The Stupid Glass Slipper
January 21, 2010 by Guest Authors
Filed under Featured, Personal Development, Relationships
Part 1: Searching for Mr. Right
I think I am going to make a few enemies right now when I say that Disney is not my favorite place to find “halaified” entertainment. I have, over the years, grown utterly disgusted by all of the female roles that lead to a love affair turned marriage and the whole happily ever after thing.
My daughter, for example, who just turned seven keeps on asking me why I won’t show her the same cartoons “everyone at school gets to watch.” She was particularly interested in Cinderella. Aside from the pretty blue dress, she really wanted to know what the big deal was all about. She shyly admitted to me that she found a Cinderella book at her Islamic school (produced with Disney images of course) and she looked through the book, seeing the kiss scene and all.
With a sigh, realizing that this was coming sooner than expected, I decided to tell her what happened and why I don’t like this story.
My conversation went something like this:
“Mama, just tell me what the story is about. Why don’t you like it!”
“Alright, here is what happens. A girl named Cinderella gets all dressed up and goes to a dance. She wears this pretty blue dress, and meets a man and dances with him…”
“Oh, that’s not ok. She wasn’t in hijab, and she danced. Is dancing even ok mama? “
“Well its not ok for us in public for sure in front of a bunch of men we don’t know”
“so then what happened?”
“Well, at midnight she has to go home, and on her way out rushing to get to her carriage, she dropped a glass slipper, or shoe with tall heels, on the staircase. The man she danced with, a complete stranger, finds the shoe. He then spend lots and lots of time looking aaaaaaall over the kingdom for the girl who’s foot fits into this special shoe. Finally one day, he comes to where Cinderella lives, and the shoe fits her foot, and then they get married.”
“oh…”
“Now, does she even know anything about this guy? Does he have good character, how will he treat her. She doesn’t know a thing about him, but because of this stupid shoe, she is going to marry him and he is going to marry her and live happily ever after.” I think that a girl should higher standards than that! “
“standards?”
“yes, standards…meaning that you should have certain things you want in a husband, and not just go after any guy because of a dance and a shoe. Don’t you agree?”
“yea, that sounds wrong mama..”
So, my seven year old gets it, and I pray that Allah keeps her heart matched up with her head to see things clearly in her life. Ameen.
But what about you? Maybe it wasn’t a glass slipper, but is there some brother out there you are thinking about marrying, or want to marry, or are arguing with your parents about marrying and truth is, you have no real idea why?
Hold on. Don’t bite my head off with defensive comments. I was simply asking a question J
Truthfully, though, I have found over and over again that when someone is asked why they love someone, the answer is “well, I just do! He is so nice, and kind, and just….I just love him…”
Ok, so we have:
1) He is nice
2) He is kind
3) You love him.
I know it is Sunnah to be concise with words, and wow, that even worked out to be an odd number too, but this list is too short, and too vague.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to mock you. I am simply asking you to see how it looks from the outside.
See, falling in love is much like Cinderella. You meet a brother, interact with him, maybe once, maybe from time to time, maybe often, but in all circumstances one thing is clear – you don’t really know a thing about him,
You know that he makes you feel good.
You know that he makes you smile inside.
You know that you like the conversation you had.
You know you like the idea of him and you.
And you know it’s not because he is “religious.”
Truthfully, all you know is that you like how you feel and the ideas in your head. Not once did you stop to find out if your imagination matched up with a potential reality.
When you fall in love, you are falling in love with a person who is giving you special attention, special treatment, special feelings, special expressions, and special opportunities.
No doubt, it feels amazing.
But things are special right now only because you are special. You are special because you are something rare, new, different, and therefore, well, special.
What will happen when conversations aren’t doled out like a piece of chocolate, only one a day since you will wake up next to him every day?
What will happen when he doesn’t always make you smile because he is stressed about work, the phone bill, and your two year old who is screaming?
What will happen when happily ever after is nothing more than a mirage in your imagination?
Real life doesn’t take place on gchat.
What then?
It is easy to fall in love, oh so easy. It is easy to love mystery, secrecy, ideas, and intangible thoughts.
It is easy to feel butterflies, daydream, and feel warm fuzzies when you think of him.
So long as you don’t mind falling and falling and falling, you can spend your life falling in love, hitting the ground, and then finding another edge to fall from again.
If you are searching for real love, then it’s time to recycle the glass slipper, and prepare for the death of the fairytale.
This is where the noble quest for true love begins……
(Megan Wyatt is currently a faculty member and speaker for PRACTIMATE’s new pre-marital training program for sisters aged 25-30 called “Find Your Mr.Right” For more information, you can visit http://www.practimate.com/FindYourMrRight )
(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)
Loading ...
Loading ...
LOVEEE ITTTTTTTT….hilarious i swear but soooo true mash’Allah
MashaAllah very well put
Is it really best that we should keep our children away from such things- knowing that they will be exposed to them anyway at school or a friends house- or is it better to watch such movies/cartoons with them and explain to them what the problem is?
A great reminder Megan! Jazaki Allahu khyran
haha
ALOT of people need to read this…
well written mashallah!
Salam Sister!
I absolutley love, and agree with your article!
Just one question, may i please have your personal opinion, (In accordance with the Sunnah) what we should look for, exactly, or what YOU looked for. And How did you, or should you feel about him at the time.
How do you not fall in love, but know he`s Mr. right, of course Istikhara should be done, but still i fear i will go with those warm fuzzy feelings rather than reality.
Jazakallahu Kheir sister!
May Allah bless your efforts
Amina
I get that you don’t want your daughter to watch Cinderella, but bashing on people who have feelings, I don’t get.
I find your ideas of falling in love to be extremely out of touch with reality. Doesn’t everyone love someone for the way they feel around the other person? I don’t love my husband because he’s good at balancing a checkbook–I love him ‘cuz Allah placed love and mercy between our hearts. And that love is unexplainable. Why should love have to be so practical? What is a practical reason to love someone?
And who is to say that if someone makes you feel warm and fuzzy around them, that you don’t also love them for being a good Muslim. Why stamp out the warm-fuzzy feelings? Love is uncontrollable, but our actions are. So long as a girl doesn’t act upon her feelings, I say let her feel the non-sensical warm fuzzies.
And why would a practicing Muslim girl know anything about any man until they get married? That’s the only time you really get to know one another. Up until you get married, your love for each other, and your feelings for each other are completely unreasonable, nonsensical and baseless. But they exist, so who cares! Those are feelings given to us by Allah, and we should love those feelings.
Bismillah
As’salamu Alaikum – thanks for the comments thus far. In response to the last comment above, I would say that I do agree with you %100
The point, though, is to help sisters understand that real love is NOT just based on nice feelings, “warm fuzzies, ” this isn’t where it ends.
Love, mature love, the kind of love required for a marriage to thrive, must go beyond that.
Today, many people end in divorce because they think, and this includes Muslims too, that when those feelings aren’t there all the time, or fade, that it’s a sign they “fell out of love,” and married the wrong person.
The awareness needs to be developed from now to understand the difference between the in-love stage, and true and lasting love that sustains a marriage.
Perhaps when you read the rest of the articles, you’ll understand which direction the whit and are going in
As for the question about whether or not to prevent children from watching these movies…. I think it is best, if they are going to watch something at all, for it to be at ages where they are mature enough to grasp the meaning (otherwise why bother having them watch the movie to begin with!) and be there with them to explain which parts aren’t in line with the life of a Muslim.
The world is out there, and having a little girl makes it almost impossible that she will not want to play princess or be attracted to all the princess images out there. Balance and hikmah + gentleness go a long way.
SubhanAllah, I loved it sister!
I could relate everything you’ve said to myself!!!!
I think I will now wake up from my dream, get out of my little dreamy box. And face reality.
I just hope I meet Prince Charming … I mean *Mr Right* very soon.
Maryam
Jazak’Allahu khair
I really like this! I think it wakes up those individuals living in a world of magical fantasy that they think loving someone is all about; this article encourages a more reality-based perspective. I know I used to think like this a while ago and I know so many people that still think like this; to just “be in love” or want a feeling of love but not at all thinking about its viability. For example, I know people that are apparently in love with people of other religions (example –> muslim men liking non-muslim women) and while there is nothing wrong with this…once again, a longer look is needed in order to see whether the relationship’s future is possible. Simply living in a world of magic and daydreams doesn’t do justice to whether something is possible or not. You may love someone but there may be too many obstacles for that love to become an attainable marriage; there’s nothing wrong with being smart with your emotions –> emotional intelligence.
…What’s amazing is that I was thinking about this exact same thing and the story of “Cinderella” in particular just a few hours ago so I was astonished when I encountered this article and started wondering whether I was actually reading what I was reading, or just imagining my thoughts. I guess it is a very surreal feeling when you think something and the next thing you know is that what you were thinking about but not telling anyone about shows up in reality in front of you and someone else starts talking about it :/
What I wanna point out is that there is one thing in the article that I would disagree with, lol, though it’s for the women to decide whether my disagreement is legit I guess. The author of the article makes a point as to how ridiculous it is that the Prince marries Cinderella because the shoe fits and that Cinderella agrees to marriage due to these events. I understand the case being made with a view that the marriage is really superficial in the sense that Cinderella got all dolled up with a beautiful dress, and had a dance due to the fact that the Prince seems to be a handsome looking fellow from the exterior, not to mention probably very rich in worldly material. In that regard I agree that this type of judgement can be made on some sort of a higher ratio of superficiality exisiting, due to the lack of personal knowledge between life partners, but I also think that an important point of personality has been missed about the Prince’s character in the course of the author’s personal agenda to prove her point; which is that the Prince made personal efforts to return a lossed item to the women named Cinderella. This implies a personal duty of caring or affection which is an action that does not arrive because of his external features, but rather through his internal sense of character. I think if a man were to go around the kingdom to return something as little and simple as a shoe that has been lost, if not all, usually most women would be quite touched by such an action. So therein, lies my disagreement about the judgement on that union of the Prince and Cinderella being fully superficial, but, ofcourse, I’m sure it can be debated
However, regardless of the latter point just made, I am still against the Cinderella story and would not show it to my own future children or, specifically, a daughter (insh’Allah and only by the mercy of Allah, swt) due to the fact that it instills little girls at a young age with a view to being sweeped off their feet by glamour, materialism, and largely superficial love.
What one can do when whom you love madly doesn’t love you : ( at all,other things are secondary to me.
Alhamdulillah someone else noticed how missed-up disney fairy-tales really are, strange through that books about magic* were in an Islamic school, when magic is Shirk!! That makes Disney almost a complete no-no in the first places… worse than pornography (at least its not Shirk)
“but neither of these two (angels) taught anyone (such things) till they had said, ‘We are for trial, so disbelieve not (by learning this magic from us)’” [al-Baqarah 2:102]
And Allah know best
this story is very interesting and also give us another viewto see the things that called love…
i hope the writer can published more this kind of story…
tq very much,maybe after this alot ofpeople can understand what is love about..
not only a nice,sweet,’religious’ mate..
but a lot more…
wassalam..
Masha Allah sister. Thank you for this.
It really made me think…
wasalaam
wow. I love that whole story and the end bit!! JazakAllah!!!
I can’t stand Disney, either!! It’s all based on superficialities. It disgusts me! I love the article by the way!
Love is a feeling that Allah (SWT) has granted to us, and we should be thankful for it because not all things (like angels) have this emotion. I agree that love should be islamic… but I don’t think that finding someone who in addition to be a good muslim, is nice and makes you feel good and smile inside is something we should push away. Love is mysterious, but it is real and something we should cherish even if it can’t be explained completely.
Your daughter is super cute, MashAllah! ^-^
Thank you for sharing that with us. c: