Devotion Beyond Approval-Seeking

Rabia rejected the notion that love of God should be motivated by reward or fear of punishment. She loved purely, for the sake of love itself. Parent-teen dynamics often collapse into an approval economy: the parent offers love when the teen behaves well; the teen performs to maintain parental regard. This dynamic intensifies in adolescence when identity development requires the teen to diverge from parental expectations. This concept invites both parties to practice a different kind of devotion: the parent's commitment to the teen's wellbeing and growth independent of whether the teen approves of the parent's methods or values; the teen's commitment to genuine self-discovery independent of parental validation. This does not mean permissiveness or absence of boundaries. Rather, it means the parent can set limits without needing the teen to thank them or agree. The teen can respect the parent without needing to become them. Both can remain devoted to the relationship itself, not to extracting approval from it. This paradoxically creates more authentic approval because it is freely offered, not traded.