Parenting skills #5

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and the All-Merciful, and the All-Merciful. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you, and upon your family and friends, and upon your family and friends. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and friends. Peace be upon you all. We look at the rules of Islamic parenting. I call them the six rules. We ask Allah to help us to understand the responsibility of parenting and to fulfill it. So, we are talking about life skills and as I mentioned to you, these are some life skills. One of the most important ones, reading inculcates this habit every single day. I say to people, you must read at least one book. I say one book per week, but okay, so let me be… So, let me be… Kind on you. One book per month at least. Minimum. I don't care what book you read, read any book you like, but one book per month, make this an absolute rule for yourself. Then increase it, two books, three books, four books, at least one. And inculcate it in the children. My father, again, I'm sorry, I keep on coming back to my father, but this is a parenting thing, so I shouldn't be. He used to read three books at a time. I do the same thing. Three different plots. One will be a history book, one will be something else. I can run those same, those things in my head simultaneously. Have the lunch. Very good for the brain. He did that. What he would do is, he would bring the books to me. He would give me a book. And then he would come the next day. Or maybe give me a day, the third day. And he would say, oh, pade, did you read the book? I say, you just give it to me. He said, two days have passed. What did you just give? Sign in the book. So he then tells me, what do you think? So I start telling him, the author is saying, no, I'm not asking you what the author is saying. I know what the author is saying. I read the book before I give it to you. I want to know what you are saying. So don't regurgitate the stuff to me. The author said, forget the author. What are you saying? You read the book. What is your take on this? So I routinely read books. I do an analysis of the book. I write it down. I write down key points that I need to remember. And that helps me in my understanding of life and so on and so forth. And in my own writing, which I do. Right? And then, respect for law and order. Respect for duty. I don't know, some of you may have seen this thing of people saying, my 10-year-old drives a car beautifully. Why does your 10-year-old drive a car? Beautifully or otherwise? You're breaking a law. You're teaching a child to break the law. And parents do this very proudly. You're teaching a child to break the law. You know, in Islam, some of our ulama have said that if you break a law of a country which is for the benefit of all the people, you have exited Islam. You are a murtad. Even if you don't want to go that far, definitely in Islam, it is a crime. It is a very major sin. So for example, you go through a red light. Nowadays, of course, there are cameras everywhere. We fear the camera. We don't fear Allah swt seeing us. We fear the camera. Because then they'll send you a very expensive photograph. Right? Going through a red light. This is, in Islam, this is haram. Because you are, potentially, you can cause an accident. The law, you might say, where is the law in the sharia to say, red light? No, the draw doesn't have to be there. The sharia allows laws to be made for the benefit of all people. Traffic laws are such laws. And others. So teach them respect for law. And give responsibility. It's very, very important to give children responsibility. Give them daily chores. Each person has a role to do. Your job is to wash the dishes. Your job is to do this, do that. Whatever. And don't say, no, no, no, why should my child wash dishes? We have suffered. No. Teach them the, teach them dignity of labor. Once again, back to my father. Every Sunday, we used to, we had a ritual in our house. And that was, all the shoes would be brought. We brought, sit in the line. Brown shoes, black shoes and those days, you, all these sneakers and stuff, you could have. You wore canvas shoes. And the canvas shoes had to be white. So with, for white, you had that lime, which you rubbed on it. So black shoe with black polish, black polish application brush, and then black polish shining brush. Then brown polish and this. And my father used to sit there, and we all used to sit, each one with their shoes. And we would polish our own shoes. And we told you, we had servants. No. You do your own job. So you apply the polish with the brush. Brush it with that. Then you hold the shoe between your knees. And you take a polishing cloth. And you rub it like this. You would have seen the film, or those of you who are from Mumbai, you see the Mumbai railway stations. How do, I know how to do that. That whole ritual. You shine the shoe until you can see your face in it. Very, very shiny. We had to do this. It's part of your, this part of growing up. You do your job. I, I, I loved pets. I had all kinds of pets. Our servants had clear instructions. His pets, he will take care of. I had, I was, I had very clear instructions. You will not tell a servant to do anything for your pets. Clean the cages, clean wherever they say, the kennels or what not. Cook the food. I used to go to the market. I used to get the, I had dogs. Those days, we had a huge big compound with dogs outside the house. So, we, I used to go buy the meat and buy jawar, you know, the millet. And my mother won't allow it inside the kitchen. So, I had to cook outside on three stoves. So, I used to cook that, cool it down, then feed them. Brushing them, washing them, everything to do with the pets, nobody will touch it. My job to do it. One of the dogs decided to have babies. I sat and delivered six pups at two o'clock in the night. That's a whole long story. I won't go into it now. But a point I'm making is that this is how you raise children who have a sense of responsibility. It's your job. Alhamdulillah. I had, may Allah bless my parents and give them janatul fridous without his help. Wonderful parents and also mentors. I'll tell you a story. One of my mentors, Raja Venkat Ramanidhi, he was in, he had a farm in a place called Adilabad, on the bank of the Kadam River. So, I used to go there. My summer and winter holiday, I would spend there. And those days, I'm talking about the summer. I used to go there in the late 60s, early 70s. So, those days hunting was permitted in India. So, I used to do a lot of hunting. So, I would go into the forests and I used to have one guy with me, one gold tribal guy called Shivaya, who is my good friend and also a, you know, partner in all of this. So, Shivaya would carry one gun, I would carry another gun. We would go into the forest and we would hunt. So, one day, Shivaya and I we walked and walked and walked and walked. I don't know how many miles we walked. We walked the whole day. We walked the whole day in the forest. We got nothing. Now, coming back in the night, in the evening, almost getting dark. As I came over hill, I see a cheetah, spotted deer, axis, axis, big antlers standing straight in front. Now, purely reflex action, I picked up the rifle and fired. The bullet went straight through here. In the chest and the thing with high velocity weapons, if you don't hit any bone anywhere, you don't break the spine or you don't hit a major bone, the bullet just goes straight through the animal. It will still kill it, but it won't drop. That's what happened to the deer. It, the bullet went straight through that cheetah. He just went boom. Then he turned around, ran away and disappeared. So, now, I am going to show you how to do this. So, now, Shiva and I, we walked, tried to find it. It's getting dark. It got dark. I could, all I saw was some blood and from the blood, I could make out it was lung blood because it's frothy and it's white. It is very light color. So, I knew I had got, the bullet had gone through the lungs. This deer is going to die, but can't find it. In the dark, forest became, night fell. So, anyway, we said, let's go. So, we came. Now, coming home, from where I shot the deer, we had come, we had crossed the river, then you go on other, to the top. That's where the house is. I went there. I got there. Uncle Rama tells me, Kya mare Ram? He said, what did you shoot? Because he heard the shot, gunshot. So, I said, I shot a cheetah's tag. No, Mashallah, very good, very good. Where is it? So, I said, no, uncle Rama, it ran away. He tells me, you are telling me, that you left a wounded animal in the forest, that you are here? I was 17 years old, when this happened. And this, by the time this conversation is happening, it's around, maybe, 10 o'clock in the night. Right? I have been walking all day. I am tired like hell. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. I am tired. that you wounded an animal, left a wounded animal in the forest and you are here? Now, you know, we had enough respect and adab and so on, so you didn't answer back. I kept quiet. He tells me, you have to eat and then go and get the animal. Adilabad jungles have tigers, they have leopards, they have bears, they have bison. And I was a 17-year-old kid. I didn't have the gut to tell him, you are sending me to the forest in the middle of the night, literally middle of the night. No. He said, have food. Have food. And then go. I said, okay. So, I had my dinner and then I picked up the rifle. He said, no. He called his servant, he said, get the shotgun. So, he gave me a 12-bow shotgun with buckshot. He said, anything you see now, you will see close up.