The other day the boys were outside playing with their friends when I called them in to pray ‘Asr.
There was another Muslim kid as well and she too decided to go home to pray at the same time. :) Alhamdulillah.
As they were walking away, the neighbor kid said to my boys and the girl, “You guys pray? I’ve never prayed a day in my life!”
My youngest was the one who told me the story when he walked in and then he said, “Mommy, I can’t believe he doesn’t pray!”
And then my eldest said, “Yeah, and yet he still believes that Santa Claus is real!”
Here’s the backstory on that:
Last week, the boy, who is 8 years old, said something about Santa Claus. My oldest son responded, “You do know that Santa Claus isn’t real, right?”
He replied, “Yes, he is!”
My son let it go but then the next day the father approached both of my boys when his son wasn’t around and said, “Hey, I heard that you guys talked about Santa Claus with B—–, would you mind just going along with it please?”
When my son told me the story he was surprised that the parents would lie to their son like that.
I explained that while we absolutely do not do that, people from other cultures have their own beliefs and we have to be respectful. I was proud of him for agreeing to go along with it (i.e., not debating it with him again) and told him that next time someone professes to believe in something that he doesn’t believe in, to not try to convince them otherwise by shutting down what they believe, but to be respectful.
He came in yesterday and told me, “Mommy, B—— lost his tooth. So to make him feel better, I said to him, "Did the Tooth Fairy pay you a visit? And he said yes!”
He said he decided to be respectful and not say anything (even though he wanted to), but he still felt it was strange that the parents would teach their kids to believe in things that weren’t real but not really teach them to pray to God.
Alhamdulillah, this is yet another example of fitra. All children have it, and most can sense when things just don’t seem right.
May Allah ﷻ guide our children, preserve their fitra, help them to discern truth from falsehood, and protect their hearts from arrogance and ignorance. Amin.
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