[WordsAplenty]

As a Muslim convert with a Christian family, I find Christmas time very stressful. Although I've been Muslim for over 9 years, my mother gets very upset every Christmas.

She sees this time of year as just family time-- she can't understand that we do not celebrate Christmas. I've explained to her time after time that we love Jesus and respect him, but we do not worship him.

I've heard of other converts who continue to celebrate Christmas w/ their families, but that doesn't work for us. I tried that in the beginning, but my mother took that as a sign that my Islam is weak. She started trying to convince me to divorce hubby and "get back to church." She even took my kids to church behind my back!

So... I cannot compromise on this issue. I normally see my mom at least a couple of times a week. I've suggested that the entire family-- grandparents, siblings, etc.-- get together once a month. That still didn't satisfy her. With her it's an all or nothing situation.

For some reason, this past Christmas was worse than usual. She's barely spoken to me since. I have been calling to check on her, but she is very short on the phone. Sometimes she just screams, insults my husband, and hangs up the phone. What can I do?!!!

[heritagemom]

Words,
I have read your posts and participated with you in other forums and I KNOW what a genuine and lovely person you are. Your mother should be proud of the kind of daughter she raised and I would wish that she could at least honor your own beliefs as a person of faith...just a different one.

Maybe your mother feels threatened as a mother because you chose something that SHE did not teach you and does not practice herself. Maybe she is deeply committed to her religion and feels like if YOU are not as committed, that she has done a poor job of teaching you Christianity, or that you have "turned against HER" instead of just turning to another religion. I know that you felt deeply welcomed and at peace when you found the Muslim faith, and if you shared that with her (I'm assuming you've already tried to explain your faith to her and how happy it makes you?) then she feels like "Well, you should feel peace with Christianity! What did I NOT give you as a mother so that you felt you needed more?" Anger is almost ALWAYS a direct response to FEAR. Is she afraid you see her as a failure to you? Is she afraid that if you don't accept her religion (and the one you were raised in) that you also don't accept HER or anything else she offered you growing up? Is she a rather controlling person and your new faith is something she refuses to look at or consider at all, so she's lost "control" of you in an area she feels is important? It sounds like there might be a little dysfunction here (who doesn't have a little??? I have TONS) but maybe Christmas has always been a time of joy and celebration for her and the one time of the year the whole family came together and she sees your withdrawal as a threat to the one thing that she had left? You mentioned a willingness to gather every month and she said no, so it's not the "family being together" thing that she feels you are letting her down on, it's the specific even of CHRISTMAS that she's upset about...

I would back off for a while. I would call her and tell her calmly and lovingly that you love her and your family very much. You feel strongly about your choice of religions, but that it does NOT have to affect celebrations or traditions of any kind if SHE doesn't allow it to. But also tell her that you feel strongly that you need to be where you are religiously and that if she cannot accept your faith, she does not have to, but that you refuse to allow her to be cruel to your husband or you and that its certainly not a Christian way to behave. We are to leave our families and cleave unto our spouses and create a new life together. In a perfect world our childhood families would be loving and accepting but let us spread our wings to grow in our own directions as adults. But if they cannot be accepting and loving, your spouse and your own happiness is the focus now, and you should do what is best for that relationship first. Love your mother, and forgive her blindness. Figure out what is at the root of her actions and try to understand how she feels so you CAN forgive her. But only SHE can decide how she feels and how she acts. Those choices are her own and you did not cause them.

[WordsAplenty]

Originally Posted by heritagemom

It sounds like there might be a little dysfunction here (who doesn't have a little??? I have TONS) but maybe Christmas has always been a time of joy and celebration for her and the one time of the year the whole family came together and she sees your withdrawal as a threat to the one thing that she had left?

Heritage... you are so very insightful! "A little dysfunction" doesn't even begin to describe my family-- we wrote the book on dysfunction! We have never been a close family. There is a lot of fighting, someone is always mad. My childhood was full of abuse and anger, bitterness and denial. Christmas was a time to put aside things and pretend. Lots and lots of gifts, not nearly enough love. The rest of the year you fight and pay off all the gifts you put on your credit cards.

My family has never been particularly religious-- that's why it almost amuses me to hear my mom angry because I converted. Sometimes I think it isn't about religion at all, but more about bigotry. She sees Islam as a Middle Eastern religion and no good Southern girl should be Muslim-- does that make sense?!!

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. But yes, dysfunctional... definitely!

[heritagemom]

So basically what you are doing then is showing signs 12 months out of the year that things were not fine and that you can't pretend anymore. She hates it that you have stepped out of the "one happy time of year" for her, which was really just a sad facade anyway. Now she has to face the fact that not even THAT tradition can cover up the differences anymore. She's not mad at you per se, she's mad that her life isn't a happy, perfect, complete Norman Rockwell painting, and while everyone is aware of that, at least once a year there was "hope" that it really was.

It's really interesting how our emotions come to the surface to haunt us, even when we don't realize they have. She's feeling the loss of her daughter, the loss of the facade she wanted so badly to be true, the reality that her own religious example was not a strong one, and that you have now taken on the role of making your own decisions which probably makes her crazy. Denial is a FIERCE adversary. You can't argue against something that "doesn't exist"...I know this from dealing with my husband and his family. There is always an excuse for everything, and it's never the person who caused it.

Just like parents are not supposed to live their lives to make their children happy at their own expense, neither are children obligated to live their lives to make their parents happy at their own expense. In healthy relationships, there are no casualties on the battlefield. And spending your life worrying about what makes (or will never make) your mother happy is as good as moving back in with her and allowing her to run your life in person. Allow yourself to be at peace with your marriage and your religion and the things that make you whole. Regardless of how angry she is, the best gift any child can give a parent is to become a valuable, strong, and wise member of society in spite of our mistakes raising them. You can't change HER feelings or her actions, or her attitude. So don't spend precious time trying. Just love her as you can, and move on with your own life that hopefully will be minus the traps and dysfunction of your past.

HUGS!

[mcmama]

Hey words, maybe the next time your mom sees a nativity pageant she might think about those other middle eastern religions besides Islam!

You followed your path, and you are happy. She probably had grandma fantasies of enjoying christmas with the kids - but it is not something you can indulge if she takes your willingness to join the family celebration as a sign that your faith in Islam is weakening. It's a shame.

When I did daycare in my home, we had people of many faiths among the kids. My house is Christmas central. Don't have the technical know how for the light displays, but inside I have lots of wreathes, many nativity scenes, a big tree in a little room, hundreds of ornaments, oodles of toy trains and gizmos, and room for more! One of the ways I learned to celebrate Christmas in childcare was to also honor and celebrate whatever was celebrated in the child's home - and then they could share Christmas with me in my home. They made ornaments for my tree, and Santa had presents for all. There were certain nativity scenes they could play with, but in a respectful way (of course, Mary and Joseph and the sheep and stable animals and the plastic dinosaurs riding in a Tonka Truck driven by the angels was a sight to behold) Christmas was something that happened at my house, it didn't have to happen at theirs. They just got to enjoy Christmas! Me too!
Everybody got along with that pretty well. But then, it was family child care, not family!

[WordsAplenty]

Originally Posted by mcmama

Hey words, maybe the next time your mom sees a nativity pageant she might think about those other middle eastern religions besides Islam!

! You know, mcmama, I think my family honestly believes Jesus was an American!

You followed your path, and you are happy. She probably had grandma fantasies of enjoying christmas with the kids - but it is not something you can indulge if she takes your willingness to join the family celebration as a sign that your faith in Islam is weakening. It's a shame.

Yes, it really is a shame. What's a shame is that my mom can't be happy that I married a nice man-- a man who works hard to provide for the family and then comes home and helps with the housework, a man who is always there for the kids and who spends most Saturdays out of the house entertaining them so I can do my writing. This is a man who is well-liked by everyone (everyone else, I mean). No, she would have rathered me marry the same kind of men she has always been with-- the good-looking rednecks who can't hold down a job, who spend their time drinking beer, kicking the dogs, and beating the kids. You know, a good ol' boy. Yes, that's what my mama wanted for me. I'm such a disappointment. No, she can't see my husband's good-- only the fact that he's NOT American and NOT Christian.
Oops... is my bitterness showing again? Sorry... sore subject.

[Barb09]

Christmas is a nightmare. Every single year.

My life may be different than yours in that my husband was NOT religious when I met him and has become an extremist in the interim. SO, when I met him, we met in November and he bought me Christmas gifts in Dec.

The following year, we had a tree. My 2 girls from a previous marriage and I were happy.

Next year, no tree. It was haram. BUT, we all went to my parents and exchanged gifts with them.

Next year same

NExt year, my husband doesn't understand where I want to go 12/25? My parents?? why?? Just tell them no. My father picked up me and the children and we went.

I do nothing towards celebrating Christmas in my home. We teach the children the right path. BUT, I love my parents and they are NOT going to accept my rejection of their customs either. I feel that we can join them in their celebration and be happy for them, just as I wish for them to join us in our Eid celebration. I don't expect and will never see my mother changing her religion and I don't ask her too...but I don't see being with them (in their home, no church services, no prayers or other rituals) and allowing my children to accept gifts from their grandparents as wrong.

My parents culture and traditions and those I was raised with deserve respect too.

[twinzplus3]

Yikes! I am a Christian and honestly, I'm trying to think how I'd feel if my children converted to another religion later in life. . .I think I'd have a really hard time. BUT I think my answer, if I were your mom, would be to get together as a family. . .some other time. Personally, I would rather have my chidlren around, than to dismember the family because they've chosen something I don't agree with.
I guess wordsaplenty, my advice to you would be to think how you would handle the situation if your girls decided to convert to Christianity.
And by the way, as Christians our own family and my husband's family differ greatly on how we celebrate Christmas and what we think is appropriate. To the point where we only go to Christmas dinner--we will not go to any of the church musicals at their church (long story) or do the Jesus birthday cake or any thing like that. --my husband's family is also shocked at the suggestion that (gasp) Jesus may have been Jewish!

[WordsAplenty]

Well, my situation got much worse after this initial post! There has always been a lot going on in my family-- tension, fighting, abuse, etc-- but somehow this turned out to be the final straw. Even though I've been Muslim 10 years and we haven't celebrated Christmas in several years, this year she just wouldn't let it go. Months later she was still hanging up on me and getting other family members to get in the game, too. People who long ago accepted my conversion were suddenly calling to tell me what a disappointment I am. It didn't matter that I was calling them several times a week, seeing them as often as possible, and sharing birthdays & Mother's & Father's Day with them. It didn't matter that I was trying to organize monthly get togethers. It didn't matter that I was always there when they had a problem. None of that mattered in the end. No, all that mattered was that we didn't want to come on that one day. So, all sorts of ugly things from the past ended up coming to the surface. It probably should have happened a long time ago. I haven't spoken to my family since February. I'm okay with it, because there's just so much ugliness (not just because of religion), but I feel bad that my kids have no family here.

[Barb09]

Atleast you have those compromises. My husband will NOT recognize such days as birthdays and Mother's Day..etc... EVERY holiday I have to somehow manage to please both sides....the husband that doesn't want me to celebrate any holiday other than the 2 Eids...and the father that wants me to respect my Mother on Mother's Day.

We are in Morocco for 6 weeks. My husband ignores Birthdays and my SIL (a 10 year old) has gone to 2 Birthday parties and threw one in the last 2 weeks. Again, my children look to me...their Father says no Eids (holidays/Birthdays) but here his own sister had a party. My husband was consistent, he ignored the day and took us outside the house during the party, but it is difficult to raise children in such an inconsistent way.