Topic : 11/26 Katherine Returns

    Marriage for romantic love is a modern concept: arranged marriages were common world wide notions just a century ago.  My mother rejected the man that my grandfather arranged right here in NY.  He was from the old country and she was quite modern.  My grandparents eventually accepted my father a true love match. On their fiftieth anniversary the whole family celebrated in spite of the fact that my mother had violated my grandfather's wishes. We retell the story of their meeting as part of the family history; however, lessons are always drawn from it.  The famous Fiddler on the Roof story shows how an Eastern European family experienced the challenge of change.

    My students who came from Islamic cultures  are experiencing the same challenges.  In fact, one fourteen year old acknowleged that her future husband is waiting for her to return to the old country.  The Sally Fields story "Not  Without My Child"  rings true  for me.  It is about an American  girl who marries a physician in the US. His AMERICAN education and friends reveal that he had made the transition. Their lives as couple was quite modern. However, when he returns to his country in the middle east,  he encounters the pull of  his  culture/ religion.  His  wife was unaware of how hard it had been for him in America. 

    Sally Fields '  character challenges her husband and  winds up alienating his traditional family  and loses her independence.   The nightmare of her existence is remote for most of us;  however,  we don't understand that  tthe cultural changes going on today  are really recent and  not everyone can embace the same world view of young love and devotion to family/tribe. 
 
       Yes tribe. Recently, we all witnessed the strange culture out west where young men
are provided simultaneously with multiple wives by their community.  We see this as a horror in the general culture, but it is related to the difficulties women had in childbirth as well as the limited interaction between men and women. Plagues and communicable disease wiped out the weakest. Cultures wanted to assure themselves of the ability for the tribe/family could go on in spite of the challenges.

    Our society, today, appears to be settling for multiple seqential marriages with divorce and joint custody.  The gay community is challenging the status quo.  It did not start here in America...but we are in an ongoing dialogue about it in our culture. 

   Within any society we are going to have variations. As our community continues to develop with a wide variety of social and religious groups, we will probably see even more variations and challenges to our way of life. Along with our wonderful car and airplane comes the ability to cross oceans and climb mountains. While I am in favor of my cultures' historical consistency, I know that my children have their own ideas that reflect their experiences and community. 

    While respecting differences, we must, however, be prepared to protect our young.  Giving our children the privilege to communicate around the world comes witth the dangers that this sign in board is discussing.

     Let's admit that mariage is under challenge and let's prepare our young for the full range of "styles"  and options so that they are neither deceived nor put in danger. Courtship is one of the most beautiful parts of maturing to adulthood. Society's have always monitored and supervised young couples closely. Let's make sure our children know about the dangers and the joys of moving out of one's culture. Literature is filled with stories.
    Continuity from one generation to the next is not always a force for bad but we need to provide our kids with tools to comprehend the world that is getting smaller all the time.  Our kids have more than Howdy Doody and Our Mr Sun to build experiences upon.  Parents must use their judgment about their children's skills in comprehending how much danger is lurking on both the information super highway and at the corner store.

   However, some kids resist this kind of monitoring and parents need to take action; I am not clear how this child, Katherine, was able to leave the country without her parent's knowledge.  Perhaps I am mistaken about some of the details.  We as parents need to support an increase in the number of "tools" available to us.  Let's not forget  Shakespear's 14 year olds-- Romeo and Julliet.  We are all horrified by the tragedy eventhough we appreciate their romantic love. They never even left town.  In the meantime, when you find  that your youngster is violating a safety rule, we need to step up to our discipline and monitoring.

     During the K-12 initiative of the Internet, I introduced the Information Super Highway to a mmiddle school, long before we had a graphic world wide web (WWW).  Yes it was text based and few kids were excited about talking to people from far away i.e. Finland to the Phillipines.  I needed to insist that parents guide their youngsters. AOL was like the wild west and teens needed feedback on their choices at home.  Monitoring their kids seemed outrageous to event the most educated.  I felt like  horrible, but I needed to sound the warning that kids can get into trouble.  I advocated no personal information without parent permisssion. Before monitoring software was developed I encouraged parents to  review print outs to provide feedback in spite of the fact that kids progressed faster than their parents. I continue to  insist that my students avoid street addresses, town names, school names, family names and first names.

    Its fun to be another character and hide behind a mask....Dr. Jeckyl and Mister Hyde are good stories for teens to learn about the dangers that we  avoid.   As parents we remember that we start with the boogie man and reassure children that it is our job to protect them from evil. Our lesson has to be reenforced without making our kids nervous nellies. 

    Stories like Katherine's remind us that we cannot sit back.  I am not sure how I will use it to help my students but I will let you know.  Good luck Katherine!

Are you telling your fellow muslima that it is not okay to criticize islam?

Are you attempting to silence her?

If so, then your on the wrong board, in the wrong country.

Hello talibs, we have another good student for for you!

as a battered woman i can tell u there is nothing worse then to have a man curse and hit and beat on u .

she needs some reall healp to help her get over the feelings she is feeling and to be strong and not go back to the jurk

katherine as a battered mother and a woman theres nothing worse then to be beat on and to be cured and made feel like a peice of crap by a male but u have to learn to say no and to stay stong and get over the feelings that ur feeling he should be charged with statory rape and shot for what hes done.

i have a 15 year old daughter that met a guy  om my space fine pice of work he was she now is in a home for runaways and she now doent have the child she loves and u no what the guy could give a crap less as long as he gets what he wants get some help before its to late hon start taking care of ur self

 

I strongly agree with this statement  I can't wait to see what happens on Monday show I will be watching this one and so will my Husband

see you on Monday

 

Hwilson

It is a well known fact that muslim men are not known for treating there own woman good so why would they treat one good who isnt.

There government punishes woman for being in the wrong place at the wrong time .

That is atroshious and irregardless what the odd good muslim says in a country that killed 100s of woman for showing there face .

Our government would never allow these kind of discrepances your government on the other hand

wont even admit it is wrong .

IN MY OPINION how can you trust a culture whos own curan states its ok to beat woman .

I hope Katherine realizes the danger she really was in .

It has been well known that in the middle east countries that an American to them is an infedell. They feel that we are beneath them. A pretty young American girl, especially blond, is a trophy to them. As soon as they are done showing them off, they then become a slave and punching bag to those who don't even respect their own wemen. Why in the world these young girls let the glamore get in the way of reallity saddens me. My Space should be taken off the net. There are too many issues with young people doing the wrong things especially without the knowledge and supervision of the parents.

Well thats amazing since I am sure I know more Muslims than you do , and many I know love thier spouses alot, many married for love and so on. The fact is just becuase as a Muslim you dont do the dating thing you can still marry for love. And look around you the "dating " thing is  not working so well here in USA. I think you watch too much Fox News so perhaps  you should also look in your own front yard so to speak because we do have severe problems here in USA with American kids and guns, its called gang violence and its growing. The other problem I have with your statement is that women are NOT a possesion in any muslim marriage I know of, most women almost run the house actually. However there are problems in many countries in middle east and elsewhere with womens rights and that is wrong. However before you can talk of that look at USA where domestic violence is on the rise, and the men shooting thier wives are white males. So before you spout your hatred look around to your own.