Ramadan Mubarak. I know we are a few days in. If your family is anything like mine, you place a lot of emphasis on iftar regularly with friends and family, maybe on we weekends or maybe most days. One of the great things about Ramadan is how many of us see more of our loved ones more frequently. We do a lot of things that are good and beneficial more frequently. That includes prayer, charity, reading the Quran, and manage to do more of everything with 15-hour fasts (more or less depending on where you live).
We prepare for the next world, knowing that many people who were here last Ramadan are no longer with us. We often think of family members that were here years ago and pray for them.
If you have minor children, you should seriously think about guardianship– who would be a guardian for your minor children if you cannot be around. With more people you trust around at iftar, this is a good time to think about it. This is something you should think about even if you have already named guardians for your minor children some years ago. Guardianship is not adoption, which is a different legal process where children take on new parents. Rather, guardianship is someone appointed by a court to take care of the needs of a child. Often this is a family member, but as I point out in my Muslim Guardianship Guide, it could be a lot more complicated.
My guide, which has been revised and updated, includes free resources such as a nomination of guardian form.
In the guide, we cover:
Recent immigrants with no family in the US
When parents disagree on who the guardian should be
Non-Muslims family members
And more.
Check out the guide, and if you have any young parents that you think may benefit from it, please forward the link to them.