Your Purpose Beyond Motherhood
Inside: Do you believe you are more than just a mother? Have you ever thought: ‘I have dreams, an education (that I am not using), skills and passions that I enjoy but how can I use them? What is my purpose beyond motherhood?’ If you say ‘Yes’. then this post is for you.
We have been raised to believe that a mother’s job is to just nurture – take care of her children and raise them to be successful. But sometimes in the middle of it all, we mothers wonder about our own dreams that we had growing up. Sometimes, there is guilt but mostly, there is just dissatisfaction in how life turned out.
Do you wonder about your purpose in life? Do you think you are more than just a mother? In this post, we are talking about this very topic – why mothers need to dream big and have a purpose beyond just being mothers and the first step to doing that.
We are all more than just moms
I once went to a party where the hostess asked us all to share a little bit about who we are and what we do. When I spoke about myself, I talked about my company and what I do. I asked my friends to think big and have dreams beyond motherhood because each one of them was an ambassador of her culture, her family and her country.
My message to the world:
You have a lot of hobbies, talents and an education. Don’t waste it. Use them. Have a purpose beyond being just a mother. If God gave us these skills, He may ask us about them.
Later, a sister pulled me aside to say that she was an engineer by profession. She said she had worked in a reputed company back home, but now she was married, had had children and moved with her expat husband as a trailing wife. She was a stay-at-home mother now and since she had a lot of time, she was using it to study and memorize the Holy Quran.
I congratulated her on her accomplishments. But then she said:
“I want to pursue my job again, but I am worried my husband and children won’t be happy.“
Does this story sound familiar to you? I hear this all the time. Women always tell me that before their marriage they were so and so ,and this and that, but then they got married.
There is always that sense of guilt that I see in those mothers’ eyes when they tell me this. It is as if their real words are: “I failed myself.”
This sister didn’t fail herself. She is an engineer, a mother of huffaz, and on her own journey to memorizing the Holy Quran and WITH the support of her husband and her children. It is only that one thing (she studied to be an engineer and not pursuing it) that she feels guilty about. It took her a little while to realize that – that her priorities in life had changed after she had kids and that did NOT make her a failure.
Dear sister, if you relate with what I just said above, I want you to know that you are a work in progress. You shouldn’t be judging your success in life just yet…
Also, that your success is dependent on a lot of factors.
We mothers live a very complicated life.
There is a lot of judgement, unfortunately. And so little encouragement. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that most of our days are spent in our homes where we may be the only adult.
We are always alone with our thoughts. When we try to reach out for connection, through social media or otherwise, all we see is the unrealistic, filtered images of people showcasing their wins. We should try and remember that people don’t share failures and rarely the struggle in their lives. What you see is what they want you to see.
But mothers need to do things beyond just mothering. Just like fatherhood and being a dad is one part of your husband’s life, motherhood is just one part of who you are.
You don’t read about people telling the father that he will be asked about his flock on the Day of Judgement as much as they say “there is Jannah under a mother’s feet“. As if the mother’s sacrifices justified.
Mothers need some dreams and goals in their life too.
All through childhood, parents cheer their young girls through school and college. We have big dreams of “becoming somebody” and doing “great things”. We are trained to develop skills and talents, and find joy in using them. Then we get married and settle down to a mediocre life.
People tell you that your job is to become a good housewife and mother. We are told that success is only when we have well-kept homes and well-mannered children. A woman’s place is at home, they say. Good women focus all their life and energy on raising their children and being good wives.
But what about those dreams that you had growing up? What about your skills and education?
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Why are we raising our daughters to be smart with big ambitions then..?
Why don’t we teach them to be just a mother and housewife?
When I was in college, I wanted to study Bachelors in Home Science but sadly, there were only two girls who had signed up to the course so the Principal called us to say that the course wouldn’t be offered that year. I had to choose between Microbiology, Biotechnology and Nutrition. I went for Nutrition.
Guess what? Again, only three people were in the course so it was called off. I lived in a small city back then.
I chose Biotech. We were considered the smartest of them all. But when I went to University on a free seat, the male teachers would taunt us that we had deprived the less qualified, but more deserving boys.
“You Muslim girls just study for the sake of education but then you go back to just raising children,” they would mock us.
Back when I was studying, most parents didn’t want their daughters studying Home Science or Arts. Girls who study such subjects don’t get good husbands, we were told. But then these Microbiologists and Biotechnologists get married and have kids and are told they should consider staying at home.
Mothers are role models for their daughters
Have you ever noticed how doctor parents raise children who become doctors too? Or how the super rich business people raise their own kind? I’ve seen an example of this in my life too.
My mother is a Home Science Graduate. She didn’t work outside the home but she managed my father’s business even while being an expat trailing wife. She is also very social and creative. She’d throw great parties and sew or bake for us. I grew up wearing the most beautiful one-of-a-kind dresses and eating the best dishes, meeting a lot of people from different walks of life and because I was the eldest, I got to travel with her often.
She raised five kids – gave them a great education, a good upbringing and good Eman without sacrificing her dreams or hobbies. When I look back to my childhood, I remember the fun we had and the hobbies she enjoyed the most. I wanted to grow up and be just like her.
I am a Muslim woman – hijabi, niqabi and all. That is how I studied and worked. This is who I am. Throughout my childhood, I never ever felt that ‘Muslim women do not’. I understand, I may be one of the lucky few raised this way…
Muslim women can be anything they want to be.
Islam is not discriminatory. Women have a right to education; you get to keep your money and you have a right to everything. It is not the religion that prevents you from being everything you can be. It is society – your culture.
Culture doesn’t teach religion. Culture won’t take you to Heaven or bring you closer to God.
It is your mindfulness, your knowing who God is and what He placed you on this earth for, that will help you know and love God more.
Have you ever asked yourself why God gave you all those skills and talents? Why He placed you in a particular place, country, home or among the people who you are among? Have you ever wondered at the things you get to witness, see or read and hear, or the people you meet? Did that just happen by itself?
Have you wondered about sickness and calamities? The things you discover and learn that nobody else knew about… but you know?
When God has command over everything; when He is the One who knows what you do not know, and the One who sees what you do not see, then isn’t it possible that you have been placed here for a purpose?
You have a purpose beyond motherhood
There is no Prophet coming but there are wayfarers who God sends in your way who bring ease in your affairs. There are always going to be people who guide us and those who mislead us.
God gave us all a set of skills, and knowledge. He placed us in communities and in situations. There is wisdom in that.
Maybe YOU are someone’s “solution”. Maybe YOU are the problem solver – the wayfarer for someone. “Even a rock has a purpose … but it does not know.” What is your purpose?
The difference between a man’s purpose and a woman’s purpose in life
Have you noticed how men exactly know how they want to live their life? But girls are never given that liberty, are we?
My 9 year old daughter wants to be a firefighter when she grows up. Whenever she says that my husband and I both smile and say, “OKAY!” Somehow we both know that she probably wont pursue that. But if my son told me that he wanted to be a firefighter, we’d probably believe him more.
Boys are taught from a young age that they can be whatever they want to be. Nobody says “but you have to get married and have kids first and then you can decide“.
So we believe him and we accept that he will indeed grow up and be whatever he wants to be and he will choose a girl and settle down and he will continue with his passion.
But girls, we worry about their career choices. There is always clarity about what they will do until they get married but after the marriage, “they have to decide among themselves.“
Boys come into the marriage knowing what they want to do. Girls get married hoping they get to do what they want to do.
Why is this so painfully true? Why can’t women be wives and mothers AND whatever they want to be?
The world needs your big dreams!
Remember the teachers who taught through the pandemic while feeding their babies on their lap? They are mothers just like you, who educated and entertained your children through those times. They have families and children too- children that they wake early and drop at day-care so they can teach YOUR children.
I know many people who will frown upon the day-care part but I have seen them to be the ones who gave up after a few months of homeschooling their own kids (not 20 kids).
That teacher TRAINED to be a teacher. She had a dream to teach little kids to read and write.
Is the job easy? No.
Is the pay good? No.
But would she have felt satisfaction when ALL twenty of those little ones ran into her arms on the first day when schools re-opened after the pandemic? You tell me.
The mother who has a home-catering business who you call because you are postpartum and can’t manage the cooking, aren’t you happy you found her?
One of the questions that I get asked most often is: what kind of work from home job can stay-at-home mothers do? I wrote about the 35 ways you can use your skills here but here’s what I want you to know: We create our own opportunities.
Will your husband and kids be happy that you created an opportunity for yourself? Yes.
Mothers can have a purpose beyond motherhood
Coming back to the story I stated earlier. She said:
“I want to pursue my job again, but I am worried my husband and children won’t be happy.”
She is an engineer by profession. She said she had worked in a reputed company back home, but now she was married, had had children and moved with her expat husband as a trailing wife. She was a stay-at-home mother now and since she had a lot of time, she was using it to study and memorize the Holy Quran.
If she could juggle home and family, convince her husband to pursue memorizing the Holy Quran at a school and find time for it in her busy schedule, she is a woman with purpose. Don’t you say?
So why the guilt..?
Guilt happens when we don’t know who we are, what we want from our life and how to achieve it. It is one of the reasons why we feel less confident in ourselves. When we don’t know our own qualities and our purpose in life, every shiny object and brilliant person out there will blind our eyes to our own spark.
The solution: Know yourself and what you want from your life. Know your purpose. Design a life of purpose and live your life according to it.
I call this having a Mom Plan. I have written about living an intentional life and how happy moms raise happy kids here but today, I want to share with you an opportunity to join a free challenge to write that Mom Plan for yourself. Are you interested..?
Design Your Perfect Life Challenge
For every dream to work, you have to wake up and do something about it.
Whether it is parenting positively or homeschooling your child, time-management or relationships that need work – You have to THINK about those dreams. You have to PLAN how to go about them. Because without a plan… dreams will only stay dreams.
Dream house, dream spouse, dream kids, dream life – imagine if you could make it all come true.
What if you had a simple system to actually make progress?
I’m hosting a 3-Day Mom Goals Workshop starting February 2nd where I’ll teach you my complete goal-setting method for mothers who want real, lasting change.
You’ll learn how to:
- Set realistic goals for your home, children, family, and yourself
- Create a life where everyone (including YOU) can thrive
- Use my “WIG to WIN” method to accomplish in 12 weeks what others take 12 months to do
What’s included: ✨ 2 live goal-setting classes (with recordings) ✨ Live Q&A session ✨ Monthly goal-setting WhatsApp group ✨ All my templates and planners ✨ Lifetime access to recordings ✨ Bonus: Ramadan goal-setting guide
Early Bird Special: $49 (regular price $97)
Stop letting your goals stay wishes. Join me and finally create the intentional life you’ve been dreaming of.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE
