ISRAEL: Interview With Rita: Using Music As A Conduit For Peace

ISRAEL: Interview With Rita: Using Music As A Conduit For Peace

When you’re offered an opportunity to interview the biggest female singing sensation in your country, you jump at it. Last month during the Israeli Presidential Conference I was lucky enough to meet and interview Rita Jahan-Foruz a singer known simply as Rita.

Rita was born in Tehran, Iran and emigrated to Israel at the age of 8. Through hard work and lots of talent she became Israel’s most successful singing artist. For the last 25 years Rita has had an illustrious career both in Israel and abroad. Her latest album “My Joys” is entirely in her native language of Pharsi. That album has become a big seller on the black market in Iran where it is forbidden, along with all other Western music. Some say that Rita’s album would go gold in Iran if it wasn’t banned.

I waited in the VIP room for the interview to start, and I sat there becoming increasingly more nervous as I watched other people interview Rita and a host of other interesting people who were speaking at the conference. I did chuckle a bit to myself when Weili Dai, a top female entrepreneur and the CEO of Marvell (herself an amazing, friendly and gifted woman), came over to have her picture taken with Rita. It wasn’t the photo op that made me chuckle, it was the fact that right before the photo was snapped both of them fluffed their hair. It seems to be a universal quirk all women around the world have before being photographed. I was also quite in admiration how both of them managed to be on their feet all day in their beautiful but really high heels.

Okay, shallowness now aside.

Right before our interview started, a young man who was a waiter at the event came over, sat down on the couch next to Rita and started talking to her. It was spontaneous on his part and graciously received on her part. It was only after I had tweeted a picture of them talking and commented on how friendly Rita was that someone tweeted me back saying that the waiter is connected to an organization called OneFamily (a non-profit organization that rehabilitates, reintegrates and rebuilds the lives of Israel’s thousands of victims of terror attacks) which is a cause dear to Rita’s heart.

 rita and waiter

When it was my turn I came over, said hello and introduced myself. I sat down trying to look put together, which I can tell you is not an easy task when you are lugging a knapsack, a telephone, a tape recorder, notebook and ipad.

Before I even started asking questions, I gave Rita a World Moms Blog tote bag that Jennifer Burden, the founder of World Moms Blog, had sent me to gift to her. Rita loved it, and right away started putting all her things into it.

rita and totebag

I then handed her a little gift from myself, a keychain that said in Hebrew “Music is the language of angels.” She loved that too, and you could see that her reaction was genuine and not just polite. She right away pulled out her keyring from her bag. It had lots of keys and other keychains, including one with a picture of her daughters and she clipped my gift right on. She even proudly showed it off to others.

rita and keychain

As I was about to start asking her questions, I blurted out,  “I’m a bit nervous.”  She looked at me in surprise and said, “Nervous? Really? Why?” as if the concept was completely foreign to her that someone would even be nervous speaking to her. That put me completely at ease, and the interview, or should I say more of a conversation, started. When I watched some of her videos later I was able to once again see her natural friendliness and charm shine through. This video of Rita recording one of her songs in Pharsi is a good example of her being down to earth and approachable.

I offered to do the interview in English or Hebrew, but Rita wanted to practice her English so we started off in English but moved back and forth. I could tell how passionate she was about certain subjects (which was often) because that was when she moved back into Hebrew in order to be able to express herself so much more freely.

Susie: World Moms Blog represents mothers from around the world. Right now we represent 20 countries including Morocco, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and many others. We write about motherhood, culture, social good, about connecting people through what they have in common.

Rita: Wow. Do you have a writer from Iran?

S: No, but if you know someone, we would love to have them on board.

I think that what you’re trying to do with music is what we at World Moms Blog are trying to do through writing, which is to bring the world together one person at a time. (Rita nodded her head at that.)

Do you see yourself as an ambassador of peace between all countries or just between Israel and Iran?

R: I think with my own existence I represent the Iranian and Israeli connection but I would love to represent as much as I can. I think that as women we have a unique way of connecting.

The male and female species are in essence two opposites. You need them both in the world, like Ying and Yang, day and night. It’s a little bit like our reproductive organs. The male behavior, like the male anatomy is surging forward, conquering, moving on with energy that is outward facing.

A woman’s energy is like our wombs. It’s meant to contain/include* and to embrace what there is no matter what. We first embrace and bring things close. We need to be able to see the strength in this, we need to influence and to realize that the place of “containing/including*” others is our strength.

It’s like a a mother who is always the center of the house. Everyone in the family comes and goes, they go a bit nuts. They cry but in the end they always come back to the middle, to the center and the nature of women is the center.

We are mothers and what happens to our children, and to the world they will inherit  is important to us. We have to use our natural strengths of connecting to make sure we do what is best for them.

(*There is no great English translation for the word Rita used. The closest I got was contain but it is somewhere between contain and include with maybe a little bit of absorb.)

S: What would you suggest to women to do in order to empower themselves?

R: Not everyone can sing or dance or act or write books, but I think that each and every one of us can influence by connecting. One person connects with another and they connect with someone else from someplace place and so on. We all have to try to connect to others.

(Note: Rita is not only the best selling Israeli singer of all time, she also dances, acts and has published a children’s book. She received The Israeli Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989 for her role in The Thousand Wives of Naftali Siman-Tov, as well as the 2011 Best Actress award at the San Francisco International festival of Short Films for Ben returns Home. Her children’s book “The Girl With A Brave Heart” has been translated into English from Hebrew.)

S: That is something really close to my heart. That’s how I got to blogging, by connecting with other mothers though a forum overseas, getting to know them and having them get to know me. We were all from different cultures but we were all mothers.

One of the things which touched me was listening to you talk about how you got the love of music from your home and that your parents were very supportive of you.

R: They were supportive in their love. They didn’t understand what I was doing, going from class to class, learning acting, dancing and taking voice lessons. They didn’t understand anything about that.

S: But what I’m hearing from you is that they didn’t criticize either?

R: No they didn’t.

S: You have two daughters ages 12 and 21, right? Do you think parent/child relationships today are different then they were when you were growing up?

R: Of course. Of course. I think that back then children were not so important in what they said. They were children. Nowadays, we don’t look at children as children. They are much more important than us. We listen to them more, we are more attentive and sensitive to them. I don’t think it was like that back when I was growing up. Kids were kids. You ate and grew. No?

S: I don’t know. What I see is that kids these days are less connected to their parents than we were, at least on a daily basis. They have a lot more outlets than we had.

R: The world is changing. In this age of the television and computers, the “outside” world has more influence whereas once the “inside”  world, the inner circle, had more influence.

I think that these days we give our kids so much love that maybe we spoil them too much. We are more protective of them than anyone was of us. Right?

S: I think that these days we have more to protect our children from.

R: Yes, you’re right.

S: Has fame affected your family relationship and your relationship with your daughters?

R: Of course.

S: In what ways?

R: I’m not talking about fame because fame didn’t affect anything. I am talking about not having the privacy to go for instance with my daughter to the beach. People constantly come and want to take pictures with you and you can’t possibly have privacy with your family and children outside of the house. Of course it’s something that affects you.

S: What do your children have to say about it?

R: I think they don’t like it. They are much more sensitive to people passing by and looking at them or photographing them. They are very sensitive to that.

S: Do you think your children feel any advantages of your fame?

R: Of course. They come to the concerts. They have a different type of life. Once, my daughter Meshi came home laughing at a question that someone had asked her. “What is it like to be Rita’s daughter?” She said I don’t know, I haven’t experienced anything else.

S: It sounds like she has a great sense of humor.

R: Yes, she’s amazing.

S: What is your wish for world mothers?

R: I wish for all us mothers to have the power, strength and wisdom to protect our children until they themselves have the ability to protect themselves.

I think that the most painful thing in the world is knowing that children are raped or abused and that we are not really able to protect them. That is what I am most sensitive to, knowing that somewhere out there, there is a child that is helpless and there is no one to protect him.

S: Sadly, things like that happen even to children who have people looking out for them.

R: It’s even worse when the people who are supposed to be protecting the children are the ones who do terrible things and do them harm.

S: Do you have one particular defining moment that you remember as a child?

R: Yes, yes. In Iran, my mother had a hair salon in the house. All kinds of women used to come to her. Once, a women who was almost completely bald came. All she had was wisps of hair. My mother shampooed her hair and while she was doing her hair she kept telling her you’re so beautiful, look how beautiful you are, you’re so wonderful.

I was 6, and my sister who is four years older than me was 10. My mother was working in our bedroom like she always did because that was also her work room. When the woman left, my sister said to my mother, why are you such a liar? How could you tell her she was beautiful? She was bald, she almost didn’t have any hair.

My mother then asked my sister, why do you think I was lying? My sister said, you told her how beautiful she was, what beautiful eyes she has, but she was bald. My mother then gently asked my sister, but did you look at her eyes?  Her eyes were very beautiful.

And that’s the lesson I quietly learned there.

S: It seems to me that that is exactly what your book teaches, to look past the outer and see the beauty and kindness that is in each person.

R: That’s what I learned my whole life from my mother. When she looks at someone, first and foremost she looks for what’s beautiful in the person. That’s the way she sees people. That was a very big life lesson for me.

Every time I tell this story I still have goosebumps.

S: I find it amazing that I didn’t even know about your book until one of the other World Mom Bloggers told me that you had written one and it had been translated to English.

R: The book is gaining incredible momentum.

S: It should. It’s a great book with a great message and great illustrations.

(Note: The book is called The Girl With a Brave Heart. I read it in Hebrew and I love the many messages in it including the fact that people don’t always know how to ask for what they need and that we should let our hearts lead the way.)

Of course that’s when I pulled out the two copies of her book that I bought along for her to sign. I handed her a pen but she searched her bag because she has a special marker for signing books.

rita book signing

There is something so nice about talking to someone who is famous, who has performed for world leaders, who has bought so much joy to others through her music, yet still makes you feel no less important than she is. Maybe one day I will get to speak to her again because I really enjoyed our conversation.

I really hope Rita has unparalleled success in bringing people and countries together through her music. My wish for her is that one day she will get to perform in her native country of Iran, something that will mean that peace and acceptance has finally come to our world.

Before Rita’s performance at the UN’s main assembly hall, secretary-general Ban Ki Moon told Rita that many revolutions started from music and that it’s a place that politicians can never enter.

What do you think? Do you think music and musicians can help bring about change and be a conduit for peace?

This has been an original post to World Moms Blog by Susie Newday of Israel. You can find her positive thoughts on her blog, New Day New Lesson.

Photo credit to the author.

Susie Newday (Israel)

Susie Newday is a happily-married American-born Israeli mother of five. She is an oncology nurse, blogger and avid amateur photographer. Most importantly, Susie is a happily married mother of five amazing kids from age 8-24 and soon to be a mother in law. (Which also makes her a chef, maid, tutor, chauffeur, launderer...) Susie's blog, New Day, New Lesson, is her attempt to help others and herself view the lessons life hands all of us in a positive light. She will also be the first to admit that blogging is great free therapy as well. Susie's hope for the world? Increasing kindness, tolerance and love. You can also follow her Facebook page New Day, New Lesson where she posts her unique photos with quotes as well as gift ideas.

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World Moms Blog Launches 8 Month MDG Campaign!

World Moms Blog Launches 8 Month MDG Campaign!

World Moms Blog Speaks Out…

…Millennium Development Goals

We announced our new campaign at BlogHer Chicago at the BlogHer International Activists Panel! Join us for our monthly twitter parties with hashtag #Moms4MDGs to keep the conversation flowing about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)! Back in April our Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan asked, “What if we keep writing about the MDGs?”, just after two rounds of twitter parties that we hosted for the Momentum 1000 campaign last April. The campaign made a lot of noise for good, while reminding the world there were only 1000 days left until the 2015 deadlines for the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Purnima’s question led to more brainstorming, and here’s what we we launched in July: #Moms4MDGs Button

An Exciting All Volunteer, 8 Month

MDG Awareness & Action Campaign!

World Moms Blog is organizing a global “walk around” the MDG’s called “World Moms Blog Speaks Out…Millennium Development Goals.”  What is that?

Well, every month, for 8 months (1 per the 8 MDGs), one of our World Moms will answer the question, “Why is (the month’s MDG) important to me as a mother?”

Her post will be hosted by an organization’s web site that is working relentlessly, year-round toward that particular MDG. For example, our first post ran on August 13th on the ONE Campaign’s site by our editor, Nicole Melancon, for MDG 1, to eradicate extreme poverty.

How Can You Help Save the World?

This project brings awareness to the MDGs and showcases an organization working toward an MDG goal per month. By sharing the post of the month, writing your own post about the campaign, joining the monthly twitter parties or carrying out each month’s action items when possible, together, we can make a difference!

#Moms4MDGs Grand Finale EDT UpdateAnd when the World Moms get together to chat…it’s always fun!

The next twitter party will take place on Wednesday, March 19th from 1-2pm EST on MDG, forming global partnerships for development! The hashtag is #Moms4MDGs, and we encourage all moms around the world to join in the discussion! We are lucky, again, to go out with a bang with cohosts, Girls Globe and Multicultural Kid Blogs!

Haven’t been to a twitter party? You can do something as simple as tweet what the MDG of the month is, ask questions, share ideas and meet other people interested in the same global issues. What a great reason to join and to socialize with our World Moms! How to come to the party: You can search for the hashtag (#Moms4MDGs) to join in on twitter from your phone, or if you’re at your computer, go to www.tweetchat.com and enter the #Moms4MDGs hashtag to follow and participate in the thread! Don’t forget to use the hashtag #Moms4MDGs. (We are not being paid by any organization to work on this campaign. This service is part of our mission statement stated at the bottom of our site.)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

 

IT WAS A BLAST! –> JULY 2013: Join our #Moms4MDGs twitter party on July 31, 2013 at 9pm EST until 10pm EST.  Say hello to the World Moms and learn about or see how well you know the MDGs! 

 

1) WE KICKED OFF MDG1! –> AUGUST 2013: MDG1, To Eradicate Extreme Poverty at ONE.org with World Mom, Nicole Melancon of thirdeyemom to post on August 13th, plus a twitter party on Wednesday, August 14th 9-10pm EST! —>

READ: MDG1 POST by Nicole Melancon at the ONE Campaign! 

 

2) 57 MILLION CHILDREN WITH NO ACCESS TO PRIMARY EDUCATION –>:SEPTEMBER 2013: MDG2, Achieve Universal Primary Education with World Mom, Martine deLuna at Save the Children. 

READ: MDG2 POST by Martine deLuna at SAVE THE CHILDREN! 

 

3) OCTOBER 2013: MDG3, Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. Girl Up and Plan International in the USA stepped in to cohost our Twitter Parties!  This month’s post was by World Mom, Mama B, in Saudia Arabia on her volunteerism with Al-Nahda.

READ: MDG3 POST by Mama B. at World Moms Blog!

 

4) NOVEMBER 2013, MDG4: Reduce Child Mortality: We’re at the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Campaign with World Mom, Purnima Ramakrishnan in India! We kicked off 2 twitter parties on World Pneumonia Day for child survival! 

READ: MDG4 POST by Purnima Ramakrishnan at the Shot@Life Website! 

 

5) Improve Maternal Health: World Mom Dee Harlow in Laos Speaks Maternal Health at Every Mother Counts!

#Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties December 18th at 1-2pm EST and 9-10pm EST 

READ: MDG5 POST by Dee Harlow in Laos on the Every Mother Counts Web Site!

 

6) Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases.  Meet us at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with World Mom Erin Threlfall! 

#Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties January 15th at 1-2pm EST and 9-10pm EST

READ: MDG6 POST by Erin Thelfall on malaria on the Impatent Optimists blog! 

 

 7) FEBRUARY 2014, MDG7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. Meet us in Brazil as Esquel Foundation with World Mom, EcoZiva! 

READ: MDG7 POST by EcoZiva on environmental sustainability posted at Esquel Foundation! 

 

NEXT UP!! — > JOIN US FOR THE GRAND FINALE MDG8 TWITTER PARTY! –>

8) MARCH 2014, MDG8: Global Partnership for Development. The Last MDG with World Mom Elizabeth Atalay on the GAVI Alliance Blog

Mark your Calendars for THE GRAND FINALE!: #Moms4MDGs Twitter Parties March 19th at 1-2pm EST with our cohosts Girls Globe & Multicultural Kid Blogs!

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

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Massachussets, USA:  Traveling Like a European

Massachussets, USA: Traveling Like a European

bags

Our luggage for a three-week trip to Europe for a family of four

We just returned from a family trip to Europe. It was the first time we took our kids, ages 7 and 4, on an overseas vacation and we wanted to be sure to make the most of the experience. Right from the outset, we did two very un-American things: 1) we took more than two weeks off for the trip, and 2) we packed really, really light. For four people on a three-week vacation we took just three carry-ons and one back pack.

Possibly demanding even more attention than our travel itinerary, our luggage became a bit of an obsession for my husband.

When we decided to take my cousin and his wife up on their invitation to visit them in Poland, we wanted to be as economical as possible, both about getting to Europe and traveling within it. Thanks to my husband’s frequent cross-country business trips over the past two years and the added perk that his company’s European headquarters is in Cork, Ireland, we were able to cover three of our four tickets without spending a dime. We figured once we got to Ireland, like well-traveled Europeans, we’d rely on discount airlines to get us where we wanted to go.

The challenge became figuring out which carriers would get us where we wanted to go for the least amount of money. From Ireland, we wanted to get to Poland, and from Poland, we wanted to fly to London. Then from London, once more to Ireland, for our return flight home.

Ryanair, a notorious (and insidious), Irish, discount carrier was top on our list for cheap flights. Following a close second was Easy Jet.

Though Ryanair has incredibly low prices—we bought tickets from Cork, Ireland to Warsaw, Poland for US$70 per person—they also have ridiculously restrictive carry-on luggage requirements. This is how they are stated on the Ryanair website:

“Strictly one item of cabin baggage per passenger (excluding infants) weighing up to 10kg with maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm is permitted. (handbag, briefcase, laptop, shop purchases, camera etc.) must be carried in your 1 permitted piece of cabin baggage.”

If your carry-on does NOT meet these requirements or fit in the miniature luggage cage positionedryanair by the Ryanair ticket counters and flight gates, then these are the penalties:

Extra/oversized cabin baggage will be refused at the boarding gate, or where available, placed in the hold of the aircraft for a fee of £60/€60. Fees are subject to VAT on Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and German domestic routes at applicable government rates. If you are unsure, check at the Bag Drop desk before going through security.

In other words, if your luggage doesn’t pass, at the gate you may be forced to pay as much as or more than your actual flight ticket to check the offending item.

I’m pretty sure Ryanair caters to the weekend travel crowd, whose weekend’s worth of necessities easily fall within these parameters but for a family of four on a European sojourn, the restrictions were crippling.

The restrictions caused two dilemmas for us. The first dilemma was that the standard size of all US carry-on suitcases exceeds Ryanair dimensions. In fact, after browsing multiple websites and purchasing and returning two, new carry-ons, we could not seem to find wheeled luggage small or light enough to fit their limitations. The second dilemma was that without wheels, our children were not old enough nor strong enough to carry their own luggage. Meaning that everything we needed for our three-week trip would have to be carried by my husband and me.

Armed with a tape measure and digital luggage scale, my husband became a man possessed by the Ryanair luggage restrictions.

Our packing list went from vacation-size to commando-style. Each of us was rationed: five tops (two long sleeve, three short), four bottoms (two pants, two shorts or skirts), seven under garments, three pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, one sweater, a swimsuit and a travel-raincoat.

Added to this were toiletries, my husband’s laptop computer, business attire for the days he needed to put in at the Cork office (including a sports coat and a pair of dress shoes), entertainment items for the kids (foam-weight, modeling clay; travel journals; crayons; a travel game; a deck of cards; markers), a DSLR camera, and a tablet computer loaded with books, two movies and a variety of travel apps.

We divided these items among our backpack and three small bags, weighed and measured each one…twice. Then stood on our bathroom scale and weighed them again. When we were pretty confident that our luggage met the size and weight requirments—dictated most restrictively by Ryanair—my husband added a contingency plan, which involved wearing all of our heaviest and bulkiest clothing items on travel days.

We were determined to travel small, light-weight and efficient, just like our European counterparts.

So though Ryanair set the stage for our minimalist luggage, thankfully, we only flew one flight with them. In comparison, Easy Jet was a luxury liner with far less restrictive rules and the three other regional carriers we flew even allowed passengers to check items, free-of-charge.

Considering the stress that packing for our trip caused up front, in the end, it was a great lesson in minimalist travel:

  1. confined to a week’s worth of clothes, we were able to do laundry twice on our trip.
  2. With careful and clever planning, our clothing choices yielded 21 different wardrobe combinations, preventing us from looking like we had on the same outfits in the copious number of pictures we snapped.
  3. The time we spent in airports was significantly reduced by the lack of our need to wait at the luggage claim each time.
  4. And, perhaps most rewarding, we’d like to think we blended in with other European travelers, rather than sticking out like typical boisterous Americans on holiday.

This is an original post for World Moms Blog by our Managing Editor and mom of two in Massachusetts, Kyla P’an.

Photos credited to the author.

Kyla P'an (Portugal)

Kyla was born in suburban Philadelphia but spent most of her time growing up in New England. She took her first big, solo-trip at age 14, when she traveled to visit a friend on a small Greek island. Since then, travels have included: three months on the European rails, three years studying and working in Japan, and nine months taking the slow route back from Japan to the US when she was done. In addition to her work as Managing Editor of World Moms Network, Kyla is a freelance writer, copy editor, recovering triathlete and occasional blogger. Until recently, she and her husband resided outside of Boston, Massachusetts, where they were raising two spunky kids, two frisky cats, a snail, a fish and a snake. They now live outside of Lisbon, Portugal with two spunky teens and three frisky cats. You can read more about Kyla’s outlook on the world and parenting on her personal blogs, Growing Muses And Muses Where We Go

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WASHINGTON, USA: Swimming lesson drama

WASHINGTON, USA: Swimming lesson drama

MP900431035edIt was a beautiful afternoon.  Blue, sunny, skies warm temperatures – a perfect Seattle summer day.  My three year old and I walked towards the community center holding hands.  As we got closer she froze up.  She stopped walking.  She said, “I don’t want to go.”  (more…)

Eva Fannon (USA)

Eva Fannon is a working mom who lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her hubby and two girls. She was born and raised on the east coast and followed her husband out west when he got a job offer that he couldn't refuse. Eva has always been a planner, so it took her a while to accept that no matter how much you plan and prepare, being a mom means a new and different state of "normal". Despite the craziness on most weekday mornings (getting a family of four out the door in time for work and school is no easy task!), she wouldn't trade being a mother for anything in the world. She and her husband are working on introducing the girls to the things they love - travel, the great outdoors, and enjoying time with family and friends. Eva can be found on Twitter @evafannon.

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PHILIPPINES: Mom On (Forced) Time Out

PHILIPPINES: Mom On (Forced) Time Out

Sick MommyI’ve been on supermom mode over the last few months. School has started for us here in the Philippines, and for the first time my son is spending the whole day in class. Because of this I’ve been on 5am kitchen duty preparing breakfast and packing snacks and lunch. I’ve been spending most of my days at home, working. I try to take on as many projects as I can these days because at present, mine is the primary source of income for our family. Afternoons are spent studying and doing homework with the kid after school. In between everything else, there are errands to run, meetings and events to attend, and countless other things to do. Thankfully, my husband has taken over driving duties. He also helps with the homework. He brings me ice cream when he knows I’m extra stressed out. I am glad that I’m not alone in this, but it has honestly begun to take its toll.

I know that a lot of moms are guilty of concentrating too much on taking care of their kids, their husbands and their households that they forget to take care of themselves. I just never thought that I would one day become that sort of mommy. Truth be told I’ve gained so much weight from stress-eating. I’ve completely given up on the exercise routine I promised myself that I would stick to. I’ve been sleeping late and I waking up before dawn. I know that I’ve been extra tired because some nights I just pass out after dinner and wake up when my alarm goes off the following morning. The funny thing is, even though my body has been telling me to slow down, I’ve been choosing to listen to that little nagging voice in my head telling me that other moms have so much more to do than I do, and that I should just keep on keeping on.

And so I did.

And then I got sick. (more…)

Patricia Cuyugan (Philippines)

Patricia Cuyugan is a wife, mom, cat momma, and a hands-on homemaker from Manila, whose greatest achievement is her pork adobo. She has been writing about parenting for about as long as she’s been a parent, which is just a little over a decade. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her reading a book, binge-watching a K-drama series, or folding laundry. She really should be writing, though! Follow her homemaking adventures on Instagram at @patriciacuyugs. 

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