by Mirjam | Oct 13, 2014 | 2014, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Family, Life Lesson, Netherlands, Uncategorized
I’ve always had trouble knowing where to fit in. I have never known which box I was supposed to climb in or which label to stick on my forehead.
I was born in Surinam, but most of my life I have lived in the Netherlands.
My parents had a strong sense of culture and raised me accordingly.
We lived in a small town in the northern part of Holland that did not have many people of color.
Needless to say, things outside of my home were very different to things inside.
In my home there were loud voices and singing, dancing and vibrant music.
Outside of the home it felt like I needed to be ashamed of my mother’s loud voice,and I tried my best not to speak too loud.
Around my family I felt at home and liked my braids and dark skin.
Outside home, old ladies would sometimes come up to me and touch my ‘strange’ hair, and make me wish my skin wasn’t making it impossible to blend in or disappear.
There was lots of loud laughter in our home. My mother would read Anansi stories and we would laugh hysterically.
Outside of the home, I could not explain to people why any story that starts with: “Dear God, can you make everyone that laughs at someone else drop dead instantly…” is going to be a really funny one.
In Surinam culture it’s very important that children learn to respect their parents and older people. You never talk back, you never raise your voice and you always look down when you are spoken to by an adult.
At school the teacher would say: Look at me when I talk to you!
At home my parents would speak to each other and family members in Sranang tongo, their native tongue. They would speak to us in a mixture of Dutch and Surinamese, we spoke to them in Dutch. With my sisters I spoke in a mixture of Dutch and Surinamese.
At school I spoke Dutch and there were so many things I could not talk about or explain because there was no word for it in Dutch.
At birthdays, we had parties with lots of family and friends coming in from everywhere, staying for dinner and sleeping over. My mother would cook lots of food, aunts would help in the kitchen and the house was filled with all of these wonderful festive smells, and we would eat until we could eat no more.
When I was invited to a party of one of my friends, we sat in a quiet circle with mostly old family members having a polite conversation and we were given a piece of cheese with a little vlag stick (it’s a Dutch thing), everyone left before dinner and there was absolutely no music.
Growing up in these two cultures thought me how to adapt. I learned how to behave and what was expected of me in each situation. And because I was such a people pleaser, by the time I was in my teens, I could blend in anywhere and everywhere. and I knew what was expected of me. I also had lots of interest in different people.
The people I called my friends were a variety of ages, colors, cultures and mixtures and I loved every one of them.
Still, I always felt different.
I’m an adult now. I married a man whose skin color is the exact opposite of mine (no matter how much sun he gets). My children are of mixed culture. Their skin color is a mixture of ours, their hair is mixed, curly but not as curly as mine, dark but not as dark as mine.
My husband sometimes plays his (terrible) Dutch songs and I sing and dance with my children to old Surinam children’s songs. When we celebrate there’s lots of family and lots of food but no music, because my husband says he can’t have a conversation with music in the background. I teach my children to respect their parents and older people, but I also teach them that it’s okay to speak up and look people in the eye.
I mostly speak Dutch, but when emotional I turn to my native tongue, although my kids hardly understand what it is that I’m talking about.
I think here. With my own family a perfect mixture of black and white, Dutch and Surinam, east and west, I fit here.
Do you have a mixture of cultures in your family? How do you adapt?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Mirjam of The Netherlands.
Photo credit to the author.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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by ThinkSayBe | Oct 3, 2014 | 2013, 2014, Awareness, Babies, Childhood, Communication, Computers, Discipline, Education, Entertainment, Environment, Family, Girls, Kids, Life, Life Balance, Motherhood, Nature, Parenting, Technology, ThinkSayBe, Uncategorized, USA, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Younger Children
“Yes please, yes please, yes pleeeeease!” is what I hear almost every time my toddler sees or hears my phone. If she does not get it, she isn’t too happy. She may move on to playing with something else, but sometimes comes back pointing at where she last saw my phone, and says “yes please!” again. (more…)
I am a mom amongst some other titles life has fortunately given me. I love photography & the reward of someone being really happy about a photo I took of her/him. I work, I study, I try to pay attention to life. I like writing. I don't understand many things...especially why humans treat each other & other living & inanimate things so vilely sometimes. I like to be an idealist, but when most fails, I do my best to not be a pessimist: Life itself is entirely too beautiful, amazing & inspiring to forget that it is!
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by Katinka | Sep 29, 2014 | Belgium, Life, Parenting, Uncategorized
On Wednesday the 3rd of September, our oven broke down in the middle of a pizza. We only have pizza about once a year, so the kids were looking forward to it like crazy. Italians, be warned, what comes next must be hard to digest. I warmed up the pizza in the microwave and then baked it in a regular frying pan. The idea was to get it warm and have at least the bottom a bit crunchy. The bottom turned out almost black and the entire thing looked inedible. The kids loved their very special pizza topped with extra cheese and ketchup to cover up the burnt taste.
On Thursday the 4th of September, our cooking range died on me in the middle of green beans and rice. I half expected it, since it was attached to the oven. I wanted to give up, but then my daughter came along. She secretly turned the oven on, thinking it a toy after it broke. For some reason, that reactivated the hot plate on top of it! Thanks to my mischievous five year old, we had a decent meal after all.
She told everyone she saved dinner that day, strutting around proud like a peacock.
On Friday the 5th of September, we asked my teen sister to babysit and went to my employer’s corporate party, all the while discussing how to rearrange our kitchen. We felt like we could handle our bad luck for a blissful twelve hours.
On Saturday the 6th of September, our car broke down in the middle of the road to my parent’s home. It stopped, just like that. We had to find another car and take my sister home, which made my husband late for work. His work being to clean up the party we went to the night before. Mere coincidence made me help dismantle my own employer’s party, to get things done in time. The kids had a great time, being allowed to help out dad and being at mommy’s party at the same time. They didn’t mind that they were the only ones singing and dancing in an empty tent.
On Sunday the 7th of September, I decided to bake some fine Belgian waffles. I had made a new school year’s resolution of baking cookies for the kids to take to school every week. Because the green me wants to lessen our piles of plastic waste, because the control freak in me wants to follow up on their sugar consumption, and because our daughter is just very picky when it comes to cookies (I’m not complaining). I wouldn’t let the broken oven break my resolution after just one week, so waffles it was. Broken crumbled pieces of waffles anyway. Not a single one came out in less than 23 pieces. The kids thought it extremely cool to have a little box full of waffle crumbs to take to school all week. They figured the tinier the pieces were, the more waffle could fill their snack box.
On Monday the 8th of September, I found almost all of our chickens gone. One was still there, without her head. I found her inside our completely closed den. No holes, no open door. The predator went in and out anyway. I told the kids a very cute little fox was probably very happy with his mommy’s endeavours. I also promised them I would get us a pig instead of those vulnerable little chickens. A very big one. We’ll call her Foxy.
On Tuesday the 9th of September, we bought ourselves a new car. The kind of family car I’d been wishing for, even before the previous one. Our son approved because the new car is close to his favorite colour, black. Our daughter approved even more because it had sliding doors in the back. No more accidents with neighbouring cars for her.
On Wednesday the 10th of September, I found a new kitchen when I came home from work. My husband had worked like crazy to surprise me. The oven and plates were not connected yet, but I was too overwhelmed to mind. We were getting used to cucumbers and cold salmon wraps for dinner anyway. It was a good exercise for the predicted power blackouts during winter as well.
On Thursday the 11th of September, I felt our luck was turning. We had been able to found benefits in all of our misfortunes. New car, new kitchen, new pet. Fate gave us Ethiopian New Year on that day. It’s liberating to state in the middle of 2014, that you’re heading for the year 2007.
It feels as if you can start all over.
That morning, our Ethiopian daughter went to school in her traditional white dress to show off. Our son wore his Ethiopian scarf for mere coolness. In the middle of my last science policy meeting of that day, I was already musing about our cozy evening to come, picking yellow flowers and having popcorn, as tradition prescribes in our daughter’s birth country.
That very moment, my husband called. I was to head for the hospital.
My little princess’s pristine white dress was covered in blood. She had had a nasty fall and an even nastier hole right between her eyes. They had waited for me to arrive before doing the stitching, because she desperately needed her mommy. I will never be able to wash away the image of that incredibly deep hole in her forehead. Nor of the terror in her eyes when the syringe for the local anaesthetics came by.
When it was all over, we promised her pizza. One from the local Italian, because the oven still didn’t work. Also because we were too exhausted to think of anything creative at 8 pm.
In the car back home, my daughter told me she couldn’t believe how lucky she was.
I thought I’d misunderstood.
I was having a very hard time staying composed. After this unbelievable week, my stress buffer was in shambles.
And my daughter, covered in deep stitches and steristrips, told me she felt so lucky?
“Of course,” she said. “We’ll have pizza night two weeks in a row!”
Do your kids also help you get past the most dreadful passages in your life? Can we learn from their ability to find innocent fun on every occasion, no matter how bad?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by K10K from The Penguin and The Panther.
Photo credit: Live Italian. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
If you ask her about her daytime job, Katinka will tell you all about the challenge of studying the fate of radioactive substances in the deep subsurface. Her most demanding and rewarding job however is raising four kids together with five other parents, each with their own quirks, wishes and (dis)abilities. As parenting and especially co-parenting involves a lot of letting go, she finds herself singing the theme song to Frozen over and over again, even when the kids are not even there...
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by Shaula Bellour (Indonesia) | Sep 25, 2014 | 2014, Childhood, Expat Life, Family Travel, Holiday, Indonesia, Shaula Bellour, Twins, UK, Uncategorized, USA
From the window, I can hear high-pitched giggles and the sound of wellington boots on garden path gravel.
My daughter is next door with her new neighbor friend, pretending that the garden shed is an animal rescue center and the backyard chickens are actually wild monkeys. My son is bouncing on a trampoline with the friend’s big sister and I can see their carefree bodies flying above the wheat fields, in the shadow of the village church.
It’s past their usual school-night bedtime, but the sun is still high and we’ve stopped keeping track of these things anyway. Evidence of the day’s activities is scattered on the grass: badminton birdies, a rainbow of half-finished loom band bracelets, a decorated cardboard lean-to and sticky signs of an earlier snail race.
Both kids return with dirty feet and ice cream on their faces and I’m pretty sure they forgot to wash their hands after petting the donkey across the road. But it’s okay. It’s the summer holidays in rural England and it feels like the stuff childhood is made of. The only catch is that it’s not where we live…
Life is a series of trade-offs.
Back in Jakarta, we’re on our way to school and my children want to know why we don’t live in England. “Well…because we live here”, I respond simply, feeling a sharp pang of guilt. I go on to explain that day-to-day life in England would probably be different than the idyllic summer version. For example, instead of playing all day, they would have to go to school and soon the long sunny days would turn cold and wet. “That’s okay!” they chirp, happily unconvinced.
Luckily the conversation shifts and together we watch the city float past our car window. The daily mosaic of life here is colorful, chaotic and always fascinating. We read shop signs, point out our favorite kaki lima food carts and compete to find the most interesting motorcycle cargo…from pallets of baby chicks to enormous balloon bundles.
We talk about their new school classes and where all the children are from, realizing that there are nearly as many nationalities as students. We think about where we might like to travel for their half-term break and marvel at how lucky we are to be so close to so many amazing destinations.
Life is a series of trade-offs.
Sometimes, I feel sad about the fact that our children are growing up so far away from their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. But then I am also reminded that since our family is both British and American, we will always be far from someone we love regardless of where we live. We do the best we can to stay connected and are grateful for the precious time we get to spend together.
Occasionally, I see photos of my friends’ frolicking children and feel a twinge of regret that my own kids are missing out on the places and experiences I enjoyed as a child growing up in the US.
But then I examine my own assumptions…does their childhood need to resemble my own for it to be good? Of course not. My children may not learn to ski anytime soon, but they are seeing and doing so much more than I ever dreamed of at their age.
Life is a series of trade-offs.
I tell myself that we are lucky to enjoy the best of both worlds. But in reality, we can’t have it both ways.
This is the path we’ve chosen and there are limitations as well as benefits. Accepting these trade-offs brings a certain kind of relief and shifts the focus — emphasizing what we have instead of what we’re missing.
It’s a process, but I’m getting there.
How do you and your family balance life’s trade-offs?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Shaula Bellour.
Photo Credit: ClairOverThere. This image holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Shaula Bellour grew up in Redmond, Washington. She now lives in Jakarta, Indonesia with her British husband and 9-year old boy/girl twins. She has degrees in International Relations and Gender and Development and works as a consultant for the UN and non-governmental organizations.
Shaula has lived and worked in the US, France, England, Kenya, Eritrea, Kosovo, Lebanon and Timor-Leste. She began writing for World Moms Network in 2010. She plans to eventually find her way back to the Pacific Northwest one day, but until then she’s enjoying living in the big wide world with her family.
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by Alison Fraser | Sep 9, 2014 | 2014, Africa, Canada, Education, Eye on Culture, Girls, Human Rights, Humanitarian, Humanity, Life Lesson, ONE, Poverty, Social Good, Tanzania, Uncategorized
Two months ago, I travelled back to Arusha, Tanzania as part of my work with Mom2Mom Africa. Each time I am in Arusha, I make sure to stop by a local outdoor restaurant frequented by many tourists. The restaurant resides on a beautiful piece of property, and offers free Wifi to connect back home to loved ones. I consider this to be a real luxury in the areas I work in Arusha so take full advantage of this establishment whenever possible.
On my last trip, I decided that I would take several of our Mom2Mom Africa students to this restaurant as a “treat”. What was originally planned as a small group outing with 5 or 6 children, ended up turning into a van full of children, and my colleague Aloyce. It was absolutely priceless to see me walk through the grounds followed by 12 little Tanzanian children, and Aloyce at the rear to ensure we didn’t lose any along the way! The other restaurant patrons could not stop staring!
I had questioned this dinner outing for days before making a decision to go ahead with it. Many believe that exposing those in poverty-stricken areas of the world, to ‘luxuries’ is unjust; a tease. I didn’t want to be that white foreigner.
But, after much thought, I decided to go ahead with our big dinner date. What influenced my final decision was the fact that the same holds true for my three little girls in Canada. As a mother, I often treat my girls to little extravagances. These are not every day occurrences, and in fact are more rare than common. And my girls understand that. If they could be treated each and every day, there would be no argument on their part. But, they know that even though that might be the reality of other little girls their age, it is not their reality. And they are ok with that and simply choose to enjoy the times that they do get to experience trips or dinner at fancy restaurants. I used this experience with my girls as the deciding factor in Tanzania. After all, everyone likes to be treated!
Seeing the kids eat pizza until their bellies were full, drinking pop, and laughing with their friends was one of the highlights of my time in Tanzania. When they noticed the playground with swings and teeter-totters, I lost them in play for 2 hours! They were beyond happy. And, that made me beyond happy. And, at that point, I thought to myself that I had made the right decision. I left the restaurant on cloud nine, with twelve happy little ones singing all the way home in the van.
All had gone as planned, until one little girl said out loud in the van…”I now know how mzungus (white people) live”…and my heart broke.
The restaurant is staffed with locals but caters to tourists, most of whom are white. Instead of this being a fun night out for all, Canadians and Tanzanians alike, the take home message was that white people deserve and live in a world of luxuries. My plan back-fired on me with a vengeance. It has been two months since that night, and that little voice from the back of the van still haunts me. I guess my mommy instinct was off this time. We all worry about making decisions that may negatively affect our own children’s lives. I now worry constantly about my decisions and how they may impact the lives of so many who call me “Mama Alison” in Tanzania.
Do you think it’s better to know what you are missing or not?
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Alison Fraser. Photo by Alison Fraser.
Alison Fraser is the mother of three young girls ranging in age from 5 to 9 years old. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Alison works as an Environmental Toxicologist with a human environment consulting company and is an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She is also the founder and director of the Canadian Not for Profit Organization, Mom2Mom Africa, which serves to fund the school fees of children and young women in rural Tanzania. Recently recognized and awarded a "Women of Waterloo Region" award, Alison is very involved in charitable events within her community including Christmas Toy and School Backpack Drives for the local foodbank.
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by Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes | Aug 25, 2014 | Belgium, Motherhood, Parenting, Tinne, Uncategorized
When you become a parent things change.
Obviously.
Saying that children turn your life turns upside down, inside out and back again is most definitely not an understatement.
Bodily changes, sleep deprivation and related mental breakdowns aside, one of the major changes is the relationship with your own parents. Because in a weird way you are suddenly equals. You are both parents.
Granted, your parents might have a bit more experience on the job, but you might consider yourselves employees of the same company now.
You are the newbie and they are the old stalwarts who will insist on explaining how the coffee machine works. Even though it has only one button. And just like in the office, you each have your own way of going about the daily job that is parenting.
It was my father who pointed this out to me when he remarked that I was a very different mother to my children than my mother was to me.
Of course this is true, mainly due to the fact that I’m NOT my mother (no, really, I’m not my mother, I might have started to look a lot more like her, use the same phrases, and have taken up some of her habits, but I AM NOT MY MOTHER).
Characterwise my mom and I are poles apart. She is one of those patient, focused, well-organized, grownup creatures we all secretly wish to be. And I am an impatient firecracker, who is working on a million things at once and who can never be bothered about matching socks.
But I have to admit that my parenting style is different too. Some of it is deliberate and some not.
For instance, I never deny my children a food or beverage using the words ‘it will make you fat’, opting instead for ‘it is not healthy’ or ‘it is bad for your teeth’. I know this is no guarantee for avoiding any body-image/food–related trouble but I like to think it gives them a better chance for avoiding the damage some of us (myself included) went through.
Neither do I use spanking as a means of punishment. My parents spanked, but I quite frankly don’t see the point. Within a few years withholding privileges and time outs will probably looked upon as barbaric and the toddler shock collar might be all the rage but for now the “Go to your room and no movie” or “Pull out all the weeds from the garden” work for us.
My girls enjoy a greater amount of freedom then I did at their age. For instance there are A LOT of unscheduled play dates. Especially during summer, it is not uncommon for me to walk into the kitchen and find myself confronted by five children. My friends were welcome to come and play, but there had to be a call and confirmation from both sets of parents in advance. Permission still has to be asked and we need to know approximately in which house they’ll be. But planning… nope.
I won’t even begin to describe the difference regarding electronics and their use. Remember I was born in a time when a phone with push–buttons instead of dial ones was considered cutting edge. The mobile phone was something straight out of a science fiction movie. Plus I lived in Africa, where there was no such thing as TV. Although we did in fact own a television the only thing it played where VHS cassettes (remember those!?) which were sent to us by friendly relatives left behind in Belgium.
The one thing we do have in common though is that we both do our best.
We do our best to ensure our children grow up happy. We try to avoid ‘mistakes’ of the past. We try our best to make sure the little humans in our care grow up to be level-headed adults and can only hope our pottering along will turn out all right in the end.
Do you ‘parent’ differently compared to your own parents? If Yes, how so?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes. Photo credit:Eric Danley. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
Born in Belgium on the fourth of July in a time before the invention of the smart phone Tinne is a working mother of two adorably mischievous little girls, the wife of her high school sweetheart and the owner of a black cat called Atilla.
Since she likes to cook her blog is mainly devoted to food and because she is Belgian she has an absurd sense of humour and is frequently snarky. When she is not devoting all her attention to the internet, she likes to read, write and eat chocolate. Her greatest nemesis is laundry.
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I’ve always had trouble knowing where to fit in. I have never known which box I was supposed to climb in or which label to stick on my forehead.
