Zaiba Hasan 10/13/21 Zaiba Hasan 10/13/21

Parental Do's & Don'ts for Communicating with Your Kid Through the College Application Process

I was folding laundry and listening to my favorite podcast (Mommying While Muslim) when I had the rare pleasure of seeing my eldest child, Z1, walk into my room with a puzzled expression. He crawled into my bed – remnants of the little boy he used to be flashing before my eyes – let out a huge sigh, and said, “Who am I?”

Zaiba Hasan 9/9/21 Zaiba Hasan 9/9/21

Parenting While Muslim Through Two Decades of Post-9/11 Life

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I’m a poor sleeper. The same people will report that they can take me on a road trip and snap photos of my lolling tongue while I sleep. Even the carpool commute used to knock me out cold, just not enough 20 years ago when I heard on the radio that a tower was struck by a plane in New York City. I fought sleep to turn up the volume because I must have heard wrong.

Zaiba Hasan 8/31/21 Zaiba Hasan 8/31/21

Anxious About Back to School? So Are We, But These 7 Tips Can Help

I am anxious. My kids are anxious. We are inundated every day with news on COVID cases rising, people debating the effectiveness of masks, politicizing our desire to get the kids back in school, and our attempt to reach for some semblance of normalcy. As I write this, the Delta variant is getting stronger, and apparently, there is a Lambda strain as well.

Zaiba Hasan 8/26/21 Zaiba Hasan 8/26/21

In-Person, Virtual Learning, Homeschooling... Here's What YOUR Back to School Will Look Like

The pressured mom facing another pandemic school year is in good company. What’s the right thing to do when community vaccination rates are low while pediatric infections and hospitalizations are the highest they’ve been in the last 18 months? What to do when the school board has to hold meetings with security on site every week as campuses quarantine up to 10K students (and that’s out of ONE district in Florida!)?

Zaiba Hasan 7/27/21 Zaiba Hasan 7/27/21

Love, Relationship & Life Conversations to Have With Your Kids Before Marriage

July is one of the most popular months for Muslim couples to get married. My spouse and I were no exception; our nikkah (Islamic wedding) was on July 31 a couple of decades ago (22 years to be exact). Just finishing my sophomore year of college, I naively and excitedly waited for my wedding with the anticipation of the schoolgirl I literally was. We were so focused on the clothes (I refused to dress up), the makeup (I did my own), and the hair (put in a loose bun), we never thought about what would happen afterward.

Zaiba Hasan 7/15/21 Zaiba Hasan 7/15/21

Wedding Season With Kids – A Mom's Battle-Weary Guide for Survival!

As the child of airline employees, I am very adept at traveling. I can pack in 15 minutes or days ahead of time and be ready to fly without even forgetting a toothbrush. A book can be read or a luxurious nap had inflight. I am the savior of the plane, distracting screaming babies with a handy Tic Tac box they can never open. As a child, my teachers were amazed at just how many cousins I had, and that at least one got married every year.

Zaiba Hasan 6/22/21 Zaiba Hasan 6/22/21

Let's Get Unplugged! 5 Ways to Help Your Kids Wean Off of Screens

Summer 2021 is being described by many as the summer of “deconfinement.” This is a fancy way of saying that, with more people being vaccinated and social distancing and mask mandates easing, we are entering into summer feeling semi-safe and finally starting to imagine a more normalized, post-COVID world. Parents (like so many others) have been in survival mode for 15-plus months, probably having had to lean hard on screens and electronic devices. But now the dust is slowly settling.

Zaiba Hasan 6/15/21 Zaiba Hasan 6/15/21

Grieving the Afzaal Family in Canada & Why We Need Legal Recourse for Islamophobic Violence

While North American Muslims may have some closure with the funerals of the Afzaal family in London, Ontario this past weekend (who were deliberately mowed down and killed by a 20-year-old in what Candian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling a “terrorist attack”), we all know the actual process of grief is longer. For a newly orphaned nine-year-old Fayez, the youngest son and only surviving member of the Afzaal family, it may never happen at all.