For not wanting my kid to wear hijab or get into her dads wife new culture?

[Thecuddlymeoow]

we have a 7 year old daughter.
for me is one thing learning about different religion’s and cultures but not tryna get a step kid into YOUR religion like telling my daughter if she would like to wear a hijab when she’s older, and baby daddy is a whimp and easy controlled by his wife. This may come out as an asshole but i don’t want to grow my kid into something that shes not born from. I respect people who are born from placeses that wear hijabs and have their culture and religions. But our daughter dosn’t belong in this culture shes half norwegian and half south america, im from south america and her dad is norwegian so it make sense that she takes those culture. Sorry for my bad english but i didn’t know i have to deal with a step mom trying to interfere deeper into my daughter life

This

I would have a feminist chat with your DD and encourage her to challenge the idea that women need to cover up, especially when men don’t.

OP is being gaslighted and being sneered at as a bigot not so subtly on this thread because she has touched on the livewire topic of Islam and even worse, the hijab and has triggered the right-on anti-racists into active combat duty.

1. The Op explains she is from S America and not fluent in English or explaining herself well.
2. Op has expressed that she has no objections to her daughter learning a different culture but expresses strong and justified reservations about her daughter being pressurised into modesty dressing and harmful ideas about bodily autonomy and sexuality.
3. Op has already been lied to by her Norwegian ex. He is almost certainly a muslim convert but has not informed OP. There is no possibility of an observant muslim woman who wears the hijab of marrying a non muslim man. Sharia law is obdurate on this point. Also the law is different for a muslim man and this difference is important as I will explain later.
4. OP must clear this issue with her ex first and understand that her child's father is now a muslim and as a muslim father, he "owns" his child in the eyes of his new wife and her religion. This is the reason that muslim man can marry non-muslims while muslim women cannot : their offspring are automatically muslim. Sharia courts the world over are very clear on this issue. OP must must negotiate the boundaries of this new reality and assert her rights and wishes. Legally if need be. She is lucky that she lives in Norway and thus still free to do this. There are infamous courtcases in "liberal" countries like Malaysia where non-muslim men facing custody battles with their non-muslim wives, secretly converted to Islam and were instantly awarded custody as the legal owner of the children while the wives could not even be heard. The women never recovered their children.
5. Op must then understand the reality of modesty culture and educate herself and her daughter on Islam, so they can better negotiate this new life free from ignorance and prejudice. OP's daughter as an uncovered female creates a tension in the stepmum's household which may include other MALE muslim family members. There are rules on which male relatives you can expose your aurat to. OP's daughter as she grows into puberty unwrapped will be seen as restricting the freedom of these male muslims. She will face tremendous pressure to cover up. No ifs and buts about this. Muslim teen girls living in the west who have resisted this family pressure have been murdered. I am not saying she will be murdered for the slow of thinking but that she will face strong pressure and has to be protected from this.
6. The hijab is not just a neutral piece of cloth or a scarf. It is a highly sexualised symbol of behaviour, control, restricted bodily and sexual autonomy. The 20th century saw muslim feminists across the globe fighting the hijab as an oppressive and repressive tool but sadly that battle has been lost everywhere in the muslim world (and the west) except in Iran where brave girls and women continue their lonely fight, losing life and limbs.
7. Op is 100% justified in seeing this as a freedom issue and recognising the danger to her child. So do the vast majority of those who have answered the poll. Yet few are brave enough to express in writing their support of OP. God forbid they be called racist and islamophobic. There is already clear social pressure in this thread to browbeat OP with her supposed bigotry.

You’re missing the fact that neither the child nor her father is Muslim. His new partner is. If she’s telling DD about her religion that’s fine, but if she’s trying to indoctrinate her that’s something entirely different.

You are conflating race/heritage/culture with religion. Norwegian people can be Muslim, South America people can be Muslim: black, white,Asian, mixed raced, Arab can all be Muslim or what ever religion that they choose to be. What country you are born in doesn’t determine what religion you are:

if your daughter is asking questions and in interested in exploring the religion then you should allow that. I am a devote Roman Catholic despite none of my family being remotely interested in religion, but they respect my decision

the step mum obviously follows some aspects of her religion but not all or strictly otherwise she would not have been allowed to marry a non muslim divorced dad

My sons are Hindu by birth, but DH and they don’t practice, they know and understand as much about Hinduism as any other religion as we have ensured they are educated on a wide spectrum of faiths.

but I won’t have my sons being taught that it’s ok to ask women and girls to cover themselves like this, look at what’s happening in the world.

To the people shaming the OP for wanting her child to be brought up in her natal culture - please ask yourself on what planet it is ok to make a 7 year old girl ashamed and self-conscious about her hair being seen?

i would immediately ban them from having contact with my child. If child wants to be muslim its their choice, but for the step mum to force it onto her she can go to hell.

@miraxxx "OP is being gaslighted and being sneered at as a bigot not so subtly on this thread because she has touched on the livewire topic of Islam and even worse, the hijab and has triggered the right-on anti-racists into active combat duty."

Basically this. If the child was a boy and the stepmother wanted him to wear the Jewish kippah or tzitzit I wonder how different the responses would be.

Hmm, maybe the issue here is that the step mother is coming across as friendly & flexible & explaining things, while you are coming across as an aggressive controlling ranter?

I suspect the hijab may be the least of your issues; & suggest you think carefully about how the bilious attitude to other cultures that is so unpleasantly displayed in your posts may come across to your daughter.

So who forced him to marry her and/or become a Muslim - whether nominal, devout or anywhere in between?

If he is happy for them to be a Muslim household - or at least one that doesn't have the strong intolerances to Islam that OP seems to have - why is that not his own choice?

Flip it around: supposing that he, as one of the girl's two parents, has become a devout Muslim and now demands that his ex-wife not be allowed to 'fill her head' with anything that isn't strictly Islamic or any Norwegian/Western/secular values, or the idea that she might actually be able to choose her own faith/non-faith/culture when she's an adult? Is that OK? Because that's what OP appears to feel entitled to demand - to the extent that they can't even mention anything to her that relates to Islamic culture.

Oh come that’s daft, of course it happens. Not all the time but even in my very white neighbourhood DD2 was at school nursery with a girl sent in in a hijab - and they were 3. I had many unasked questions as her mum didn’t wear one! She came out every day holding it in her hand. I think the staff took the sensible view that she could come in wearing it, but if she took it off (which she always did) they would not put it back on…

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/primary-schools-allowing-hundreds-of-girls-as-young-as-five-to-wear-hijabs-as-part-of-uniform-a3625761.html

The issue with islam, the hijab and some marriages is that it is very easy to put on something but highly dangerous to take it off. Girls and women have been murdered for daring to do so. Honour based violence against women is rising in the UK and Norway. It is not the only source of violence but it is something that middleclass MN SJ warriors will be unexposed to.
www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/31/honour-based-offences-soared-by-81-in-last-five-years

I’d be furious too OP. It’s misogynistic and utterly inappropriate to suggest a 7 year old should need to cover herself from the male gaze. Point out to her dad that only this year a majority Muslim country reduced the age of consent to 9.

UK schools have to be trained to watch out for signs of young Muslim girls trafficked abroad for forced marriage.

There were prosecutions reported in yesterday of Muslim men in the UK forcing girls into child ‘marriage’ (a religious ceremony not a legal ceremony).

DDs dad needs to better understand the world his wife is introducing her into. She may personally disagree with men marrying 9 year olds but it would be best to check as it’s clearly not a given.

It is comparable if it's just dressing up.

She's not forcing it on her. She mentioned wearing one when she's older if she wanted to.

Indeed. But the attempted indoctrination is not something that the OP has actually mentioned; it just seems to be a strawman that some people on this thread have said up and are then attacking.

Amazingly, it's the adult who is telling the child that she can make her own decisions about religion when she's grown up who is being screamed at!!

Has her dad converted to Islam?

Where has this been attempted? Has there been discussion of somebody doing this on another thread?

It does happen though as I mentioned above. (Muslim woman marrying a Hindu with consent of both parents and two religious ceremonies. It can't be the only one.)

She will also learn about the world from the world whether you like it or not...and she may express a desire to follow a particular faith or culture at a young age but ofc this will be your choice to support. But as you've said once she's 18 she will ofc choose herself. I think you have to accept there are other influences in her life now. You can ask SM and her dad to not actively participate your child in any activity you don't approve of but the influence will be there regardless..

Absolutely this.

I think her step-mum has massively overstepped the mark.

Whilst wearing a hijab is technically a choice anyone could make, it’s not appropriate to suggest it to a 7 yo who isn’t from a Muslim culture herself.

It’s also not right for step parents to try to influence step kids towards their own culture. If a step dad did it, everyone would be (rightly) horrified!

OP wanting to protect her daughter from a misogynistic and utterly inappropriate religious practice at age 7 is not the problem here. HTH.

Aside from the fact that you can't just ban a parent from having contact with his own child for no very good (court-sanctioned) reason, you are literally making gigantic imaginary leaps, presenting them as established truth and then arguing against them!

I suppose OP could try going to court, seeking to deny her DD's father access to her on the grounds that he is married to a woman who has told their DD that she will be free to make religious choices for herself when she's an adult, if she so wishes...