Are children responsible for providing vanity wants of their parents/parents?
Q: Assalam Wa Alaikum,
Mufti, I don’t know if I’m thinking wrong, but is a son responsible for his mother’s vanity wants? If she has a husband, and at difficult time her sons helps out, is the son also responsible for personal wants of her? If her son’s wife objects, as to what her mother in law is asking for, and his mother always using the line” I AM YOUR MOTHER, I AM YOUR MOTHER” just to get her way. Isn’t that manipulating? What can his wife do? AND ACCORDING TO LAWS OF ISLAM, WHAT IS THE BEST ADVICE?
Wa Alaikum Assalam,
No, a son is not responsible for his mother’s vanity wants.
Once his mother has a husband, then he (the husband) is responsible for fulfilling all his wife’s needs and necessities in accordance to what he can afford. The husband is required to take care of his wife and look after her to the best of his ability. Once the mother has a husband who provides for her and fulfils her need, then the responsibility would not fall upon her son or children. Whatever the son or children wants to give (on their own), based on what they can afford, they can do so. If however, the husband is unable to provide for his wife or he is not doing so, then the son (or children) must help their mother in fulfilling her daily needs and necessities. In all cases, a mother cannot ask or demand that her son (or children) provide for her comforts and luxurious living and her vanity wants.
The mother cannot take advantage of her son’s kindness and constantly remind him that she is his mother in order to get her personal wants. This is totally wrong in Islam. The wife has a right to object to such situations when they are wrong in Islam. Although a son or daughter can give whatever he wants to their his mother, whether big or small, the mother cannot make demands on her son when she is being provided for by the husband.
Even if a mother does not have a husband, she still cannot make demands on her son. Instead, she can ask for assistance from her son to fulfil her daily basic needs and necessities. You can speak to your husband and let him know the Islamic teachings regarding the situation.
And Allah Knows Best.
Mufti Waseem Khan.
02/10/15.