Muslim families with pre-teen girls

[Laffydaffy]

DD has a friend who is half European and half Syrian. Friend's mum converted to Islam before marriage. Initially, it was not obvious they were practicing Muslims. No talking about it, no hijab, liberal (alcohol in house), among other things, until recently. Recently, the pre-teen friend fasted with her family for Ramadan, mum has just started wearing a hijab in the last fortnight and dad has forbidden friend to visit anyone's house without mum accompanying for the whole visit.

My question is, if the family is becoming more devout, about which I have no problem with, how common is it for 11 year old girls to need constant supervision when not at home or at school?

I don’t think this has anything to do with religion or being devout. I am a Muslim and know many Muslims who do not have this rule.

Personal choice...

Probably the dad’s personal choice rather than his dd’s.

What kind of reasons would there be for a child of this age being needed to be accompanied? Would it have anything to do with us being practicing Christians? We have not spoken about this with the parents, but the girls may have.

For some more context, DD is very welcome to spend time at their place but the friend is not allowed to go anywhere without her mother. Friend is also confident, not shy, and socially ept, so I cannot imagining this being a reason.

I think that with this being a somewhat sudden change for the family, I am a little concerned whether everything is OK or whether my concern comes from my personal ignorance. Thanks for any advice and suggestions.

And yes, the restriction for the friend is from the father, not the mother.

Have you got males in the house when she visits? Like dh or brothers?

It's misogyny. There is little that you can do about that other than hope your daughter and her friend can maintain their friendship.

If you are concerned then report to school safeguarding officer. It may be something or it may be nothing but they are in a better position to see the whole picture and as it is a sudden change it is something I would flag up.

It’s their family and their choice. I am muslim and I’ve not known families who’ve done that. The only families I’ve heard to have done things like stopping their kids visiting others have done so out of a knee jerk reaction to something they’ve heard about eg Bob’s 13 year old did drugs, I’m not going to let my kids out of my sight and they’ll be fine.

I thought you were going to say when young Muslim girls have to wear trousers/leggings under their dresses and head scarves. Always seems insidious - they're innocent children - who would be looking at them....

Yes, DH and DS are at home but she has not been allowed to visit us. Or anybody.

The mum explains it as dad being over-protective.

Re: safe-guarding - I am not that concerned. At least, not yet. I am conscious that the parents are pro-palastinian and have tried to involve me recently in some conversations about Israel that I refuse to engage in.

Being pro-palastinian is not meant to be considered a safe-guarding issue for me. I am sorry for writing it in that paragraph like that! What I meant was, some thing just made me a little uneasy.

Seriously, being pro Palestinian is now issue! WTH.

Report yourself to prevent with that attitude.

We know lots of Muslim girls and they're all allowed to come to our house. They've had sleepovers here several times. I have a DH and a DS so there are males in the house.

Has she been allowed to visit until recently? Do you have a son of a similar age? Maybe she's started puberty and that's a cut off for being chaperoned?

My parents insisted that we would never go anywhere by ourselves apart from when it was impossible to be accompanied, eg when I no longer had siblings to go to school with. It's incredibly suffocating

DD's Muslim friends get to come to ours now the mums have established that we are careful with food . I wish the one mum would come more because she's ace. One friend's dad is a little more circumspect as I think the older brother had a crush on DD and that was definitely not being encouraged.

It's DD's devout religious (she thinks Christian but DD says 'cult' I think specific sect) friend who is very discouraged from any hanging out outside school. Not allowed to cut hair, not allowed to be friends with boys and on and on.

Let's be honest there's a lot of controlling parents who use anything they can to exercise that control, including religion. Islam isn't special in that!

Controlling parent and not a Muslim thing

I had Muslim friends growing up and I remember things changing re rules from their family when they started having periods. Clothing etc rules change after first period I think. I’m hoping more informed mums who are Muslim can help you with this. I think this might be traditional and not necessarily a big change of view on their part. If she’s 11 this might make sense?

It’s strange. If I were you and really wanted answers to my questions I’d post them in the Muslim section of this site instead of Aibu, where people will jump at any opportunity to be offended, or to highlight misogyny.

You are concerned enough that you made a thread.

It takes a single email titled "FAO: DSL" for you to write your concerns over a sudden change of behaviour.

It is probably nothing but you are not in the position to determine that yourself, school and their partner agencies are. If I heard a child at school talking about this as teaching staff that is exactly what I would do, about any child regardless of religion, to go from visiting friends independently to being chaperoned is a big shift in behaviour. I wouldn't be judging the child or family, I would be passing the information on for others better qualified and experienced to make that decision. It is what the PREVENT policy is for.

Have you considered maybe they aren't comfortable her being alone at your house for a reason... why jump straight to them having some sort of issue.

It might not be that either. But you are jumping to big conclusions. Liklihood is they just prefer this as their daughter is getting older and is becoming a young woman.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that a lot of people worry about their daughters. And the amount of threads I have seen about young girls and women being groomed by older men. Are you surprised that some people might have more worries about this than others.

If you are really worrying about it, just ask them? Or accept that's how it is or don't invite them.