his sisters never experience the doubts he was feeling, that they never shake in the certainty of being Muslim."
     The father Rafiq believed, "I had laid the foundation of our family on the principles of our faith and our customs.  I had set standards for what we expect of each of you."  Later in life, he realized, "Anger was my worst attribute."  "I have no duty toward them except loving them."
     Most parents of every religion try to instill their values upon their children, but their insistence upon their way can cause many problems.  Some children will continue in the ways of their parents perhaps with small alterations.  Other children will adopt their own way.  If parents have a home that does not allow their offspring to blossom into their own adulthood, they may rebel in unhealthy ways or leave home altogether.  Accept the idea that as your children mature, they have a right to choose for themselves.  Create a comfortable, loving place for your family.