How Did I Know I Wanted to Be a Mother

Around the age when you’re asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I already knew I wanted to be a mother.

I was probably five or six years old.

At that age, I had a simple answer for everything. I remember thinking that I wanted to be a doctor because I wanted to help people and support my family. Somewhere in that imagined future, I naturally assumed there would also be a husband, children, and a home of our own.

I didn’t know anything about motherhood yet. I simply knew I wanted it.

As I got older, though, that certainty became much more complicated.

When Motherhood Stopped Feeling Simple

My parents divorced when I was young, and I watched my mother experience many of the hardships that came with being a single mother without much support. Across both sides of my family, I also saw very different ideas about marriage, family, and what life was supposed to look like.

For a while, marriage and motherhood started to sound less like the beautiful future I had imagined as a child and more like something that could go very wrong.

Being career-oriented began to feel safer.

A career gave me something I could build independently. I could work hard, support myself, develop skills, and make decisions without having to depend on someone else. Family life, on the other hand, felt much less predictable.

The strange thing was that I never stopped wanting a husband and children. I simply stopped allowing myself to imagine them.

What began as a phase eventually became nearly ten years of living a life that didn’t prioritize family at all. I rarely thought about finding my soulmate or becoming a mother. Those things felt so distant that they almost seemed to belong to another version of me.

Then I heard the Qur’an recited for the first time.

And almost out of nowhere, I had a thought:

I want to teach this to my children.

It surprised me.

Starting a family wasn’t anywhere on the horizon. I wasn’t even Muslim yet.

But something about hearing the Qur’an made me imagine motherhood differently. For the first time in years, I wasn’t thinking about motherhood as something that could make my life smaller or more vulnerable. I was thinking about what it would mean to give something beautiful to my future children.

I imagined sharing the Qur’an with them and passing along what I was only beginning to discover for myself.

It was such a small thought, but I still remember it because of how significant it felt. Allah placed the desire back into my heart before I had even said my shahada.

It would be about two years before I converted to Islam and roughly five years before I eventually got married, alhamdulillah.

Learning What Kind of Family I Wanted

My desire to become a mother didn’t suddenly turn into a plan. There were still many things I needed to figure out first.

After I was laid off from one of my dream jobs, I began to feel ready for a different direction. I saw it as an opportunity to take everything I had learned and the skills I had developed and use them toward something that felt more meaningful to me.

As I prepared to move back home and eventually begin looking for a husband, I started doing small things for Allah consistently. I had a morning routine dedicated to Allah and became more intentional about my deen. I also began thinking carefully about what I would need in a husband and what I wanted our family to look like.

I made a list of questions I wanted to ask a potential spouse, along with a list of non-negotiables.

Because yes, I wanted to be a mother and a wife. But before either of those things happened, I felt a tremendous responsibility to find a good father for my future children.

That mattered especially because I didn’t have a paternal wali.

I still gave my father the opportunity to be involved in the process, but ultimately, a teacher I trusted served as my wali and helped me navigate and negotiate the terms of my marriage.

There is much more I could say about that experience, and I think it deserves its own post. What stands out to me now, though, is how much thought I was already putting into the family I hoped to have before I even knew who would be part of it.

I wasn’t just looking for a husband. I was thinking about the kind of father I wanted my children to have.

The Motherhood I Imagined

Eventually, alhamdulillah, I got married.

Within our marriage, my husband and I talked about a few things that were especially important to me about becoming parents.

One of the biggest was that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother.

For me, that has never simply meant not having a job outside the home. I wanted to be deeply involved in the everyday life of our children: to cook for them, educate them, care for them, and have the time and attention to notice the little things happening in their lives.

I knew that would require a lot from me, and I also knew I needed a husband who understood why it mattered to me and would support that vision of our family.

I also wanted us to wait at least a year before having children.

That might sound strange coming from someone who had wanted to be a mother since childhood, but becoming a mother was never the only thing I wanted from life. I wanted time with my husband first: to travel, enjoy our marriage, and learn how to live together before adding children to the picture.

I wanted us to have the opportunity to simply be husband and wife.

Another hope mattered deeply to me: I wanted our children to grow up in the masjid.

I want our family to spend as much time there as we reasonably can. I want us to serve our community and take care of our masjid together. InshaAllah, I hope it becomes one of the places where my children grow up feeling that they belong.

I don’t just want them surrounded by other Muslims because community can help us become better Muslims. I want them to watch their parents participate in that community, to see us show up, serve, help, and care for the place that helped shape our family.

These ideas became part of what being a mother meant to me long before I actually became one.

Then Allah Gave Me a Son

Of course, I knew none of it would happen exactly according to my plans.

Allah is in control of our lives, and I became ready to have children sooner than I expected. A lot of that had to do with my husband and the way he supported me, not only practically but emotionally. The more secure I felt in our marriage, the less frightening motherhood seemed.

When I look back now, I can see how many pieces of my life came together in ways I couldn’t have planned.

My childhood shaped the home I wanted to create. My experiences with my family shaped the marriage I hoped for. Hearing the Qur’an changed the way I imagined my future, and Islam gave me a reason to think beyond simply building a successful life for myself.

Alhamdulillah.

I never became a doctor.

Eventually, I chose a different career path and stopped chasing the kind of validation I once associated with being career-oriented.

And now my son is six months old.

I get to watch him grow, and somehow, I am growing alongside him. I am learning what it means to be his mother while also trying to become a better Muslim alongside him.

The woman who once imagined motherhood from a distance now has a little boy reaching for her, growing before her eyes, and changing the rhythm of her entire life.

I don’t have motherhood figured out. I’m only six months in.

But perhaps that is exactly why I wanted to write this now.

Remembering Why I Wanted Motherhood

Motherhood moves quickly.

There are so many things to think about every day. The feeding, the naps, the laundry, the milestones, the appointments, the routines, the little problems that somehow feel enormous when you’re in the middle of them.

It would be easy to become consumed by what motherhood asks of me and lose sight of the woman who once dreamed about becoming a mother.

So when I think about that little girl now, I don’t just remember that she wanted children. I remember how much her idea of family changed as she grew up, how hearing the Qur’an gave that dream new meaning, and how intentionally she eventually prepared for the family she hoped to build.

Now I have the chance to live inside some of those hopes.

I can create a home where my child feels safe and loved. I can make space for faith to be part of our everyday life. I can bring him into the community I once imagined him growing up in. And as much as I want to teach him, I know motherhood will also teach me.

The reality will undoubtedly look different from what I imagined. My son will have his own personality, needs, struggles, and dreams, and Allah will write things for our family that I cannot anticipate.

That doesn’t make the intentions I had before becoming a mother meaningless. If anything, they give me something to return to when the day-to-day responsibilities become overwhelming.

I once prayed for the ordinary things I now experience every day.

There are still so many things I don’t know about motherhood. I don’t know what kind of mother I’ll be when my son is five, ten, or twenty. I don’t know what challenges our family will face or how Allah will shape our lives from here.

But I know why I wanted this life.

Long before I held my son, I hoped for a family centered around love, faith, presence, and community. Now I get to spend my life trying to build it.

The little girl who answered “a mother” all those years ago had no idea what she was asking for.

Allah knew.

And somehow, He has brought me here.

Alhamdulillah.