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 think women are rightly concerned about any woman who is forced to do anything against their will. Freedom of choice is important and many religions (Judaism/Christianity/Islam) have misogynistic, repressive practices born out of culture and interpretation of religious texts - hence why women in places like Iran face death, abuse or imprisonment for daring to choose not to wear a hijab. Funny how not covering your hair or body is seen as a worse crime than murdering someone. I think there are rather more women in the world persecuted for wanting to not wear one than women persecuted for choosing to wear one.

and yet another person who misses the point

Op clearly there is an issue here for you. I would not blame you if you rather less complicated friendships for your daughter. I personally can’t be bothered to spend time with a person I am not interested in because of other people rules and demands. I have not time for it is not like they are toddlers.

What point exactly?

"sinister" that he is protective of his daughter? OP said that the families don't know each other very well. It's not unreasonable for someone to be uncomfortable with sending their kids somewhere when when don't really know the family. The opposite end of the spectrum would be negligence. Surely it's better to be on the safe side as a parent?

OP herself admitted that she wouldn't let her own daughter go on sleepovers as well - is that sinister too?

Or is it only sinister because it's a Muslim family?

But the difference is the girl used to be allowed to OP’s house, now she isn’t.

Thanks for the advice

We are not in the UK but rather in a European country that at the moment is especially anti-migrant and anti-asylum seeker.

There is a worrisome far-right movement gaining popularity in the area where we live, and given the responses here from Muslim families with young daughters (thank-you), I have come to assume that the recent decisions of this family have more to do with this.

We generally have little involvement with the parents of our children's friends (both our children started secondary school last year and navigate their friendship meet-ups and travel independently). However. DD values her friendship with this friend, so we are going to talk to the parents about how we can best support them.

Finally, I will make it very clear that I have no interest in talking about the war between Israel and Hamas to anyone, Christian or Muslim, if we are not close and I do not know them well enough to trust them. There are such strong opinions on both sides, and rightfully so, and I am in no way qualified to give my opinion about the abject horrors of war.

This seems a little racist to me. Why only fellow Indians?

Oh my, parents protecting their children. Some cultures (not just Muslim) letting their children go to someone's home without them.

And the two families I know that do this are both British and both boys!

it's not racist. similar cultural values so parents know the environment the child is going into and also if Hindu vegetarian than Indians/ South asians of any religion will be used to dealing with it the appropriate sensitivity.

But if it was the other way around people not allowing their children to go into Muslim/Hindu homes because of 'different cultural values' there'd be an uproar. 🙄

@Ozanj is correct though. Muslims aren't the only 'devout' ones, there just happen to be more of them than devout Hindus in Europe. That's why the former get such bad publicity but it's unfair
Christianity is on the wane in the UK although there are some devout people still.

So many kids in the UK have dietary restrictions due to allergies, coeliac, etc religion is just one more. Parents are used to catering appropriately, to only mix with your own kind is insular and dare I say intolerant. Unless you happen to live somewhere which is categorically unaccepting.

Other European countries can be less respectful so I sort of understand in that case.

I'm a practising Hindu married to a white man.

therealcookiemonster
it's not racist. similar cultural values so parents know the environment the child is going into and also if Hindu vegetarian than Indians/ South asians of any religion will be used to dealing with it the appropriate sensitivity.

Oh wow! Do you have any non Asian friends?

I would reccommend re reading the original poster because nothing has ever been said about children not going to houses outside their culture. I agree that would be racist.
what that poster said is that she is not comfortable sending them unsupervised. religious dietary restrictions are a bit different to allergies and may be difficult for children to articulate. also in more multicultural communities parents may be switched on re dietary restrictions but this is not always the case. and personally if I had a child with an allergy, I would not trust anyone else other than school to feed them.

personally I make sure the children in my family don't go anywhere without supervision until they are well into their teens. kill joy and paranoid yes. but I would rather be that than have to deal with a devastated child who is the victim of abuse.

I had a birthday party for my daughter when she was 9 or 10 and one of her friend's Mum's insisted on staying which I found really odd as I thought we were friends so she would have trusted me to look after her daughter and also we were just in our house so once again I felt like it was fairly low risk. It made me see an increasingly controlling side to her and we are no longer friends. This had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with control. She was stifling. She stayed really awkwardly as then wouldn't just chat to me but sat on her own in our lounge so it then felt doubly uncomfortable. I said she didn't have to stay and she made a comment about not wanting to cramp my style but that she was going to stay which I then also found really aggressive.

I know that Muslims become very concerned about a girls puberty about who they mix with and bring around boys . I knew a Muslim family who were very upset when their daughter didn't get into the Islamic school and were very concerned about their daughter being led astray , knowing too much about sex and boys by attending the local comprehensive. Travellers think the same too that's why they stop going to school after juniors.
I worked with a Muslim lady who was dropped off and collected from work . Muslims and travellers are very very moral people and the reputation of their families is everything. They are very protective of women and girls. Not a criticism just an observation

This sounds like personal choice of the family, definitely not a religious requirement.

I think it's religious and cultural .

way to generalise a population of 2 billion because "you knew 1 woman". wonderful.

I'm a very Conservative Muslim belonging to a religous Muslim family - have travelled all over the world by myself. have been living alone since 18 (16 if you count boarding school) in a different country. my entire social circle is full of women like this.

I know only a few women who don't travel by themselves and that's usually because they are elderly or just don't want to travel by themselves.

and families in different cultures may be more interdependent so people pick up family members as standard. so even the woman you knew was probably just being given lifts.

and I think all parents these days have concerns about the hypersexualised content children are exposed to. in some cultures there is more concern and protectiveness around girls because they are seen as more vulnerable but that is a purely cultural thing and nothing to do with religion. as per Islamic religious values both exposure to explicit sexual content (im talking about nudity, porn etc. not sex ed) is seen as a negative for both genders and for both children and adults.

that's nice. have you read the OP's update?

also please explain why you believe its religous and I mean explain by reference to theological texts not your presumptions, generalisations or opinions of "what Muslims are like"