I am the first person to admit that I had no clue about adoption before I adopted my son. I remember when I was growing up, I would tease my brothers that they “were adopted”. There was a girl in my first grade class who was adopted, but I was always told not to talk about it to her. I came to think that adoption was something that was a secret, and because it was a secret there might be something wrong with it. (more…)
The boys after a game of chess
It all started with one eleven year old boy’s boredom. He wondered how to keep himself occupied in the holidays which were to come the next week. He talked about it to his friend, and they decided to coach the younger kids in their community. And the idea evolved. Today, Ashram Avenue Sports Club, the one in my community which has over 20 kids, some coaches, some students, some both, in various types of sports have joined in the plan.
So, in my community there is a club, started by tweens. They coach the younger kids (aged from 5 to 10) in football, cricket, badminton, chess, art and crafts. They created a website, a Facebook page. They even collected money from all parents, and appointed a treasurer and are keeping balance ledgers. This money is utilized to buy supplies like balls, sport kits, first aid, etc.
There are two adults who are administrators, keeping an eye on everything they do. Once in a while they check the account books, talk to parents and just about do whatever needs immediate attention. My house is the venue for the chess coaching. An empty plot nearby is the ground for the outdoor games. Yes, they sought permission from the plot owner, and he was kind enough to rent it out to these budding idea machines for no cost at all.
So, during the weekend and holidays, they have a schedule which involves all these games with breaks in between.
I am so happy! That is the point of this post.
The parents are happy with this arrangement. There are a lot of problems, too, but everyone likes this idea. And hence, we are constantly evolving and as and when we face any issues, we try to sort it out among ourselves.
No, these kids are not great coaches. They are not training the younger kids to become Olympic Players either. For that, a few other children are enrolled in professional sports schools. But this is for keeping the children happily engaged and in a good and structured manner.
I do not know how long this will last. It has lasted now for about a month. And it has constantly been evolving into something more meaningful and more effective. This is a good community where I am living. Everybody almost knows everybody else. It has its own positives and negatives. But so far the positives have outweighed the negatives.
As a mother, what does this mean to me? Personally, my son was not an outdoorsy type of person. He was more into intellectual things and not into exploring sports and activities. Well, there is nothing wrong in that, because everyone has their own interests and abilities. But this initiative has made him explore sports. He is familiar with all sports but now he is interested in playing, too.
I do not expect him to excel in sports. I only want him to know and understand the joys of physical activity, sports and games. For that I am grateful to these “coach-children” who made this happen.
Has anything special happened in your community which left you mildly surprised and at the same time immensely thankful?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Purnima, our Indian mother writing from Chennai, India. Her contributions to the World Moms Blog can be found here. She also rambles at The Alchemist’s Blog.
Photo credit to the author.
Purnima Ramakrishnan is an UNCA award winning journalist and the recipient of the fellowship in Journalism by International Reporting Project, John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Her International reports from Brazil are found here . She is also the recipient of the BlogHer '13 International Activist Scholarship Award . She is a Senior Editor at World Moms Blog who writes passionately about social and other causes in India. Her parental journey is documented both here at World Moms Blog and also at her personal Blog, The Alchemist's Blog. She can be reached through this page . She also contributes to Huffington Post . Purnima was once a tech-savvy gal who lived in the corporate world of sleek vehicles and their electronics. She has a Master's degree in Electronics Engineering, but after working for 6 years as a Design Engineer, she decided to quit it all to become a Stay-At-Home-Mom to be with her son! This smart mom was born and raised in India, and she has moved to live in coastal India with her husband, who is a physician, and her son who is in primary grade school. She is a practitioner and trainer of Heartfulness Meditation.
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“Your house is a dungeon of rules” is what one of my child’s closest friends said to him last week.
That was a unique way of saying something I’ve heard many times before. “Your house has so many rules!” “Is it true you make them go to sleep at 7 on a weekend?” “Why can’t they play on the iPad during the week?” And “What!!! No coke??”.
Just for the record, my 7 and 10 year old don’t go to sleep at 7 on weekends or on weekdays. They fall sleep anywhere between 8 and 8:30 on weeknights and 9:30-10:00 on weekends. They both wake up at 6:30. Most experts would agree that 10 hours of sleep is healthy and needed. Some might even say that my 7 year old needs more sleep.
Weekdays are screen free unless it’s homework related and yes, it’s true, no coke or any other fizzy drink full of sugar for the kids. I’m not saying they have never had it but it’s not allowed in my house, the “dungeon of rules” house.
Our other house rules include: only healthy unprocessed foods, a blasphemously early dinner time (by Saudi and Arab standards), no eating in front of the TV, limited screen time when they have friends over, no backing out on a commitment (like after school classes, parties or visiting friends), and making eye contact and being polite.
All our house rules feels right to me, like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So why has a comment made by my son’s 10 year old friend bothered me so much?
I think it’s because I know that the older he gets, the more he will be hearing these kind of comments. Or probably because when I was young, I did live in a dungeon of rules. Unfortunately for my mother, there was no ‘organic’ or ‘natural’ alternatives to the junk others were having.
Growing up, I did feel like my mother imposed too many rules on us.
As an adult, I know I’m a better parent for it. My mother planted the seed of wanting my children to eat well and be healthy in me. She made me realize that children cannot always get what they want, or think they want.
I had a lovely childhood full of freedom and excitement in ways other children never had. For example, I could always choose what I wanted to wear, so I always wore an outfit of a sleeveless top and ruffled skirt that was black with a purple line around the edges. When that was in the wash, I looked like a hobo. We never had a million adults around us all the time just a nanny who didn’t worry about us getting dirty. We explored and imagined and had a whole troop of explorers with us who all had different rules than ours and we survived.
Children now talk more openly to their parents and other adults and I am always amazed at how comfortable they are telling me things I would have never dreamed to say to an adult when I was a child. Maybe that’s the only difference. The fact that I know that our house is called “the dungeon of rules”.
Will my children end up feeling deprived that I don’t let them stay up late? That’s probably the biggest obstacle I have. That, and trying to keep them from eating junk. I can handle being known as the strict mother but can my kids handle being known as the ones with so many rules? (Another gem was when one of their other friends said at dinner “In my house I have no rules! No one says no to me”.)
I am trying something new in my parenting now and it seems to be having a positive effect. I tell them what they’re working towards. They do have rules, but in return for how well behaved, independent and responsible they are (which they really work hard at and achieve brilliantly most days) they get more freedom than any of the kids with ‘no rules’.
I respect them and their opinions. They have the right to say they don’t like a rule and I as a parent have the duty to enforce it. They have choices in their lives and a say in how they want things to go, as long as they continue to prove they’re responsible enough to make them. I’m toughest when I know they’re doing something that is beneath their ability or their character. I find it hard to stay positive in those situations. I believe in them so much that it’s difficult to see them doing something that’s not a reflection of their ability.
Many mothers have told me I’m expecting too much of my children but I’m so immensely proud of them and what they achieve, how self reliant they are in the environment they’re living it, how they take responsibility for their actions and how they effect others. I believe none of that would have happened had I not expected so much of them.
As for the rules, the basic fact of the matter is that children cannot be healthy, happy and productive if they are sleep deprived, have an unhealthy diet and if they rely on passive entertainment such as iPads and TV’s. So, if it takes a dungeon of rules to make them happy and healthy then I’m making a neon sign and sticking it on the roof!
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Mama B from Saudi Arabia. She can be found writing at her blog, Ya Maamaa.
Photo Credit to Dave Hamster who holds a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Three years ago, on January 13th India proudly declared the country polio-free after an unbelievable push to rid the country of this debilitating disease. In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to officially certify India as polio-free, leaving only three countries left to rid the disease: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Since the 1988 launch of a highly effective and powerful global campaign to eradicate polio, we have seen remarkable progress: In 1988, there were 125 countries with polio and today there remain only three. India’s astounding victory has been an incredible success story that has been inspiring to watch unfold.
The almost insurmountable effort to rid the second most populous country in the world of polio has been nothing short of heroic. Countless people, non-profit organizations, governmental, and global health institutions were involved in this massive effort to ensure that every single child in India was, and continues to be immunized against polio. Not only does India have an enormous population of children to vaccinate there are around 27 million new children born each year – India itself is a very large country with some of the world’s most remote and hard to reach destinations. Ensuring that every child has been immunized against polio continues to be a massive feat (India employed an army of 2.5 million vaccinators who immunized over 175 million children) yet also proves that the world can eradicate polio from the planet. If we do so, it will be only the second time in history that we have eradicated a disease in humans.
Indian school children wave at the camera during a visit to an Indian slum with Save the Children. Photo credit: Author
After traveling to India, I have continue to be amazed by what a massive campaign this has been, and what it all entailed.
Per End Polio Now, “Experts once considered India the most technically difficult place to end polio. As recently as 2009, India was home to nearly half the world’s polio cases.High population density, migrant populations and poor sanitation presented exceptional challenges to eliminating this crippling disease”.
Furthermore, India is home to millions of people who live in extremely remote, hard to reach villages that can take days to reach by foot. Yet despite these obstacles, the Indian government working together with Rotary International and other global health institutions accomplished what once seemed almost impossible.
Per Bill Gates recent article titled “India’s Finally Polio-Free. Here’s Why it Matters”published on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimists:
“It’s one of the greatest public health accomplishments of all time, and a powerful reminder of just how important it is to continue the fight to eradicate polio worldwide”.-Bill Gates
Recent polio outbreaks in war-torn Syria have proven that highly contagious polio can still spread and if we want to wipe polio off the face of the earth, there is no more opportune moment than now. We must continue to fund vaccination programs and push the three remaining countries to continue their fight against this horrible disease. The astounding accomplishment in India proves that this is a battle that can be won and is an important reminder of how people can work together to achieve the almost impossible task of vaccinating each and every child.
Do you believe we can wipe out Polio in our lifetimes?
This is an original World Moms Blog post written by Nicole Melancon of ThirdEyeMom.
You know how someone can tell you something that you already knew but in just such a way that finally something “clicks” inside you?
That is what I felt when I read Argentinean psychotherapist, Laura Gutman’s, work recently. Laura Gutman’s books are best-sellers in several Spanish speaking nations, where she is known for promoting conscious mothering.
Three of her books have been translated into Portuguese, of which one has also been published in English. I had heard so many good reviews of this particular one (Maternity, coming to face with our own shadow) that I bought it as a Christmas gift for a friend, who is planning on getting pregnant soon. For another friend, I bought a second one, whose title seemed interesting – it could be roughly translated as The power of maternal discourse.
I confess that – after three kids (including a baby), having read tons of parenting books and with restricted time for reading anything unrelated to work – I didn’t plan on tackling either anytime soon. I didn’t really think there would be anything new. However, when I picked up The power of maternal discourse I couldn’t stop. And immediately after I finished I read Maternity...
Yes, a lot of it was not new to me and some parts I did not fully agree with. Yet, overall the way she said it (and all of the case studies she used as examples) made such a difference that it produced somewhat of a revolution in my life, especially in three areas: my relationship with my mother, my relationship with myself and my relationship with my children. In this part I would like to talk about how it affected my relationship with my mother.
For starters, my relationship with my mother wasn’t exactly affected in a positive way, at least not in practice. In fact, we had a huge fight right after I read the book which ended up in us not spending Christmas together. Yet, although unpleasant, it was necessary as we both said things that had been kept inside for years.
One of the main arguments of The power… is that our own personal story is mostly constructed by what the dominant adult in our childhood (usually our mother) said, which is not necessarily accurate or entirely true. Thus, Gutman states, the unsaid truths are often what hold us back, producing our so-called “shadow”.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of shadow, it would be our unfaced “dark side”, a side we try to suppress or deny, often at high cost. Additionally, as other authors have argued, we must try to understand, accept and learn from our shadow, and one way to do that would be by trying to reconstruct and examine our true life story.
The power… is not an optimistic book. In fact, from her decades as a therapist, the author believes most people’s lives have been tainted by some sort of childhood abuse. Of course her definition of abuse is ample, yet the examples she brings are quite distressing.
I guess what resonated most with me were her writings on “childish mothers”. More specifically, how many mothers – despite providing adequate physical care for their children and apparently being present – are often emotionally absent and overly self-involved, which results in the child carrying out the mother’s role in many situations. Then, when this child becomes a mother (or a father) the unresolved child within them will make them act childish and emotionally unavailable with their own child(ren) and so on.
Although her ideas were not exactly new, as I said, for some reason many things finally clicked. When adults we all know are parents are flawed and we might even understand and forgive these flaws, yet in practice these flaws may still be hard to deal with. Although we may rationally believe that our mother/father did the best they could to raise us, with the tools and knowledge they had at that moment in their lives – the hurt child in us might still dominate our emotions in practice.
In my case, many things I carried around as being my “fault” were really my mother’s responsibility, and that was surprisingly hard to admit and accept.
On the other hand, Gutman encourages us to step into the adult we are now and make our own choices by understanding and accepting the truth about our past. And hopefully engaging in a better relationship with ourselves and with our own children, which is what I am trying to do now!
And you? How have you dealt with issues related to your own parents? How has resolving (or not) these issues helped you in your relationship with your children?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in Brazil and mother of three, EcoZiva.
The image used in this post is credited to photographer martinak15. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
