Yes, a wife if highly regarded in true islam. Most stereotype of women being treated badly is true but its CULTURAL. Islam itself teaches respect and love for a mans rightful wife. As for the children, Islam teaches you to raise them to be pious, obedient, relegious, honest and virtuous. It says to be polite with them and not to hurt or harm them unless they divert from their daily prayers. It teaches to raise them well educated and unhateful of anything.

It is true that Islam indeed is as fair and just as the earlier questions you posed. The problem is MEN. Many men who are bound by these simple, clear directions have a problem following them.I will focus on the Arabs primarily eventhough they are not the largest group, they deem themselves the spokespeople for Islam and have a conceit about their mother tongue as the language of Quran. Since they take the position, I shall give it. For example,many Arab men tend to think that all the money they earn belongs to them. It does not matter what sacrifices or contributions, you as a woman have made. They twist and distort religion to suit their own cause making them equal or less than those they proport to be better than, namely their Chrisitan counterparts. I have been Muslim 20 years and these monetary complaints are far and wide and in fact Arab men tend to see foreign wives as discounted ,willing to settle or less deserving basically because Arab women marry for money and position first,since love is not in the equation until after marriage. For those who question this, ask converts, I could write a book.When a woman is treated unfairly or even abused,she must turn to men to gain her rights from her kin on to judges and even so here in the U.S. Islam is not too specific when it comes to raising children. It addresses the rights of the child and duties of the parent until a certain age and then comes the duties and rights of children to their parents.Muslims are required to give their child a name with a good meaning. To them of course, these can only be Arabic names, no translations, unless pre empted by the name of an Arab movie star on satellite T.V whom they deem more important. The Muslim community is basically in its first generation phase so many parents are out of touch with the parallel lives of their children. Because Muslim men tend to integrate well and hold good paying positions in the U.S according to statistics, many of the women get to stay at home. Instead of doing anything to give back to their communities, they shop or stay home and gossip and generally are not community friendly. Islamic community centers are popping up because the mosques are run by first generation adults who are out of touch with the lives of their youth and they espouse culture instead of Islam. Hope lies in the second generation Muslims who at least are aware they are Muslim. They for the most part understand Islam as a fair,diverse, equal religion and they try to resort back to the time of Muhammed Pbuh for examples of leadership and community.

fabulous, now find me a country where this "pure" form of islam is practiced...you can not..read the papers..women in islamic contries are treated like garbage....as far as children..hadith is clear..if your children are not praying by the age of 7 you are to beat them till they comply...anyone can google this and find out that it is true..islam does not equal god