Laila In Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns

In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, Laila, our younger protagonist, does not sense her mother’s warmth throughout her childhood. Instead, Laila detects that her mother, Fariba, has reserved all of her love for her two older brothers. Due to this, at one point in the story, Laila decides that people shouldn’t be allowed to have new children if all of their love was given to their older children. This opinion would, subsequently, play a role in Laila’s second pregnancy -- this time with Rasheed’s biological child. With a bicycle spoke in her hands, Laila considers aborting the fetus because she can not see herself loving Rasheed’s child as much as she loves Tariq’s. Her exact thoughts were, “She’d adored Aziza from the moment when she’d first suspected her existence… What a terrible thing it was… for a mother to fear that she could not summon love for her own child… if indeed she could ever love Rasheed’s child as

She, however, learns that her war is not against the innocent child, but in truth against Rasheed; therefore, she spares the unborn child. As her children grow up, Laila ensures to apply lessons she has learned from childhood to raising her own children. First off, she intends to display no favoritism to either child, unlike her mother who worshiped only her sons. Furthermore, she wants both of her children to feel loved; after moving out of Kabul with her children and Tariq, Laila gives her children a loving father who is willing to take care of them just as her father, Hakim, had with her. Finally, most significantly, Laila strives for both of her children to become educated because of her father who had taught her the importance of school. In the end, Laila became a better mother to her children than her mother had ever