Having a daughter is #goals, and that’s why I talk about mine a lot. Did you catch my last article about watching Ms. Marvel with my daughter and how it led to some very eye-opening conversations about trust and being seen as a Muslim? Bear with me, I know I’m the annoying mom with stories galore of my babies to share with unwilling audiences.

Daughters are kind of like real life Barbies that no one judges you for playing with as an adult. Just like you choose everything your doll wears and does (based on your tastes and imagination), the same goes (to an extent) for your child. I curated Baby Girl’s outfits to include shorts, skirts, dresses and tanks. She was accessorized to a fault, to her infantile irritation.

Then she hit age three or four and insisted on wearing pants under everything. It was still a cute look, but I have to admit I was disappointed. By the time Baby Girl was seven, she refused to wear short sleeves as well and requested more modest swimwear. All of my Barbie fashion dreams circled down the drain. Why did this matter to me?

As someone who grew up with her wardrobe dictated by conservative parents, the grunge era was welcome in our household because it fulfilled two sets of fashion rules: my mom’s and Kurt Cobain’s. Hijab was a natural choice for me as an adult, made well past puberty. Yet I wanted to make sure Baby Girl had every experience I didn’t, so I cleared the path to fashion for her. Just because her mom grew up dowdy didn’t mean she had to.

Hijab, while heavily influenced by my conservative upbringing, had still been a very personal CHOICE for me, and I wanted the same for her.

My kids attended weekend Islamic school and regular Quran classes, so I wasn’t entirely surprised by the evolution of her modest style. Our tightest social circles were Muslim, and my kids’ favorite place to hang out was at the masjid with their friends. Even in the privacy of our home, clothing remained modest, not because my in-laws lived with us, but because of our children’s fitra (a state of innocence or purity that we are born with). I didn’t expose skin at home unless breastfeeding, and only what would naturally show.

As a mom also of boys, it was important to me to normalize the female form as functional and not just sexual so my sons wouldn’t grow up to be sexual predators or worse, teenagers who giggled at the word “boob.” I wanted Baby Girl to know that her body was both powerful and nurturing, but critically, HERS.

It’s not like we had conversations about modest clothing except when Baby Girl wore not one, but TWO layered amirah hijabs on the way to school. It was a daily hostage negotiation in the parking lot. To be clear, I was hostage to a preschooler. She wanted to wear hijab because I did, and I didn’t want her to mimic me without understanding why. That’s what I said at the time, but in fact I didn’t want people to think I was an extremist Muslim mom forcing hijab on a prepubescent child.

“Wait until puberty and we can talk about it,” I’d insist. She’d hiss, spit and demand to know more about this puberty thing in her way.

When I really wanted her to look cute, I’d threaten that she’d be sorry one day after puberty when she couldn’t wear these more revealing clothes anymore and her answer was, “Muslims shouldn’t wear them at all.” Okay, maybe Baby Girl understood more about hijab than I imagined.

Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, “Haya (a natural or inherent sense of modesty) is part of iman (faith).” [Sahih Muslim and Saheeh Bukhari] I surmised that my direction in fashion to my daughter was me living vicariously through my daughter, and it wasn’t her job to be my mini me or therapist. Her natural haya deserved appreciation and respect. It was my job to be a supportive bystander of her self-laid boundaries.

This summer, at the airport flying back home, she asked, “What do you think about me wearing hijab?”

I struggled not to make eye contact. What was the right thing to say? Friends whose daughters observed hijab rarely shared the secret of this milestone except that once the girls hit puberty, some were told, “Okay, it’s time to wear hijab now.” I hadn’t done that when my daughter got her period, mostly because puberty for her came too soon for me. It took me months to get over it with the help of my beautiful Mommying While Muslim cohost and experienced mom. Baby Girl, however, was a calm boss, exactly the opposite of my menarcheal experience.

I pretended to really care about sanitizing my hands in that moment at the airport and gruffly replied, “I don’t.” I did, but again, supportive bystander, not dictator. Breathe.

Eyeroll. “I mean, what would you think if I wore it?”

“I wouldn’t. If you want to, good, if you don’t want to, good.” Did I really believe that? Whew, I didn’t say “ I don’t care;” good, because that would be really bad.

“Well, I think I’m going to start wearing it.”

“Ok.” OMG OMG OMG. Is this really happening? Don’t make eye contact!

Not 24 hours before, we stood in a masjid parking lot with Baby Girl in tears because she couldn’t get a hijab to stay in place for Jummah (prayers). This airport revelation was really out of left field for me. So I did the only thing I knew how, which was to fall asleep on the plane and not discuss it further with her. Three hours of cabin pressure could change her mind. Who knew?

Once home, she requested my extra hijabs, the rectangle stoles I don’t wear because I’m a devoted 45X45 square. Since then, Baby Girl has repeatedly asked when she needs to wear it and when she doesn’t, committing the rules of mahram to memory. Her hijab magically doesn’t move anymore, and she is super casual about it.

I still hadn’t really discussed it with her a month out because to be frank, I was afraid to hear her answer. I didn’t want to be the reason she wore it, the influence that compelled her toward hijab. I didn’t want to relive hostage negotiations in the parking lot. Thankfully, one of my friends recently asked her why she started.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to.” Sweet and simple. She just did the thing. Like all the other normal things she’d done before. Her fitra versus my unnecessary fits of anxiety.

To say I had nothing to do with it is my defense against those critics who will say I told her to observe hijab, or that she is doing what her mother has modeled. Until recently, I received flack for allowing my daughter to dance ballet, costumes and all. I didn’t tell her about those critics. SHE decided not to re-enroll because she knows the company won’t allow her to wear hijab or modify her costumes at recitals.

“Haya is part of iman.” Each lends to the other. So Baby Girl teaches me time and again that what others say doesn’t matter. Just do the things we are supposed to, and Allah (S) will take care of the rest.

She also wants to shop at Haute Hijab.

Dr. Uzma Jafri is originally from Texas, mom to four self-directed learners, a volunteer in multiple organizations from dawah resources to refugee social support services, and runs her own private practice. She is an aspiring writer and co host of Mommying While Muslim podcast, tipping the scales towards that ever elusive balance as the podcast tackles issues second generation Americans have the voice and stomach to tackle.