Baby Talk & Bedroom Matters

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So provocative or what Fiza! Hahahha. and no, I'm not gonna make an uproar comments nor I want to go into details about sex life of married couples or any of that sort. Ok, let's start, bismillah.

Mr A & I have discussed about baby and family planning few months ago but this time round he asked me with much concern, serious matter. I shall not share what Mr A and I share lah kan, ni bende very private for both of us .
But just want to prep you guys yang baru tunang, masih tunang, dah nak kahwin or honeymoon period. What I'll share are some sentiments on parenthood, when and how can you embrace it.

Cut the crap of being scared nak mengandung. I get a lot of BTBs or even yg dah lepas honeymoon saying that all the hardwork dorang kuruskan badan time wedding then get fat on having a baby straight away -.-" . Nak jadi mak pon masih rasa selfish eh pikir diri sendiri? Kau nak mengandung n kurus go ahead lah, anak kau keluar kurus keding malnutrition. And no, I'm not praying for them that but its the truth, you child will have malnutrition because of insufficient vitamins, calcium and iron and zinc.

Another thing I got were, scared of is the labour part. Ini lagi satu selfish. Have you ever wondered that your parents and grand parents, even org dulu2 yg not well equipped boleh pulak bersalin anak banyak pula tu. It's nature. If you think that it's scary and painful now, how about them bersalin dulu2? Yes there are cases like lepas bersalin terus meninggal for orang dulu2 because they are not well equipped or sakit (mostly high cholesterol and high blood pressure, never checked at hospital coz takut). If you think of the pain and all, don't even plan to have a baby okay. To take care of a baby pon susah tau *sarcastic* Another thing, to all the newly mothers, dont be too blunt telling stories about labour to people who are getting married and newly weds, you'll just freak them out okay. I've been in that situation, mcm2 cerita and ngeri2 but to think of it again, how can Maryam ibu Nabi Isa can give birth on her own lagi and she only had the river and kurma tree?

Children are God gifts to parents and we embrace it with open arms. I get a lot of feedback on young couple yang nak jarakkan or want to be in couplehood for a few years and then baru nak dapat anak. It's not I'm gonna tell you is haram or what, to each it's own. For example ade yang masih belajar, belajar/kerja overseas, ade masih too young in marriage n tak buat a lot of preparation bla3. BUT sometimes, plan punya plan punya plan, then tak dapat anak because Allah is the best planner. So jangan tolak rezeki, coz Allah dah janji anak-anak adalah rezeki. Kan best, nak kaya kahwin, nak kaya, ade anak. Janji Allah itu pasti. But it doesn't mean monetary wise, can be anything actually from nurturing the children, kerje senang got appraised, duit tak pernah tak cukup walaupun gaji tak besar, your parents and in-law in good terms and health.

17:31

And do not kill your children for fear of poverty. We provide for them and for you. Indeed, their killing is ever a great sin.

Dan janganlah kamu membunuh anak-anak kamu kerana takutkan kepapaan; Kamilah yang memberi rezeki kepada mereka dan kepada kamu. Sesungguhnya perbuatan membunuh mereka adalah satu kesalahan yang besar. (Surah Al-Isra’: 31)


24:32

 And marry the unmarried among you and the righteous among your male slaves and female slaves. If they should be poor, Allah will enrich them from His bounty, and Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.

 Dan kahwinkanlah orang-orang bujang (lelaki dan perempuan) dari kalangan kamu, dan orang-orang yang soleh dari hamba-hamba kamu, lelaki dan perempuan. Jika mereka miskin, Allah akan memberikan kekayaan kepada mereka dari limpah kurniaNya kerana Allah Maha Luas (rahmatNya dan limpah kurniaNya), lagi Maha Mengetahui. - An Nur: 32

But to summarize it, don't go on rash, oh nak kaya ade anak lah but without thinking of responsibilities and how to take care of them. We have to equip ourselves the parenthood skills. It must be done earlier, during planning or even, before marriage.

Ask yourself:
  1. What time of family do you want? 
  2. What type of children do you want, how many? 
  3. What kind of education do you want them to be in?
  4. How do you want to raise them?
  5. Whether you have enough savings?
These kind of questions always plays in our mind and *BAMMMMM* responsibilities started to shout really loud at your ears. Try to focus our objectives in life and what is your purpose here in this world. By then, you can answer one by one easily.

1. Family - I've been a madrasah student my whole 13 years of national education and working in government school for 2 years. There's so much family background of the students and the undesired ones, the being left out by parents kinda kid, the parents have no money and dont want to work, the parents having affairs in front of the kid. You definitely don't want a broken family nor the one in waywardness. So think carefully, this also depends on the person you found too on how his/her family are. You are going to provide the next generation of people, whether they are going to be useful, impactful. All parents have the same objective, they want their kids to be better than them but you must know that in order to embrace that, you have to open embrace it with open arms. I have friends whom their parents sent to madrasah but she thinks madrasah is just like normal school only religious (wear tudung) so it didn't impact her. Moreover, her whole family and relatives are not the religious type and it's hard for her to fit in. There's another girl, when she was P4 she asked an ustazah whether she has to listen to her mother (disobedience) when her mother asked her to take off her tudung when she goes out with the mother. The mother claimed that it would make her look bad that she dont wear tudung and her daughter P4 wearing and disobedience if the mother if she doesn't listen to her mother. This case, the daughter can ignore the mother because the order from Allah is higher than the mother. Pity the child in dilemma. So think carefully of what type of family do you want.

2. Children - This is self thought or between your spouse on whether you want a doctor or lawyer or ustaz. And then you can plan your way for the next question. For me, I want healthy kids and be useful people in the society. How many, depends on the last questions. 

3. Education - This question can linked back to the previous question. Whether elite school, neighbouring school, independent school, madrasah and it ropes in the last question again. For me, the most important is to see the potential of the kids, whether they are academic, artistic or religious incline during their preschool and to include religious studies no matter any school that they joined.

4. Raising a child is never easy. You can't raise your child how your parents raised you because you are in a different era but by saying that doesn't mean you can't take the good things that your parents thought you. My era was the new age of computer and internet but when my parents' time there wasn't even internet. They only have bulky handphone which is not affordable and computers were still in DOS system. I love how Americans and Australians bond with their kids compared to Asian parents but my parents are exceptional coz they are awesome people.They are very lepak and we all can talked about anything with anyone, ANYTHING!  Books available on parenthood mengikuti sunnah nabi. One of it is by Imam As-Sadeq: “Let your child be free to play until they reach the age of seven. For the next seven years, keep a watchful eye on him, and finally befriend him for another seven year. Then if he succeeds; otherwise, there is no good in him.” There is so many articles that you can read about it. I'll link it below as reference.

5. $$$$ - yess government give like only $12k and that's not enough okay. You have to start investing till their post secondary school at least. And to have many kids, you have to know how to manage well on the saving. Open up a separate account for your kids, top up every single time and eventually you will have enough by the time. And let's be practical, we are staying in Singapore where everything needs money. You can't have a sole breadwinner and having to pay ALL the bills, school fees, expenses, food, transport and clothing. Your dream to become domestic goddess just a dream unless your husband is a CEO of some big company earning big shot lah kan.hahaha.

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I know most of you looking forward this part. heheheh. and again I repeat, nothing provocative, just some advices which I know some ladies are still confuse of this matter.

Bedroom matters or sexual intercourse between man and wife is something every newlyweds looking forward to, because it is fitrah. BUT, doesn't mean that it is fitrah, you can abuse the rights and adab. Many muslims don't like to discuss this matter or saying that it is such an intimate matter, very provocative and taboo to say it out loud. So they let it alone be in that way until marriage and they do not know what to do.

Islam have guidelines on how to get into sexual intercourse between husband and wife. I shall not explain here because is very very very long. From the adabs on how to prepare yourself for sexual intercourse, the haram things that you should avoid, the doa's and what you should and shouldn't do before, during and after intercourse. But I want to emphasise that sexual intercourse is fitrah but we have to think of the purpose.

The purposes of course have to link back to Lillahi taala: 

  1. Having to express fitrah in halal way and get pahala (gratifying his gift to us)
  2. To have offsprings (ramaikan umat nabi)
  3. To have a good relationship between husband and wife (amanah yg Allah berikan)

There are so many hadith from Rasullullah regarding intimacy with spouses. Among them are:
Muslim has transmitted the hadith from Abu Sa`id that the Prophet , said: "If one of you has gone into his wife, and desires to approach her again, then he should first do wudhu, and then have intercourse again."
The Prophet also said: "If one of you has gone into his wife and has said, 'In the Name of Allah, keep shaytan away from us, and keep shaytan away from what You grant us,' then the child that is destined to come from them will never be troubled by shaytan."
Al-Bukhari has transmitted the hadith that a man should not go to sleep until he has done wudhu, as was commanded by the Prophet , according to the hadith of `Ayesha and others.
Aisha (r.a) reported that the Holy Prophet used to mend his shoes, sew his clothes and work in his household just as one of you works in his own house. She also reported that he was a man among men who used to patch his clothes, milk his goats and engage himself in work. [Tirmidhi]
Aisha (r.a) reported:  It was the day of celebration and the Abyssinians were playing with shields and spears; either I asked the Prophet or he asked me whether I would like to watch. I said yes. Then the Prophet made me stand behind him while my cheek was touching his cheek and he was saying, “Carry on, O Banu Arfida,” until I became tired. The Prophet asked me, “Are you satisfied?” I said yes, so I left.[Sahih Bukhari, Book 15, Number 70]
And there's a lot more but I shall let you do some reading yourself. I want to share the rights of man to his wife and wife to her man in the bedroom. Some ladies think that wives have to please man every single time and not the other way around. Islam never denotes and left wives all cold. If you remember what the rights are:

  • Man has 1 thing to fulfill the rights of his wife which is Nafkah. Nafkah is divided into two:1) Nafkah zahir (house, food, clothes) 2) Nafkah batin (sexual intercourse) 
Rasulullah SAW dalam hadisnya bermaksud, " Sebaik-baik kamu adalah yang terbaik terhadap keluarganya dan aku adalah yang terbaik daripada kamu terhadap keluargaku. Orang yang memuliakan kaum wanita adalah orang yang mulia, dan orang yang menghina kaum wanita adalah orang yang tidak mempunyai budi pekerti." (riwayat Abu Asakir).
Rasulullah SAW dalam hadisnya bermaksud, "Takutlah kepada Allah, di dalam memimpin isteri-isterimu, kerana sesungguhnya mereka adalah amanah yang ada disampingmu, barangsiapa tidak memerintahkan agar isterinya mengerjakan solat, dan mengerjakan agama kepadanya, maka ia telah berkianat kepada Allah dan Rasul-Nya.

Terdapat beberapa cara untuk menggauli isteri secara baik antaranya tidak membuka rahsia isteri serta memperkatakannya di hadapan masyarakat umum. Dalam hadis yang diriwayatkan oleh Muslim, Rasulullah SAW bersabda, "Seburuk-buruk manusia disisi Allah pada hari Kiamat adalah seorang lelaki yang menceritakan hubungan dengan isterinya dan isteri yang berhubungan dengan suaminya lalu menyebarluaskan rahsia mereka."
"Isteri-istei kamu adalah seperi kebun tempat kamu bercucuk tanam, maka datangilah kebun tempat kamu bercucuk tanam itu bagaimana sahaja yang kamu kehendaki." (Al Baqarah: 223)
Rasulullah SAW dalam hadisnya bermaksud, "Perbaikilah wanita, kerana sesungguhnya wanita itu diciptakan dari tulang rusuk. Paling bengkoknya tulang rusuk itu adalah di bahagian atasnya. Jika meluruskannya terlalu keras., maka ia akan pecah. Dan jika dibiarkan, maka ia akan tetap bengkok. Maka perbaikilah wanita itu dengan cara yang baik.
"Hai sekelian manusia, bertaqwalah kepada Tuhanmu yang telah menciptakan kamu dari diri yang satu, daripadanya pula Allah menciptakan pasangannya, dan dari keduanya dikembangkan laki-laki dan wanita-wanita yang ramai. Dan bertaqwalah kepada Allah dengan (menggunakan) nama-Nya kamu saling meminta satu sama lain; dan (peliharalah) hubungan silaturrahim. Sesungguhnya Allah sentiasa mengawasi kamu." (An-Nisa': 1)
  • Wife has to fulfill one thing, obey him as long as he didnt go against the rulings of Allah and Rasullullah. Obeying also includes fulfilling his sexual needs.

Rasulullah SAW dalam hadisnya bermaksud, "Hak suami atas isterinya (tanggungjawab isteri terhadap suaminya), bahawa isteri tidak boleh meninggalkan hamparan (tilam) suaminya, hendaklah menerima dengan baik pemberian suaminya, hendaklah taat pada perintah suaminya, tidak boleh keluar dari rumahnya kecuali dengan izin suaminya, dan tidak boleh membawa (membenarkan) orang yang dibenci oleh suaminya masuk ke dalam rumahnya." (riwayat Al-Tabrani)

Why do I want to talk about bedroom matters and baby talk? Read this article regarding the suffering wife in lack of intimacy with her husband because he is the perfect dad. How children impacted their marriage. It's inter-related in every way.

Then, balance up the article Islamically with this beautiful article from Aquila and Muslim Matters regarding the rights of women, mainly wives. I'm not being feminist but Muslimahs and wives need to know your rights too. Islam doesn't give husbands the rights to just obey him, he also have to fulfill your needs too. Islam is beautiful and the way of life :)

With this article, I hope that our community will change the perspective of family and take it with much seriousness and responsibility because year by year, the Malay Muslim community will be the highest to fill for divorce and the 1st reason year after year is adultery. This is alarming and scary. We pray that we will be staying together with each other and do not get involve with this. Nauzubillah min zalik.

Articles about Islamic way of parenting:

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