This week in homeschooling:

In an attempt to expose my children to all kinds of ideas and raise them up to be freethinkers, I have taken it upon myself to celebrate holidays from a smattering of world religions.
I feel like M and L can learn from religions through their holy days and holy shit! - do you know how fun it is to celebrate new holidays??? Is this cultural appropriation?

This week saw the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with a festival called Eid-al-fitr. I was pretty stoked to get to introduce M to Islam. Mostly because I remember my introduction to Islam.

I was in the eighth grade and some crazy psychopaths flew planes into the World Trade Center.  And suddenly I got a whole education of Islam from scared, paranoid, conservative Christians.
Sure there were whispers of, "Calm the fuck down homies, not all Muslims are like that." But in my 'hood - the consensus was that Muslims hated Americans and were just waiting for the chance to strap a bomb to their chest and blow up as many infidels as possible.

Thankfully I saw through that bullshit pretty quick.

So, for the past three days I have been able to introduce my daughter to terms like the Five Pillars, Ramadan, Eid, fasting, giving alms, Muhammad, and Allah. She's five. We didn't get into anything too complicated.

Did she retain anything? I don't know.

But she did make a crescent moon and star sign for our front door, taste dates for the first time and make an Eid cake (because Eid is the time for sweet treats, giving back to the community and family togetherness).

And hopefully, as she grows up, she'll see Muslims just like anyone else. She'll have a better understanding of what it means to be Muslim (or Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Wiccan, etc).
And hopefully, when she grows up, she'll remember all the fun times we had celebrating and learning.

The sign reads "Eid Mubarak" - with a few extra letters tossed in for good measure...

The cake probably should read "Eid Mubarak" but we had no writable frosting and there was no way it was going to fit written in fruit. So, just Eid! With a sparkler for festiveness.


With that I wish you all a delayed Eid Mubarak.

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