Why do you wear hijab?

From time to time, I have to remind myself of why I wear hijab.

Not exactly for my own periodical soul searching though,

but because a stranger / neighbour / colleague / etc would ask me about it.

Explaining my own reason is one thing, but defending my reason is another thing.

This morning one of the mother in my mom-and-baby class asked me about it.

I replied with my first go to answer: because it's in my religion.

But she shot it down, "yes I know, but why do you do it?"

I'm a bit confused, but probably she wants me to explain it?

"I wear it because it's a form of prayer, to obey what God told me."

She still shot it down though, and keep on asking why...

I got confused.

So I thought, okay, let's go with more rational explanation that she could understand maybe?

I tried several rational explanations, all shot down.

- Because female is created beautifully and precious like jewellery,
- To remind myself to be humble and modest
- To focus more on the inside
- To be more practical
- etc etc

I was really frustrated because she would say she understood, and she respected it, but then she always somehow turned around all the argument and made my reason sounds horrible. It doesn't help that this conversation happened in Italian and I've only been eloquent in making small talk, definitely not on debating and explaining my belief.

At one point she even said " what about if you have a daughter? do you want her to wear it even if none of her friends wear it? she would be the only one!"

I was rather horrified at her notion. "But we don't wear this just because the others wear it", I exasperated.

Lots of thought went in my head, she's essentially saying you can't be someone if that identity does not conform to the common norm.
At that point my mind flashed thoughts like would she say this to .. say, a lesbian? Because at one point I knew she's okay with same sex marriage. Or that would be politically incorrect to say to them but not to us?

By that time I was really desperate, how can I explain things that will make her understand.

but she gave me the answer instead.

She said, in our religion we also have the sister, but they are devoting their life to God. Unlike you and I, we are normal people doing a lot of normal activities, getting married, have a baby, working, etc.

So, there's my opening.

Then my reason is analogue to the sister's. It's just that in our religion, every aspect of our normal life is our form of prayer. Raising my baby to be a good person is my form of praying too.

Now it seems I said something that finally she could understand...but she still seemed unfazed...

"But what will your husband say if you take off your veil?"

"Well, if that's what I want then it would be fine. It's my choice."

Then she seemed super shocked.

"Now that makes me more curious!"

"But,  it's my choice"

"Wearing the veil is your choice? your country does not oblige you to wear it?" 
She seems really shocked about this....and then I understood why she had been chasing me with all these questions. She thought I'm being forced to wear it....

"Yes, it's obligated by the religion but my country has no say in personal preference, we wear the veil if we want it"

Then the other mothers chimed in their disbelief that my country does not oblige veil....
And the conversation switches..

And I breathed a sigh of relief...

I don't know if the end she got her satisfying answer, but I thanked her for asking the question.
From now on I know how to explain it in my minimal Italian to other Italian people.

"È come le suore. Tutta la nostra vita e per Dio, solo che nella nostra religione, tutta l'attività normale nella vita è una forma di preghiera. Anche un sorriso è una preghiera per noi"

And that's how I am reminded today, of why I wear my hijab.