Annie @ PhD in Parenting asked me to write a guest post as a part of her March lineup of guest bloggers. I’ve previously spoken about what an amazing blogger, resource and activist she is, so it was quite the honour to be invited to write for her audience this week.

I’m cross-posting the article here, but I do encourage you all to check out the discussion (and other articles!) happening at her place.

Eryn beat her chubby little arm against my back in excitement as we wandered through the bazaar. Row after row, vendors offered delights for the entire family: balloons; flashing baubles; raw honey; bright and pungent, exotic spice mountains; cheddar cheese stuffed dates; almond stuffed dates; golden and sugary baklava; Arabic language DVDs of The Message, possibly the most popular movie ever made about the story of Islam; red and black henna for dyeing hair and skin; face painting for the kids; black, impressive abayas with shimmering, sequinned designs; heady, musk-scented, oil-based perfumes, and adorable baby clothes decorated with familiar Islamic slogans, “May peas be with you,” and “100% Halaal.”

Men, women, groups of families moved fluidly among the vendors – traditional lines of gender segregation were ignored while people negotiated the crowd. Though, a large group of men stood around the meat shawarma vendor, and double the amount of women haggled at the hijab table, while the matrimonial table stood empty. Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Turkish overpowered any notes of English that floated around my hijab. The organizers successfully created a slice of Islamic culture in the centre of suburbia.

While hemming and hawing over a red and gold, mirror-embossed throw pillow, the Hubby called me over to the book section. He was holding an Arabic alphabet mat puzzle in one hand, and a mosque building-block kit in the other. I went straight for the baby books.

The books, articles and advice blogs I devoured in early motherhood have made me the family expert on my pregnancy, labour and delivery, breastfeeding, and now for Eryn-specific child rearing. Very quickly I’ve learned to become a fiscally and morally informed consumer, since motherhood leads me to sections of clothing, food and toy stores I would have not have previously considered going to. My expert eye can gauge the amount of preservatives contained in processed foods at 20 paces and I can stealthily repurpose stereotypical gendered gifts without blinking. It’s the same with books.

For the majority of books currently sitting in Eryn’s book nook, I’ve run them past my personal criteria list, making sure they include most of the elements of: strong female characters, diversity, pro-breastfeeding, fat acceptance, social justice, avoiding gender binaries and positive character building. Seeing that she’s only 18 months old, our current rotation includes: The Paper Bag Princess, Olivia the Pig, I Like Myself!, Scaredy Squirrel, the Very Hungry Caterpillar and several multi-language board books on babies, children’s activities, world cultures and animals.

So far, our teaching of Islamic values has simply been organic. Eryn watches us when we pray and joins in when she wants. She knows I put on hijab before we leave the house, and she hands it to me when she wants to get going. She says, “Allah” whenever she passes the Qur’an or wants to listen to her Islamic-inspired music, and I say bismillah (in the name of God) before she eats or nurses. But that’s about it. We’ve never actually sat down with her and instructed her on pictures of mosques, people in prayer, the Ka’abah in Mecca, women in hijab, successfully told prophetic stories from the Qur’an or Bible or dwelt on any other concepts that she’d identify as “Islamic.”

So, it never dawned on me to look at Islamic books. And the first time I did, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.

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