Productivity is killing your time.
Naomi Askew
People often ask what I do all day if my son doesn’t have screen time.
Instead of putting dishes in the dishwasher, I teach him to wash them.
Instead of putting clothes in the dryer, I lift him up to the washing line so he can help hang them.
Instead of buying a robot mop, I let him try mopping.
Instead of buying pre-made food, we cook.
People say, “Why waste time? Be more productive.” But if you send your child to early years education, you’ll have a teacher roleplaying these same tasks—or attempting to—with 15 other children.
People spend money at play centres for their kids to pretend to do these tasks, yet it’s considered beneath us or not productive enough to do the real thing with them.
Motherhood, like salah, can transform you—but you have to come wholeheartedly, humbled, ready to serve your Lord with as much excellence as you can muster.
And like salah, it’s not a race to finish—it’s about whether it changed the state of your heart.
Motherhood is meant to be an act of worship, not a service to be outsourced, not a to-do list to be completed.
Motherhood is sacred, but somewhere along the line we started seeing the transformation as too inconvenient—or something we can pay someone else to do.
But like salah, some acts of worship have to be performed by you, for you to reap the benefit of that connection.