by Orana Velarde | Nov 16, 2016 | 2016, Advice, Asia, Awareness, Caring, Uncategorized
I’m a bit of a contradiction when it comes to instilling magic in my kids. I tend to be pragmatic and philosophical about things like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and I think this confuses my kids a bit. My husband and I had a conversation the other day about how I am not letting them live the magic of childhood by being too over explanatory about things like that. When he asked why I wasn’t just letting them believe in the magic of Santa and Tooth Fairies while at the same time having a Fairy Altar in our living room.
I have always felt like a walking contradiction and my son’s wobbly tooth brought some of it out to the light.
When I was little I was made to believe in all things magical like the Tooth Fairy (El Raton Perez actually), Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny. For reasons and paths that life took us on, all these magical creatures became sources of frustration for me. My magical childhood turned into a tween life of hardly any magic at all. The realization of the nonexistence of Santa was sudden and felt like the ripping of a bandaid stuck to a scab (if you know what I mean…then you know the pain). Tooth fairies turned into orthodontists and braces, and the Easter Bunny turned into chocolate for the last time.
When my husband asked why I wasn’t fueling the magic, I answered that it was all a big disappointment in the end. He asked why I was projecting that onto the kids, when they could make their own realizations about all of it. He was right of course, but it took me an entire day to get past the feeling of “why are you attacking me again”. There are lots of kids that grow up just fine and the transition from believing in those things is a normal and peaceful one, there is no point in me forging a sense of disappointment before it’s even time for the transition to happen.
The other night I made a very frilly card from the Tooth Fairy for my son to find by his bed the next morning. He had hundreds of questions, I think he was trying to find out if I really was the Tooth Fairy or not. I played along to the point where he and his sister were convinced that it really was the Tooth Fairy that had come to the house to collect his tooth. What is the line between lying and storytelling? I don’t know I cannot tell you that.
I won’t tell him my philosophical story about Santa and just let them believe that the present in the red wrapping paper really is from the bearded man from the North Pole that came in his sleigh pulled by reindeer. I won’t tell him how the nordics and the pagans were mixed with the Christians to later be a story concocted by the Coca Cola Company to make more Christmas sales.
There isn’t much of a reason as to why I believe in magic but then try and erase it for my children. Why do I take the pragmatic approach? I think it all has to do with disappointment and my own childhood feelings and how magic can just disappear at the blink of an eye.
Why do I believe in all the gods and deities in the universe and teach my children as much but then cut the cord at creatures such as the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny? Why do I separate ones from the others? Aren’t they just as real? My spiritual brain is very pragmatic, I studied theology and comparative religions and this has made me at the same time very believing but also very technical.
No point getting technical with the Tooth Fairy!
For my children I promise to keep my eyes open and let them believe in all the magic creatures they can think of without me telling them about how Coca Cola invented the red and white Santa and I won’t try and explain how the tooth fairy got her wings or why the Easter Bunny is made of chocolate.
Here’s to more magic in our kiddos’ early lives.
How about you? What kind of magic do you instill on your own kids?
by Jennifer Iacovelli | Nov 15, 2016 | 2016, ONE, World Voice
The author with her boys on Election Day in the USA.
I have giving on the brain.
We’re heading into the season for it in America, though I’ve never understood why we tend to pack all of our giving into the last couple of months of the year. Are we trying to make ourselves feel better before the calendar changes? Are we making up for what we lacked during the firs 10 months of the year?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could just be thankful every day of the year? We could even make big turkey dinners and drink peppermint-flavored coffee whenever we desire. We could actively spend time with those that mean the most to us, send cards and give gifts of love.
I try to live my life this way, but I’m guilty of getting wrapped up in the craziness of everyday life as a single working mom.
It’s been an emotional week. If you’re American – even if you are not – you’ve no doubt felt it too. I’ve personally gone through disbelief, anger, sadness, confusion and frustration. I’ve had some interesting conversations with my kids, and I’ve promised (myself and my kids) to take action if / when necessary. I always tell my boys that we have a voice, but no one will hear it if we don’t use it.
Along with our voice, we also need to pay attention, listen and ask questions.
I am reminded of a call I received at work a few weeks back. As a director of development for my local homeless prevention organization, I work with a lot of donors. The man who called me said he was on our website. He appreciated our work in the community and wanted to help. He saw our general wish list of items we typically need and called to ask what items were on the top right at that moment.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciated his call. I thanked him and told him we really needed diapers, size 4 specifically, for a mom our case manager was working with on an outreach basis. He came into the office within an hour to drop off 4 pick packages of diapers, which I then dropped off to our homeless shelter. He made an immediate, positive impact in someone’s life and made my job a little easier that day.
All he did was take some time to do a little research and make a phone call to ask a question.
A few weeks before that phone call, I received a message from a woman who called simply to thank me for calling her to let her know that I could not take a donation she wanted to make. She appreciated that I took the time to call her back and even try to give her some suggestions as to where she might take her donation.
When did we get to the point that these phone calls are unusual? Where asking what someone else needs or telling someone no thank you is met with surprise.
I’m a big proponent of finding simple ways to give every day. So much so that I wrote a book about it. Simple, kind gestures can make a difference in other people’s lives. And though it may not seem like it, you don’t know what kind of positive impression you may have made with your action.
In my book, I talk about how acts of kindness can be a pathway to even more giving. It feels good and makes you want to spread more positivity. It seems fitting that last Sunday was World Kindness Day. It also happened to be a day that seemed to be flooded with hilarious Joe Biden memes.
As moms, it’s our job to show our kids how to be kind and tolerant of others while also knowing when to use our voice to stand up for what we believe in.
I think we could all use some positivity and kindness right about now, no matter what part of the world we are in.
I don’t know what will happen in America moving forward, but I do know that now, more than ever, we need to pay attention, listen, ask questions and make our voices heard. We need more kindness and more willingness to understand the needs and beliefs of others. Not just during the giving season or in an election year. Every day of the year.
This is an original post by Jennifer Iacovelli for World Moms Network.
Do you have any good simple giving or daily acts of kindness stories? Please share them with us!
Jennifer Iacovelli is a writer, speaker and nonprofit professional. Based in Brunswick, Maine, she’s a proud single mom of two boys and one Siberian husky. Jennifer is the author of the Another Jennifer blog and creator of the Simple Giving Lab. Jennifer is also a contributing author of the book The Mother Of All Meltdowns. Her work has been featured on GOOD, BlogHer, USAID Impact, Feed the Future and the PSI Impact blog. Her latest book, Simple Giving: Easy Ways to Give Every Day, is available everywhere. Her passions are writing, philanthropy, her awesome kids and bacon, though not necessarily in that order.
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by juliegd | Nov 14, 2016 | 2016, Europe, Guest Post, Portugal
I am Portuguese. My parents and grandparents are Portuguese. My partner is Portuguese and his parents and grandparents are Portuguese. Both my children are Portuguese. Yet, I do not fit in my own country, Portugal, especially as a mother.
Despite being Portuguese, my childhood years were spent abroad and at international schools. I celebrated Halloween when it wasn’t popular here yet, and I loved Thanksgiving dinners. My views of the world have always been interwoven with different cultures and customs. I expected to fall in love with a foreigner and have a multicultural family and lifestyle. Fate gifted me instead with a Portuguese man with a huge heart and an incredible open-mindedness. That combination steers me away even further from the traditional mindset of the Portuguese. Being 100% Portuguese, I am somewhat labelled “alternative” or “hippie”.
To start with, my children have unusual names – Giani and Noah. My partner and I had to browse a 400-page list of authorised names until we found Giani. In Portugal, names have to be authorised by the state, so you either pick one from the list or you submit a request. We did not opt for a traditional Portuguese name like Martim or Francisco or a trendier one like Benjamim. When asked about my children’s names, the second question is “So, your husband is… Italian? British, perhaps?”. No, my partner is Portuguese and we just decided on a different name. That’s a strange concept in this country, so I am automatically labelled as an “alternative mother”. In fact, names represent the social or economic status of the parents.
When my son was six months old and started eating solid food, I went the usual, traditional route recommended by the paediatrician: pureed fruits and veggies. My super calm and laid-back child turned into a monster as soon as he would see the spoon approaching his mouth. I dreaded mealtimes. The paediatrician’s suggestion was to force it in him because he needed the nutrients. That did not sit well with me so I stopped feeding him, offering him breastmilk exclusively while searching online for an answer. Baby-led weaning was the answer and it seemed very natural to me. My son soon began to devour steamed broccoli, potatoes and carrots. I also began potty training him at eight months old. These options were completely frowned upon by the paediatrician and my more traditional friends thought it was strange. Some thought I was endangering my child. Some thought I was crazy. At the time, I didn’t have so-called hippie friends so I really had no one other than my partner to truly support me.
Until my son was about six months old, I felt insanely lonely. All my friends were either single or had no children. By chance I ran into a friend from one of the international schools I attended in Lisbon and she introduced me to a weekly playgroup organised by international, expat mothers. I started attending with my son and it was delightful to be around so many different mothers who were all naturally open to different views towards child-rearing.
Socialising in Portugal the standard way is extremely hard and frustrating for me. Most of our couple friends with children have a very busy schedule during the weekend, shuffling between in-laws. We see them at birthday parties. If the couple has one child, we will socialize with them once a year, if they have two, we will socialize twice and so forth. I miss the spontaneity and openness of my international friends when I lived abroad. I miss sharing cultures (celebrating Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter, etc.) and creating a community with friends.
I feel this sense of being foreign in my own country almost on a daily basis. I leave the park when the Portuguese mothers arrive, my children’s mealtimes are almost at the same time as their afternoon snack, and my children go to bed much earlier than the standard time.
The more traditional friends find my views strange and consider me a hippie and I find the views of my “alternative” friends a bit too extreme for me. So, I sit in the middle, on a tiny island. Fortunately, I found a group of international mothers and fathers, all with different backgrounds and origins, where I fit in perfectly. I am able to enjoy my “Portuguese-ness” subtly without any pressure. I take comfort in knowing that I am now part of a community, a small family. We meet up regularly and I am accepted without labels. I am not a hippie, I am not Portuguese – I am just the mother of two sons with non-Portuguese names who speaks Portuguese perfectly.
If you’re an expat, have you ever felt this way when coming home?
This is an original post for World Moms Network written by guest poster, Sofia Caessa, in Portugal.
Sofia Caessa grew up by the canals of Overschie, the Netherlands, the skyscrapers of São Paulo, Brazil and the beachs of Cascais, Portugal. Her love for Theatre took her to New York City, where she intended to pursue a career in Theatre. Instead, she became involved in Film and writing. After a few years in the USA, Sofia decided to move back to Europe. In Brussels she worked for Violeta Lab, a cultural organisation she founded, and in film production. There, she founded the Little Film Academy. Now living in Portugal, Sofia is the mother of two boys and works at Lêleh Land, a creative space that fosters imagination, free play, exploration and discovery. She also has a blog, Mami Coração, where she shares homemade activities for children, and homemade natural products.
Julie, her husband and baby boy are currently living in Portugal, having spent the previous three years in the southeast of Brazil.
She considers herself a bit of an obsessive reader, and even more so since discovering she was pregnant. All that information has to go somewhere, which is why Julie started her blog, happy mama = happy baby, where she documents all the quirky parenting ideas she has collected so far.
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by To-Wen Tseng | Nov 11, 2016 | 2016, North America, To-Wen Tseng, USA
This August in our neighborhood playground, a child threatened my toddler son, saying “Trump will kick you out of here when he becomes President.” For the past two months I’ve been praying for the victory of Hillary Clinton, so that I can tell my child “hate never wins”. The polls gave me some hope. But on the night of November 8, as the election results rolled in, I saw a very different America than the polls had predicted.
I put my child to bed that night right before the Canadian immigration website crashed. I stayed up late, thinking about how I would explain this to him. A few hours later, he woke up full of questions. He asked me if she had won. I told him no.
“But I want Hillary to be my president!”
“I know, baby.” I held him tight. He is too young to understand the candidates’ policies; all he knows is that if Donald Trump is in the white house, the bullies in the playground get a good line to yell at him.
Once again, I assured him, “We are American, this is our home, no one is going to kick us out of here, not even Trump.”
I’ve been repeating this to him for the past two months. Apparently it’s not enough. He asked me if we’re moving to Asia to be with his grandparents. I told him no.
“But I don’t like Trump!”
“But you do like America, don’t you?”
He thought about it carefully and then nodded.
“That’s right, baby. As long as it doesn’t change, we’re here to stay.”
“But I’m upset.”
“That’s okay, baby. I’m upset, too. We all get upset sometimes. But we’ll be fine,” I told him.
“If anybody ever tells you that Trump will kick you out of the country, just say, ‘No, I am American, this is my home, no one can kick me out of here.’”
He practiced the sentence a couple of times and seemed to be comforted.
There is so much more that I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him it’s not the end of the world. I wanted to tell him that human beings are resilient. I wanted to tell him that we can do better than running away. I just don’t know how to make a 3-year-old understand all of these things.
In spite of all the frustrations at this moment, I still believe in America. Sure, the election had modeled the exact opposite of the values I believe in and hope to instill in my children: the xenophobia that came directly out of Trump’s campaign has harmed my family. But I see that most of my fellow American don’t believe in the racism and sexism either. Clinton won the popular vote. Which means the majority of American believe that women should be paid the same as men, they care about climate change, they don’t want the implementation of aggressive surveillance programs that target certain ethnic groups.
This is the moment not to sit down with frustration, but to stand up and fight against discrimination, bigotry and hate. And there is so much we can do. We can volunteer. We can donate. There is Showing Up For Racial Justice that combats racism, Planned Parenthood that gives women the opportunities for proper healthcare, ACLU that upholds the individual rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. Most of all, as parents, we can continue teaching our children the values we believe in: honesty, gender equality, love. The election changed none of that.
Just like President Obama said on election day, “The sun will rise in the morning.”
What was your reaction to the US Presidential election? Did you or will you talk to your kids about it?
This is an original post to World Mom Network by To-Wen Tseng. Photo credit to Mu-huan Chiang.
by Ketakandriana Rafitoson | Nov 10, 2016 | 2016, Africa, Africa and Middle East, Awareness, Gender, Girls, Madagascar, Sustainable Development Goals
Did you know that each year, there are 16 days dedicated to the fight against gender-based violence? Starting from November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to December 10 (Human Rights Day), millions of activists around the world join this campaign, plan actions and speak up to break the curse of violence in their societies.
First launched in 1991 by the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute, the “16 Days Campaign”, as it is usually called, is coordinated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, in partnership with Rutgers University. The event is supported by UN Women and other international institutions aiming at the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) #5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The fact is that there can’t be any form of empowerment if girls and women still face violence. Women must first be freed from the heavy burden of violence, which impedes all attempts of (r)evolution.
What is gender-based violence? According to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Gender-based violence is “violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately” (CEDAW GR 19, Article 3 Istanbul Convention). And in its Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (A/RES/48/104, article 2), the UN General Assembly identifies various forms of violence, as per the following:
“(a) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family; including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation.
(b) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution;
(c) Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs”
This list has certainly evolved since 1993, especially with the advent of social media and new communications technologies which open the door to new forms of harassment. Strategies developed to tackle this curse must evolve along the same lines.
In Madagascar, domestic violence is one of the most widespread types of gender-based violence and is considered a social taboo. Traditionally, each bride-to-be is advised by her mother or grandmother to remain silent, whatever might happen in her marriage. Women are told that what happens in the bedroom and at home must remain there. My own grandmother, whom I love and cherish, told me that “Marriage means sacrifice. Your husband may do things to you (we never name the evil in Madagascar), but just bite your tongue and everything will be fine.” Thankfully, my husband is not that kind of man, but I still feel it is my duty to stand against this curse and to help the unspeakable to be spoken.
Our first project with the 16 days campaign dates back to 2013. We wrote and produced a short film called “Lettre Femme” (a French pun meaning at the same time letter from/to a woman, the female being, or simply a woman). We shot the film at my mom’s house, featuring my friends, who generously volunteered to participate. Last year, we launched the Malagasy Women’s Manifesto Against all Sorts of Violence through a petition. This year, we plan to organize a variety of trainings about nonviolence.
It is a tragic fact that many Malagasy women are convinced that they deserve some kind of violence from their partner. “If he beats me, it’s because I’ve done something wrong. It’s my own fault.” Even worse, women (mothers mainly) are the ones who help perpetuate this violence – by silencing their girls and normalizing the belief that violence is part of marriage. Our whole society needs to be educated in order to eradicate violence, and this struggle must start in every household. Teach your boys to respect women – this is the message we have to spread to all parents.
If you are interested in joining this year’s official 16 Days Campaign, please click here. You’ll find all the information related to the event, a Toolkit for Action as well as the communications templates that you can use. Register your event and share it with the world so that we can show the world that women are united against violence. Remember, Unity matters! We shall overcome!
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Ketakandriana Rafitoson, our contributor from Madagascar.
Photo credit to the author.
