The Ecstasy of Being Misunderstood

Rabia's teachings were considered shocking, even heretical, by mainstream Islamic scholars of her time. She spoke of loving God in ways that confounded orthodoxy and made her seem eccentric or mad to observers. Yet she remained unshaken, grounded in her own experience of truth. The parent-teen relationship is riddled with mutual misunderstanding: the adolescent misreads the parent's motives as controlling or outdated; the parent misinterprets the teen's distance as rejection or ingratitude. Rabia's example suggests that some misunderstanding is inevitable and bearable. A parent doesn't need to be understood or vindicated by their teenager in real time. The parent's role includes sometimes being the unpopular voice of limit-setting, the person who denies the request, who insists on values the teen doesn't yet see. Rather than desperately working to prove themselves to the adolescent, parents grounded in Rabia's confidence can accept being perceived as unfair, uncool, or out of touch. This releases tremendous pressure from the relationship. Over time, the adolescent may come to see the parent's perspective differently. But even if they don't, the parent's integrity remains intact.