Early years
In the beginning there were five of us: my four wonderful young children and me, a Malaysian living in the UK. I had two girls and two boys, namely Aisha, Sufiah, Abraham, and Iskander.
My kids had markedly different personalities. For instance, Aisha was imaginative where Iskander was intense, but they were both stubborn in their own way!
On the other hand, Abraham and Sufiah were very easy to look after. Sufiah was sensitive and conscientious, but this isn't to say she didn't have a mind of her own; like all my children, she had numerous interests and loved reading and solving puzzles in particular.
But things were difficult in those early days. I was practically a single mother with little money or resources, and also in a foreign country with no family or anyone else to help with our problems. At the time, my (now ex-) husband Farooq was not present.
Perhaps because of these struggles, we were a very close-knit family; and even though my children were very young, they all knew that we'd have to work together if we wanted to survive.
We had to carefully manage our expenditures, and my kids would often advise me on what we could and could not afford. During birthdays and other celebrations, we got used to buying gifts on a tiny budget; it was normal for us to simply make presents for each other instead, and things like ice creams were definitely luxuries!
All this helped my children appreciate the value of the things they had. I considered it extremely important to give my children a good upbringing, so that they would be well-equipped to face the challenges ahead of them. It was clear that nobody was going to give us anything — we'd have to earn it.
While important, education wasn't the top priority for my kids; I've always believed in the merits of a holistic approach to bringing up children, and I placed as much of a premium on their health, general behaviour, and morals as their academic work.
In fact, my kids' education was usually the simplest part of their upbringing to handle. I had a good rapport with each of my children and brought them up to enjoy learning; this made it easy to make learning a pleasant experience for them that didn't take too long.
Looking back, those early years were a good period in our lives (especially because of how close we were as a family), even though they were extremely challenging.