Only the mother is excused for what afflicts her garment of the child's impurity
28-1-2014 | IslamWeb
Question:
I have a sister who is the mother of two boys. One is two years old and the other is six months old. The older son frequently urinates on his parents' clothes and they know that the prayer is invalid with such clothes unless they change them and wash them. This is very difficult for them. They do not pray now under the pretext that they can not change their clothes all the time. Is there a concession or solution so that they can perform the prayer without experiencing this hardship? May Allaah Reward you.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.
A mother who has to breastfeed her child and take care of him all the time is required to make the necessary precautions to avoid her child's impurity. Having observed all the necessary precautions, she is blameless for the impurity which afflicts her garment. She is not required to wash it in this case unless it is excessively large. Rather, it is recommended that she allocates a certain garment for the prayer. This is according to the preponderant opinion which is adopted by the Maaliki scholars as well as those who follow them. Counting the pardoned types of impurity, Ad-Dardeer 
a Maaliki scholar, said: "Likewise, the suckling woman's garment or body, whether she is a mother or any other woman when she is needed or there is no alternative but her or when the child rejects other wet nurses. She exerts her best to avoid urine and excrement as when she moves him away from her when he is urinating or uses pieces of cloth which gather urine and keep it away from her. Having observed all the necessary precautions, she is blameless for the impurity which affects her garment, unless she is neglectful."
The father, however, is not pardoned for the impurity which affects his body or garment because he mostly does not take care of the child.
In all cases, taking care of the children is not a justification for abandoning the prayer and a person who does so exposes himself to a great danger. Some of the scholars consider a person who deliberately abandons the prayer out of laziness an apostate. These parents are required to be keen on performing prayer. The father is required to perform the prayer in congregation in the Masjid after achieving the relevant conditions which include purity of the body, the garment and the place. It is better for him to allocate a certain garment for the prayer. The father's prayer is invalid when he performs it with a garment smeared with some of the child's impurity as longs as the mother maintains and takes care of the child.
The mother is pardoned for all that affects her garment of the child's impurity after taking all the necessary precautions. She is not required to wash it in this case unless it is excessively large as mentioned before. It is better for her to allocate a garment for the prayer.
It is worth mentioning to alert that changing the clothes for each prayer is mostly not difficult. Rather, Satan whispers to the human and beautifies laziness for him in order to render him guilty with the grave major sin of abandoning the prayer.
Having stated that, these parents are required to hasten to repentance to Allaah, intensively ask for forgiveness and make up for all the missed and neglected prayers until they mostly believe that they are no longer liable to anything.
Allaah Knows best.