The New Arab Home — Motherhood

Thank God, Madam, that today there is no longer anyone to deny us women the loftiness of the purpose for which we were created, or to dispute with us the absolute authority in the management of this little kingdom — the home. And what purpose is loftier than the management of the household, which is in truth the supreme department, where the individual must learn his first lesson in ordering and organization, so that he emerges from it fully qualified to take charge of the departments of the state — political, social, and literary..... Accordingly, the responsibility that rests upon us is a great one, obliging us to study the subject from all its sides at every favorable opportunity, whether by way of reading the books written for this purpose or by profiting from those who have more experience than we.

There is no doubt that this subject of ours still calls for our serious and speedy attention, that we may raise the level of our Arab home, which to this day lacks a great deal in this respect. The towering buildings and sumptuous palaces that we see multiplying day by day throughout the country are not what is meant by the home we seek and call for — no!! The home the nation demands is that home which fulfills the conditions of health and nourishment, which contains the marks of art and beauty while observing economy and thrift, whether it be a splendid palace or a humble hut. It is that home to which the nation can entrust the protection of the family and its happiness, and the rearing of children in like habits and similar inclinations, so that the bonds of affection and brotherhood among its members grow strong, and the ties between it and the various Arab lands grow ever firmer in trust and loyalty.

There is no end of soothsaying that numbs our nerves, until we no longer feel the weight of the responsibility laid upon our shoulders toward it — above all upon that mother who holds it to her breast. For she is the first and last repository of the trust of the ages and the secret of life. Yet most of us, alas, surrender to this kind of numbing of the nerves in the face of this supreme responsibility — though we are by no means heedless of whatever touches our national dignity: then we rise up and rush with fervor beyond all fervor to ask how we are to advance, how we are to climb the ladder of modern civilization — this civilization the West has attained and thereby robbed us of that dignity — how we are to unite upon what serves the country's good, how we are to put aside divisions and differences and cross the barriers that ignorance has raised among us; how, and by what means, we can prepare the nation's leaders and rulers — the men who will steer the helm of great affairs, take the nation's destinies in hand, and carry it either upward or downward... We repeat these questions and their like at the blowing of every wild storm

My sister woman! Here is motherhood calling you to listen a moment while it is spoken of — not because I, as the speaker, deserve this hearing, but because of the ties between you and me, the kindred states of soul, and the shared womanly responsibilities where motherhood is concerned — this office with which the Lord Most High has singled us out, to tend it and to keep it. Duty summons us to mutual understanding and an exchange of thought concerning this human trust — this child — whom the Creator of the worlds fashioned in His image and likeness, and in whom He deposited such powers as guarantee to him and to us the continuance of life and the endurance of existence, between my arms and yours, my sister woman.

Yes, there is none among us who denies the importance of this dear child, who has scarcely come into the world before all eyes turn toward him and the exaggeration begins about what is in him and about him — intelligence and beauty, and what is destined for him in the future of aptitude, genius, and precedence in the world of learning and work, and to

grievous — without a single voice rising among us to answer them with the frank, convincing answer that admits of no third — the answer that contains the source of the supreme power which guarantees us the attainment of the goal we strive for: that source which readies the powers latent in every living creature to thrust them into the struggle of life, be it for good or for ill — the mother's bosom.

Yes, it is you, my sister, who are responsible for all this disorder, without knowing it. And why?... Because throughout the generations they would not acknowledge this truth to you; so they denied you your right to the learning and the freedom that would fit you to assume the supreme office for which you were created — to receive this child with competence and worthiness, and to give him to drink, along with the milk, those precious principles that form peoples and create men: independence of thought, the keeping of time, the acknowledgment of error, the fulfillment of promises, courage in the cause of right, steadfastness in principle, and truthfulness of speech. And by any qualities but these, is the life they demand to be hoped for?...

No... by my life, there is no way to obtain it except through the mothers. Here are our honored leaders, in whom we take pride, and in all the courage, daring, and sacrifice they have been given, so that they have been to us as the very pupil of the eye. Ask them — with a brother's familiarity — which of them does not feel a choking pang in the depths of his breast at the hidden weaknesses that block his path, so that he scarcely advances one step forward before falling steps backward. And why?... I have no answer, nor have you, except that the mother who cradled them, and the one who cradled me, did not perform their office in the matter of an ordered home upbringing; and so she spoiled their efforts for them, and blinded our eyes to the perception of that duty which, if we do not render it its due, forfeits us the right of guardianship over the pieces of our own hearts — for then a hired maidservant from among the common people, who tends them, has a better claim than we to their affection, and to the nation's affection for her.

This shall not be so with me and with you, O daughter of my country. Rather we shall do the impossible to keep this bond, this love, and this mutual respect between us and the pieces of our hearts as long as we live... God willing, we shall overcome the shortcomings and faults that are in us by the guidance of these works on upbringing, from which we shall choose the best to guide us in the matter of rearing them; and all of us, thank God, can now read well. But if that should be beyond us, we shall not fail, whatever it may cost us, to cleanse our souls step by step of moral faults, harmful habits, and unseemly words, so that we may be the good example to them in all we do or say, and they may grow up respecting us and loving us and respecting themselves — and that is the height of happiness for us and for them.

Not for a single hour shall it slip from our minds what influence example has upon the lives of our children. Everything the child sees, or hears, or tastes, or touches, or smells leaves in his brain a trace, either good or bad. Hence when things and matters resembling those that crossed his path before present themselves to him later, he avoids them if they left a bad trace in his brain, and welcomes them if their lasting trace was good. Thus his ideas begin to take form; ideas lead to acts; and the repetition of one act many times over founds a habit. The sum of a person's habits — of thought, of speech, and of deed — makes up the personality that governs his every motion and rest in the future of his social life.

Your child, my sister, is like a blank page: you may write upon it what you will. He accepts suggestion in all its forms; he imitates you in your voice and your movements; he laughs at what you laugh at, weeps at what you weep at, and fears what you fear — not because he understands the nature of the fearful thing, but in imitation of you and in likeness to you... What, then, is your course before him from this day forward?... The responsibility is a covenant God has laid upon you. "And fulfill the covenant, for the covenant shall be answered for."

Will you not resolve, then, from this day forward, to seek out those delicate possibilities and the latent spiritual powers in your child, bringing what is obscure in them to light, and tending them with the same eagerness and desire with which you tend the parts of his body and his muscles?... You will surely do it — you, the valiant Arab woman who would restore the bygone glory of her forefathers and the greatness of her sisters whose deeds history has recorded, the echo of whose works still resounds throughout this land, which has not died and, God willing, never shall.