by Ruth | Jun 8, 2016 | 2016, Asia, Being Thankful, Childhood, Family, Gratefulness, Happiness, Life, Motherhood, Ruth Wong
My dearest son,
Being your mom has brought me tremendous joy, but also challenges. Many times, I worry about bringing you up well enough to reach your highest potential. I see other moms and feel like I am lacking.
Taking a deep breath I remind myself this is not a test. As much as it is my job to teach you, this is your life and your responsibility to be your best. I am here to grow with you.
I’m not the best mom in the world (though I’m blessed to know you think I am).
I hope you know that I am doing my best. I hope to teach you what I feel is most important to become a fine young man and live a wonderful life.
Be yourself.
There will always be expectations from people around you, to do certain things or behave in certain ways.
You are one-of-a-kind; born with a unique combination of gifts and talents. Seek to know who you are and have the courage to be true. Don’t compare yourself to others.
Don’t be afraid to dance to a different tune.
After some unconventional choices in my life, becoming a mom has made conscious of decisions I’ve made. I hope my life will show you that it is ok to not follow the crowd. There are no fixed rules or formulas for success. We must each find our own way, and that can only come from self-awareness.
Forget about trying to fit into a mold. Pursue your passion and live a life that brings you joy, meaning and fulfillment. Blaze your own trail.
Don’t just be a successful man, be a great man.
Most of us desire to be successful, and enjoy a good life. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I hope that you will also aim to be a great man. Be a man of courage, integrity, strong values and compassion, make a difference in the world. Show love and respect to others; don’t judge those who are different. Learn to appreciate. Life is not a competition, it’s a journey and we all need the company.
Be responsible for your happiness and your feelings
It’s not someone else’s job to make you happy. It all starts with the decisions and choices you make.
You can choose to let the words and actions of others affect you, or you can forgive, let go, and reclaim your joy. It’s important to acknowledge how you feel and choose to be in a positive, uplifting state.
Feelings are nothing to be scared of. They are only scary when you don’t know how to deal with them. We can learn how to positively manage and express feelings; learn to respond appropriately to others.
Feelings serve a purpose; listen to the messages they bring about any situation. When we acknowledge our feelings, we are opening the door to possibilities. Never suppress your feelings; it isn’t good for your health and wellbeing. You can be both strong and sensitive, and that will make you a wonderful man.
Failure is part of success.
Success takes effort, determination and courage. When you don’t succeed at first, don’t think that you are a failure. Instead, lean all you can from the experience.
Believe in yourself. If you persevere, you will succeed.
Success is an inside-out process
Success is an inside-out process. Your thoughts and beliefs determine your level of success. If you don’t have a strong inner state, success will be short-lived.
Focus on you inner game. Expand your consciousness to create a belief system that will support your outer success.
Be Thankful
Gratitude is an important ingredient to joy and success in life.
When we live with a sense of gratitude, we will naturally feel happier. There’s less need for comparison; we gain a balanced view about life, especially during challenging times. Focusing on the good helps us develop a positive mindset, which is the foundation to living a happy and successful life.
Appreciate responsibility
As you grow older, you will have more responsibilities. I hope you’ll learn to see beyond the tasks I give you and realize that you are only given them because I trust that you can do a good job.
Take responsibility for your actions and choices. You make a decision about something; you must bear the consequences. Don’t blame others when things don’t turn out. Appreciate the responsibility that comes with making choices. If the decision turns out poorly, learn from it. In the future, you will be able to make better decisions.
Learn how to communicate well
In life, everything is about relations. You need to be able to share your thoughts and ideas in order to achieve your goals. Learn to speak and write well.
Communicating is not just about speaking. It also means learning to listen. Communication is a two-way process. Pay attention to someone when they speak, look them in the eyes, acknowledge with simple gestures like a nod or smile. By doing that, you are showing respect.
One of the reasons I am so strict about you using smartphones is because I want you to first learn good communication skills.
Let’s grow together
Love, Mom
What things would you like to teach your children about life? What things about your own life would you like them to learn from?
This is an original article by Ruth Wong for World Mom’s Blog
Ruth lives in Singapore, a tiny island 137 kilometres north of the equator. After graduating from university, she worked as a medical social worker for a few years before making a switch to HR and worked in various industries such as retail, banking and manufacturing. In spite of the invaluable skills and experiences she had gained during those years, she never felt truly happy or satisfied. It was only when she embarked on a journey to rediscover her strengths and passion that this part of her life was transformed. Today, Ruth is living her dreams as a writer. Ironically, she loves what she does so much that at one point, she even thought that becoming a mom would hinder her career. Thanks to her husband’s gentle persuasions, she now realises what joy she would have missed out had she not changed her mind. She is now a happy WAHM. Ruth launched MomME Circle, a resource site to support and inspire moms to create a life and business they love. She has a personal blog Mommy Café where she writes about her son's growing up and shares her interests such as food and photography.
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by Tes Silverman | Jun 7, 2016 | 2016, Equality, Human Rights, Social Equality, Tes Silverman, World Voice
Violence against women in many countries occurs at an alarmingly high rate, but a new bill being proposed by a Pakistani Islamic council may just push the envelope further.
According to the proposed bill by Mohammad Khan Sheerani, the leader of this council, men will be allowed to “lightly beat” their wives with a small stick if they believe it to be necessary. Some of the criteria this council has listed as being necessary for disciplinary purposes are: not wearing a hijab, talking with strangers or men, speaking too loud or giving money to others without the husband’s permission. In addition to these, the proposed bill would allow husbands to “lightly beat” their wives if they refused to have sex, not bathe after intercourse or their menstrual period, and especially if they took birth control without their husband’s permission.
I can understand being reprimanded if one’s wife was not wearing a hijab, but to be physically punished for religious reasons or worse, for a woman’s perceived negligence of hygiene or opting for birth control is unbelievably demeaning and wrong.
How is it okay for women to participate in politics, but be in danger of punishment for not obeying their husband’s desires?
If this bill were to pass, it would give way to other laws that are just as absurd and endanger women further.
As a woman and wife whose marriage stems from a partnership of equals, it is unbelievable to me that this law is even being proposed in this day and age. I understand that as someone who has grown up in the western culture, there are numerous laws in other countries that may not make sense to me, but if a law is used to subjugate women for the underlying purpose of harming them physically, emotionally and mentally, then it should not be passed.
I, myself, was born in the Philippines where patriarchy is dominant in a family setting. While I grew up in a family dynamic where the Father was the prominent figure in my nuclear and extended families, I was raised to believe that being married doesn’t diminish my rights as a person or self-worth..
Why must women continue to endure suffering at the mercy of patriarchal ideologies that are archaic and demeaning?
How is this proposed law deemed acceptable by a religious council when it calls for punishing women for saying “no” to their husbands, making it difficult for them to stay safe in their marriage?
Maybe I’m too much of a Western woman who believes that marriages are composed of men and women who value each other’s opinions and thrive from it, as opposed to beating one’s wife for not obeying what they believe as Islamic laws. As I sit here in disbelief and anger, I do hope that the women of Pakistan muster the courage to fight and make sure this proposed law doesn’t get passed.
To read the original article, click HERE:
What do you think of this bill? Please share your views about it in the comments section.
Tes Silverman was born in Manila, Philippines and has been a New Yorker for over 30 years. Moving from the Philippines to New York opened the doors to the possibility of a life of writing and travel. Before starting a family, she traveled to Iceland, Portugal, Belgium, and France, all the while writing about the people she met through her adventures. After starting a family, she became a freelance writer for publications such as Newsday’s Parents & Children and various local newspapers. Fifteen years ago, she created her blog, The Pinay Perspective. PinayPerspective.com is designed to provide women of all ages and nationalities the space to discuss the similarities and differences on how we view life and the world around us. As a result of her blog, she has written for BlogHer.com and has been invited to attend and blog about the Social Good Summit and Mom+Social Good. In addition, she is a World Voice Editor for World Moms Network and was Managing Editor for a local grass roots activism group, ATLI(Action Together Long Island). Currently residing in Virginia Beach, VA with her husband, fourteen year-old Morkie and a three year old Lab Mix, she continues to write stories of women and children who make an impact in their communities and provide them a place to vocalize their passions.
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by Jennifer Burden | Jun 6, 2016 | 2016, International, World Interviews, World Moms Blog, World Moms Network, World Motherhood
World Moms Blog will be launching as World Moms Network later this month!
Don’t fret — we’re keeping the same great content, and we’re under the same ownership! However, we have plans to add more exciting additions and include ways for our readers to join us in making an impact in the lives of women and children worldwide!
Why the name change? It has become clear that we have grown beyond the blog we set out to be back in 2010 when we first launched. After five years of working hard to find our tribe of over 70 contributors, receiving global recognition from various organizations, earning revenue from our writing and social media services to sustain our site, and expanding our desire to impact the world, we feel that “blog” is no longer the best way to define who we are, what we do, and what we plan to become.
Under World Moms Network we will continue to blog and provide a platform for the voices of women around the world, — that’s still so important to us and won’t change! — but blogging will not define our network alone as we grow. We are most motivated by our mission of “Connecting mothers; empowering women around the globe.” and our vision statement, “We envision a world of peace and equality, born through our common ground of motherhood.”
The first change you will notice will be when we launch the new look of our site this month. HINT: Check out our new logo above!! The artwork for our new site is gorgeous, and we’ve found a way to incorporate many of the women behind the scenes (you’ll just have to wait until we launch the new site to see how!). The updates will also make it easier to share our posts and sign up for our newsletter, which will go out more often. But, that is only the first step of our metamorphosis!
Second, we are working on plans to set up a market by year end 2016 to include survivor made goods. These are goods that will help provide a lifeline for women in the most dire global situations. Our team is currently picking out a handful of gorgeous items from a women’s cooperative in India to launch our market. This is another way we can make a direct impact to better the lives of women around the world!
In 2017 we plan to make it easier to alert our network to worldwide actions everyone can join us in taking for the many topics we are most passionate about — maternal health, the right to a universal education, newborn survival, violence against women, and more of the UN’s sustainable development goals. Having a separate team and newsletter for global action is our third goal. There is power in numbers when it comes to standing up for women, children and our planet, and we are already beginning to create a #WorldMoms Action Team to define these actions for the year to come!
As we work on the first three big steps as World Moms Network, we will also continue to offer and grow our writing and social media services (blog posts, twitter parties, attending live events, live tweeting, interviews, etc.), as we continue to make our site sustainable. More to come on that, too, in the future!
We are excited from all corners of the globe about the future of our site as World Moms Network, and we hope to provide our readers an even more exciting, thoughtful, world changing, and meaningful experience when they log on!
Cheers to all!
Jennifer Burden, Founder and CEO of WorldMomsBlog.com
(Soon to be WorldMomsNetwork.com!)
P.S. Let me know what you think of the new logo!
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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by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Jun 3, 2016 | 2016, Awareness, Brazil, Caring, Communication, Environment, Global Citizenship, Humanity, Inspirational, Life, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Priorities, Responsibility, South America, The Americas, Working Mother, World Motherhood
In an interview, a renowned academic in my field once said that when he was young he was certain about two things: 1) he didn’t want to teach, and 2) he didn’t want to write too much. He went on to teach in several famous universities and ended up writing 20 books. I found this very funny because although I have always loved to write, I always knew I didn’t want to teach, but I have been doing it for several years now.
This is something that comes to mind when I try to respond to some questions my husband and I often ask ourselves, as I listed in Part I of this post. Are we still living according to the same principles we followed when we first met (especially in relation to the environment)? Or are we fleeing our responsibility of making a difference in the world? Have we left our ideals aside in exchange for modern, middle class comforts? Are we still being true to our dreams? Above all, how can we be true to our dreams and ideals while at the same time guaranteeing a decent life for our children? And what is a “decent life”? Can’t we live a simpler life? The list goes on. (more…)
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Ibtisam Alwardi | Jun 2, 2016 | 2016, Africa and Middle East, Ibtisam Alwardi, Oman, Parenting, Reading, World Motherhood
Being a bookworm myself, reading has been an issue of interest for me for ages. I believe reading is what made me the person I am today and surely will keep adding more to my personality as I grow older.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.”
George R.R. Martin
Reading has been a crucial part of my life. As a speech and language therapist, I have used story books with my patients to work on speech, language and social skills. I have used them to break the ice and make the children at ease. I have also used story books while working on imaginative play, and more. Reading is essential for my work with children at my private business, and it is invaluable in my voluntary work with children in different settings. My son reads a great deal each day, and I read to my daughters almost daily as well. It is quite an integral part of my daily life, and that of my children as well.
This is all normal and would normally be nothing worthy of noting. However, in the region of the Middle East, it is an issue that has been of alarm. A study done by Arab Thought Foundation in 2012 revealed that Arabs read only an average of 6 minutes a year!
I am not exactly sure of the reasons that lead to such a lack of reading in our culture. In my personal experience, I found that many Omani families do not read to their children. Some do not even know why reading aloud to children is important, and very few are willing to spend the money to buy children’s story books. I remember a few parents asking me to provide literacy work (counting, alphabets, etc.) for their children instead of story books because the former will help with school while the latter is a waste of time and money. The number of women I met personally during my life in Oman who read for leisure are so few I can name them. Reading is almost completely unheard of.
I think this is an important subject to target in the next few years. There are some wonderful initiatives that focus on encouraging reading among children, like the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Reading Initiative, which encourages students across the Arab world to read more. Academics have begun researching this topic as well, examining the lack of reading culture and the benefits that would be gained in developing such culture.
What do you think about this reading dilemma? Is reading to children a part of your culture?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Ibtisam Alwardi from Oman.
Photo courtesy of Rosmarie Voegtli / Flickr.
Ibtisam (at Ibtisam's musings) is an Omani Mom of three, living in the capital city of Oman ,Muscat.
After working for ten years as a speech and language therapist in a public hospital, she finally had the courage to resign and start her own business. She had a dream of owning a place where she can integrate fun, play and 'books', thus the iPlay Smart centre (@iplaysmart) was born.
Currently she is focusing on raising awareness through social media about parenting, childhood, language acquisition. She started raising awareness on (the importance of reading) and (sexual harassment) targeting school-aged children.
Ibtisam enjoys writing, both in Arabic and English, reading and working closely with children.
She plans to write children books (in Arabic) one day.
Contact Ibtisam at ibtisamblogging(at)gmail.com.
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