by Meredith (USA) | May 31, 2013 | 2013, Adoption, Childhood, Family, Infertility, Kids, Motherhood, Parenting, Preschool, SAHM, School, Younger Children
I was watching my daughter play with a bubble machine today. She and I were laughing as she was running through the bubbles, and we were both looking at the bubbles floating up to the sky trying to see different images. I looked over at her as she watched the bubbles drift away and she had the biggest, sweetest smile on her face. I wondered in my mind if she would remember this extra special ordinary day because I knew I was making an imprint of it in my own mind…these special moments with just the two of us in the middle of the day in the middle of a week are starting to slip through my fingers… (more…)
Meredith finds it difficult to tell anyone where she is from exactly! She grew up in several states, but mainly Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana which is also where she met her husband. She taught kindergarten for seven years before she adopted her son from Guatemala and then gave birth to her daughter two years leter. She moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband and two children in July 2009 for her husband's work. She and her family moved back to the U.S.this summer(August 2012) and are adjusting to life back in the U.S. You can read more about her life in Lagos and her adjustment to being back on her blog: We Found Happiness.
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by Ruth | May 30, 2013 | Kids, Motherhood, Parenting, Ruth Wong, World Moms Blog
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my childhood, and as far as I can remember, it had been rather boring.
My parents were poor so we never went on any family holidays abroad. But that’s no excuse for not having some fun family activities. Yet, when I try recalling what we did as a family, my mind is often a blank. We did visit some places of interests but these were more treats than a regular feature. I suppose one of the reasons was that we were financially challenged and outings do cost money. The other reason, I thought, was that my dad’s job had been tough and the weekend was a time to catch some rest.
But we did have fun in small little ways.
I always remember how my dad would catch dragonflies (and another kind of insect which I never found out its name) for me and tie a thin little string on their tails and I would fly them as if they were kites (but we never killed them – we would always return them to nature). Or my dad would bring me to this theme park at night where I loved trying on clip earrings at one of the stalls. I was just a little girl then – probably not even in kindergarten yet!
But somehow, mom seemed often missing in the picture – I couldn’t remember why. She must have stayed home to catch up with house chores which she couldn’t do while looking after me during the day.
Now that I am a mother, I want to be different. (more…)
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 Natalia Rankine-Galloway (Morocco) | May 29, 2013 | Childhood, Economy, Expat Life, Eye on Culture, Humanity, Morocco, Parenting, Poverty, Travel
My mom loves to tell stories about her girls…to anyone who will listen. One of her favorites is about my first plane ride home from her native Peru. At age 6, as I sat in the window seat watching Lima fade away beneath us, I turned to her and said (with wisdom far beyond my years my mum will add) “the trouble with Peru is that the Peruvians don’t take good care of it.”
Admittedly it is one of her less embarrassing stories, better by far than the one that has me passing most of a Greek holiday with a potty on my head. And lately, as my son gets older, I’ve been thinking more about it.
By the time we leave Morocco this fall, he will not quite be three. Throughout our time here, that fact made me sad. There is likely little if anything that he will remember about our year in Morocco and our travels in North Africa. But now, this has also made me slightly grateful.
I have started to see the cogs turning in his little head when we pass the women begging on the street, with toddlers his age strapped to their backs. I see him watching the kids selling cartons of tissues at the stop lights as I guiltily roll up the window.
As his little eyes observe more and more I am starting to be glad that we will leave before the questions start. He hasn’t progressed much past the basic two-word toddler interrogatives: dada gone? more biscuit? But I am imagining the questions forming, and I need more time to come up with good answers.
When he asks me about these babies on their mothers backs, or the ones selling on streets, what do I say? Moreover, how do you explain your own role in the perpetuation of this inequality. How do I explain that being asked for the 19th time in one day to spare just 1 dirham irritates me more and more in spite of the fact that had I given one each time, I would now be short only $2? How would I explain that the shoes he’s wearing would cover our gardeners weekly salary?
Observant though I might have been at age 6 about the socio-economics of Peru, it did not give me any head start on figuring out any actionable recommendations for the Peruvians about how to improve their problems of poverty, inequality, pollution. Nor do I have any for Morocco now, some 25 years later.
I am a big believer in my own and my son’s capacity to save the world. I take part in fundraising campaigns, donate to charity and volunteer. I will always encourage him to live a life of tolerance, patience and understanding. But when you live in the midst of an unequal society – to what extent are you compromising your principles by continuing to live in the manner to which you are accustomed?
So while I doubt that I will ever come up with any Nobel Peace prize winning solutions to global income inequality myself, I would at the very least time to come up with a way of explaining poverty to my son. I would like to be able to explain to him that he is lucky without teaching him conceit or entitlement. I would like to teach him that our relative wealth comes with a responsibility to those less fortunate in such a way that empowers and doesn’t leave me stinking of rank hypocrisy when I look away from the outstretched hands on the street.
How do you teach your children about income inequality when you are living on the “have” side of an unequal society?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our contributor, Natalia Rankine-Galloway, who writes at The Culture Mum Chronicles. She is now writing from the U.S. Embassy in Morocco.
Photo credit to the author.
Natalia was born a stone's throw from the Queen's racetrack in Ascot, UK and has been trying to get a ticket to the races and a fabulous hat to go with it ever since. She was born to a Peruvian mother and an Irish father who kept her on her toes, moving her to Spain, Ireland and back to the UK before settling her in New York for the length of middle and high school. She is still uncertain of what she did to deserve that.
She fled to Boston for college and then Washington, D.C. to marry her wonderful husband, who she met in her freshman year at college. As a military man, he was able to keep her in the migratory lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. Within 5 months of marriage, they were off to Japan where they stayed for a wonderful 2 and one half years before coming home to roost. Baby Xavier was born in New York in 2011 and has not slept since.
A joy and an inspiration, it was Xavier who moved Natalia to entrepreneurship and the launch of CultureBaby. She has loved forging her own path and is excited for the next step for her family and CultureBaby.
Natalia believes in the potential for peace that all children carry within them and the importance of raising them as global citizens. She loves language, history, art and culture as well as Vietnamese Pho, Argentinian Malbec, English winters, Spanish summers and Japanese department stores...and she still hopes one day to catch the number 9 race with Queen Liz.
You can find her personal blog, The Culture Mum Chronicles.
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by Salma (Canada) | May 24, 2013 | Bilingual, Canada, Communication, Culture, Education, Family, Kids, Language, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parenting, Salma, World Motherhood, Younger Children
I am trying to teach my youngest child three languages. I am determined to make it work, even if I only speak one perfectly. I am making a conscious decision to do something that is almost as awful as pulling teeth (in my opinion). I am determined to force myself to come out of my comfort zone, even if it means being laughed at; yes, it happens sometimes. My attempts to teach my young child English, Arabic and French were inevitably a disaster waiting to happen, except that it happened right away. It is a deliberate act of madness on my part, and I hope that my son makes it out alive.
Here’s a little background on my adventures. I have always been a passive bilingual. In my case, I understand spoken French (mostly), I understand written French (greatly), and I can speak some French. The problem is, as the years go by, my linguistic ability coupled with my self-confidence dwindles. And boy is it ever complicated! Along with my love for French, I found it necessary to study and learn Arabic – I married an Arabic speaker. Sure, he speaks English, but my mother-in-law doesn’t speak more than ten words of English.
Learning a new language in your late 20’s is something different. I have always respected immigrants who move to new countries and learn the language (through no choice of their own of course), but now I respect them ten-fold. (more…)
An Imperfect Stepford Wife is what Salma describes herself as because she simply cannot get it right. She loves decorating, travelling, parenting,learning, writing, reading and cooking, She also delights in all things mischievous, simply because it drives her hubby crazy.
Salma has 2 daughters and a baby boy. The death of her first son in 2009 was very difficult, however, after the birth of her Rainbow baby in 2010 (one day after her birthday) she has made a commitment to laugh more and channel the innocence of youth through her children. She has blogged about her loss, her pregnancy with Rainbow, and Islamic life.
After relocating to Alberta with her husband in 2011 she has found new challenges and rewards- like buying their first house, and finding a rewarding career.
Her roots are tied to Jamaica, while her hubby is from Yemen. Their routes, however, have led them to Egypt and Canada, which is most interesting because their lives are filled with cultural and language barriers. Even though she earned a degree in Criminology, Salma's true passion is Social Work. She truly appreciates the beauty of the human race. She writes critical essays on topics such as feminism and the law, cultural relativity and the role of women in Islam and "the veil".
Salma works full-time, however, she believes that unless the imagination of a child is nourished, it will go to waste. She follows the philosophy of un-schooling and always finds time to teach and explore with her children. From this stance, she pushes her children to be passionate about every aspect of life, and to strive to be life-long learners and teachers. You can read about her at Chasing Rainbow.
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by hjunderway | May 20, 2013 | Being Thankful, Child Care, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Education, Expat Life, Family, France, International, Language, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parenting, Preschool, Relocating, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Looking back to my pregnancy as an almost mom to my one and only son, I literally had everything prepared for the first nine months of his life before his eyes ever saw the outside world.
Diapers and clothing gently washed and neatly lined up by size, ready for each growth spurt, each passage from newborn to infant and beyond. I bought “What to Expect….” for the first three years of his existence, pouring over every detail and mentally preparing myself for each developmental stage. I was ready for it all.
My planning served me well for the first three years of my son’s life, and then we up and decided to move to a foreign country. The “What to Expect” books were packed away in long-term storage in the United States, and along with it, my sense of direction as a mother.
We have spent the last year attempting to navigate our way through life in France when French isn’t your primary language, when there aren’t any grandparents to lend a hand, and when all that is familiar becomes a distant dream.
When we arrived in France, my son was 2 years, five months and together we plowed through understanding new social norms, French cuisine, and more recently, the education system.
We did this without a manual, and did okay without it. There were times when I just wanted to type in “raising an American boy in Paris” in Google to look for tips and clarity on what we were doing wrong (or right). If there had been a manual or how-to book, I would have read it 1,000 times and given copies to all of my new expatriate friends with children.
I wasn’t sure that we were doing right by our son when we entered him into a French school at age three (standard practice in France), when the teachers and students couldn’t even pronounce his name correctly. I wasn’t sure that we were doing it right when potty training took a huge deviation and we faced mounting laundry that took forever to dry on racks in our living room.
I know I wasn’t sure that we had done right by our son when he had a meltdown at a friend’s playgroup,hitting and kicking anyone and everyone who came into his path. When I had to pack him up early and head home, I may have had a meltdown myself. Again and again, I was looking for grand gestures in my son’s behavior as proof that he was adjusting appropriately to living in a new country, and I couldn’t find any.
Why do we always look for the grand gestures? Without a guide, we often get caught up looking for the big things and forgetting to spot the small ones.
For example, at 6 months of age, I knew that my son wasn’t able to crawl because he hadn’t developed enough upper body strength to support his head, which was off the charts developmentally. I knew this because the books and doctors told me so, and therefore I had an appropriate course of action to get him back on track. Having a guide instilled in me a parenting confidence that I knew my son and that we were doing everything right, but by whose standards?
Now, a year later and closer to preschool age than that of toddler, I find myself discovering more and more of the small indications that my little one is doing just fine transitioning in our new life abroad. I see it when my son doesn’t realize I’m watching and instead of saying, “Look, look!” with excitement, he yells out, “Regarde, regarde!” (Look in French.)
I see it when he stops to hug a strange toddler crying in the playground, or when he asks me if we can take an airplane home to see his grandparents and cousin. I see it when he takes my hand to cross the street but instead of letting go immediately, he gently slides his thumb repeatedly across my knuckles, something I’ve done to him a thousand times. As time goes on, he becomes more and more self-assured and more at home being who he is. And no manual could have prepared me for that.
Has there been a time when a manual or how-to book couldn’t help you effectively parent your child through a unique situation?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Jacki, an American expatriate mother living in Paris, France.
The image used in this post is credited to the author
Jacki, or “MommaExpat,” as she’s known in the Internet community, is a former family therapist turned stay-at-home mom in Paris, France. Jacki is passionate about issues as they relate to mothers and children on both domestic and international scenes, and is a Volunteer Ambassador for the Fistula Foundation. In addition to training for her first half marathon, Jacki can be found learning French in Paris and researching her next big trip. Jacki blogs at H J Underway, a chronicle of her daily life as a non-French speaking mom in France.
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by Wall Street Mama (USA) | May 17, 2013 | Child Care, Family, Health, Home, Husband, Kids, Life Balance, Motherhood, Parenting, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
I made my first guest contribution to the World Moms Blog about two years ago. My article focused on being a “busy bee,” and managing working, motherhood and household duties. I wrote about energy, dedication to my career and “getting it all done,” even though I knew the workload was hard. At that point in time, my son had just turned one. Well, flash forward to 2013 and my son will be three in a few weeks and my daughter will be one in two months. There is only one word that comes to mind – Exhaustion! (more…)
Wall Street Mama was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago and moved to NJ when she was a teenager. She fell in love with New York City and set her mind to one thing after college – working on Wall Street. She has spent the last 16 years working on the trading floor at three major banks. As an Institutional Salesperson, she is responsible for helping large corporations and money funds invest their short term cash in the fixed income part of the market. She lives in the suburbs of central NJ with her husband of 11 years, their amazing 21 month old boy and their first baby – a very spoiled Maltese. She has baby #2 on the way and is expecting a little girl in June 2012. She is a full time working mother and struggles with “having it all” while wondering if that is even possible.
Wall Street Mama was married at the age of 25 but waited to have children because she felt she was too focused on her career which required a lot of traveling and entertaining. When she was finally ready, she thought she could plan the exact month she was ready to have a child, like everything else she planned in her life. She was shocked and frustrated when things did not go according to her plan. Fast forward four years later, after a miscarriage and several rounds of failed fertility injections, her little miracle was conceived naturally. She never thought in a million years, that she and her husband would be in their late 30’s by the time they had their first child.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, she has endured some of the most difficult years of her life. The stress of trying to conceive was combined with some of life’s biggest challenges. She and her husband, who is a trader, both lost their jobs on Wall Street the exact same month. Her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she ended up passing away while she was 6 months pregnant. At times it didn’t seem like things would ever get better, but she has learned that life is cyclical and what comes down must again go up.
Leaving her baby boy with a wonderful nanny each day is difficult, but at times it is easier than she would have expected. She still enjoys the seemingly addictive draw of working on Wall Street. The past few years have been dramatically different from the “good days” but she is focused on trying to achieve what she once had before. She is currently working on launching her own blog, Wall Street Mama, in an attempt to guide others who are focused on continuing their career, yet struggle with leaving their little ones at home. She is weathering the ups and downs of the market and motherhood, one day at a time.
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