As a single mom, Christmas has become bitter-sweet. This year I had to say goodbye to my children at 10.30am on the 25th and I won’t be seeing them again until early January. They are home for a few days and then they leave for another 10 days or so.
Karyn’s Boys
I’ve always loved Christmas time. As well as the anticipation of gifts and an extravagance of food, for us in New Zealand, it coincides with the start of our long summer holidays. The whole year seems to build to these weeks of swimming, beach walks, late nights and relaxation, time with friends and time with extended family. The time to make memories.
Now I am separated, my kids make many of their summer memories without me.
It’s hard enough to say goodbye to ones children on Christmas Day but, like many solo-parents, I also had to send them off to a situation which is often emotionally fraught and where the dynamics of the extended family are erratic and often volatile. On the other hand, their Dad loves them and they will have plenty of opportunities for fun and adventure, and they will (mostly) look out for one another.
I swing in my emotions around them parenting one another. I would much rather they didn’t have to do so but siblings have looked out for each other for generations, and were possibly closer and more mature for those experiences. I have seen these changes in my boys after other stretches of time away. Not what I would choose but not all bad.
My eldest is not quite 14 and my middle son is 10.5 years-old, like most siblings, they can be pretty awful to one another at home or the best of friends. These two have high emotional-intelligence and with them I have spent weeks, on and off, discussing strategies for managing different scenarios. They can Skype me whenever they want to and have safe people and safe places they can get themselves to, if the dynamics become overwhelming or feel unsafe for them. So, although I would rather they didn’t have to manage without me, I know that they can.
But my baby is only six. He just wants his Mum with him and, if unpleasant situations arise, he is too young to make sense of what is happening. I was with the older boys over previous summer breaks and could decipher situations for them. There were times when they were simply misinterpreting adult conversations, like all children do sometimes. Other times I needed to protect them from vitriol; explain mean jokes; counteract misogynistic or racist comments; or balance out blatant favoritism. I’m not there to do that for him and that is very hard on my heart.
The older boys will do what they can to help him but they are still not fully grown themselves and, quite frankly, there will be times that they don’t want to. On their return, I can talk him through things, be firm around any learned behaviors I am not happy with, and I can hug most of his broken pieces back into place. I can be his safe-place. It’s not ideal but it’s okay.
Big picture – we work better as a family with two homes. My heart hurts but the bigger part of me knows it’s the best situation overall. The reality is, I need this time to rest and be alone; I am a much better parent and person for these breaks. The boys are loved, and they will be having fun and lots of wonderful experiences. But the Mommy – guilt is big all the same and – I miss my kids.
Have you had times of Mommy-guilt? How did you manage it?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our writer and mother of three boys in New Zealand, Karyn Van Der Zwet.
I was born in Peru in 1978, when I was very little I spent a lot of time at my nonna’s (grandmother’s) house. I remember sitting with her in the bedroom while she talked with Antonina, the cook that had come upstairs to plan the day’s meals. My grandmother would ask if there were enough ingredients for something and Antonina would tell her what was missing. They would write a list, count out some money and then the cook would go off to the markets to get all she needed for lunch and dinner that day. In her apron she carried the handwritten recipe book; the page with the chosen recipe and some cash.
The author with her mom and grandmother.
After my nonna was dressed and ready to go and do some kind of activity, the upstairs maid was already making the beds and cleaning the bathrooms. Downstairs, the first floor maid was dusting or sweeping while the gardener took out weeds from the flowerbeds and the butler served breakfast. The chauffeur was in the kitchen drinking coffee with the seamstress. My nonno was already at the table with his newspaper and his coffee.
I remember all these things as if they were normal; a complete part of my nonna’s house. I didn’t think it strange that there were so many people doing so many different things around the house. This is the way my mom grew up, and that’s what I experienced until the age of 9.
The house I lived in with my mom was not like this, we “only” had a maid and a nanny. Little did I know that just these two people were a huge help!
I have moved away from Peru twice in my life, to the United States when I was 10 and then to Southeast Asia when I was 35. When I was 11, we didn’t have a maid, or a nanny or a cook or a gardener. Instead I had a very tired mom who would try and make me clean my room or throw away the trash or wash the dishes. Everything seemed so foreign and annoying. Then because of visa complications and jobs that were lost, my mother was the one cleaning houses for money. It’s funny how things can turn around like that.
When I went back to Peru to live with my aunt, she had two maids, a gardener, a washing lady, a front street guard and a handyman that painted or fixed things on a regular basis. When I went to live on my own in Cusco, the house I went to live in had a cook, a maid, a chauffer, a gardener and also a fix it all handyman. Back in Lima the first thing I did was hire a maid, and she stayed with me for 8 long and wonderful years.
Three and a half years ago we moved to Asia without our lovely maid and suddenly I had to do it all! Well wasn’t that a freaking shock! I remember walking into our house in Laos and stressing over the dust on the floor, and the ants, and the windows not being squeaky clean or beautifully see through! We did end up hiring a maid for the three months in Luang Prabang, mainly because I was extremely pregnant and the shock was way too big for me.
When we moved to Bangkok I started doing it all myself without help and my most vivid memory regarding this change was how I would stress out, over my 13 year old daughter not helping me out! Well how could I complain, she had grown up with a maid and nanny too, they did everything for her (and me). That was a harsh slap in the face, it was like reliving when I was a teenager and my own mom freaking out, over me not helping her out.
Domestic help in the kitchen
My mom learned the hard way, I learned the hard way and my daughter learned the hard way too. You will not always have the help you were accustomed to, you will not always be able to just sit back and wait for lunch to be served.
Those privileges are not always accessible, and for me now, they seem almost superfluous. I also feel that no one could ever be like Sabina, my maid of 8 years, she was like family to me, as I am sure my nonna’s cook was to her.
A few days ago I was at the indoor playground with my two kids, the cafeteria has some tables and sometimes they are not enough to seat all the parents and nannies that accompany the children so often, the tables are shared. While we were in the outdoor area playing on the swings, a Balinese woman sat at the table where we had our water bottles and snacks. I got to talking to her when we came back in to refresh in the Air Conditioning. She is a Stay at Home Mom that is finishing her masters in Law but only because she’s “bored”. She has a nanny who is also the cook and the maid in her house. The nanny was the one playing with her son in the playground while she shopped for clothes on her laptop.
She was amazed at how I would actually play with my kids, she said she really disliked playing with her son, that she got bored very fast. She asked how much videos I let them watch and told me how her family would judge her if her son watched “too much” YouTube. This conversation put a lot of things into perspective for me. It really isn’t about where you live that decides if you will have domestic help or not, it’s the way you are brought up and what your priorities are.
I remember in Peru knowing of families that did not have that much income but nevertheless had a maid or nanny and other families with nice houses and higher paying jobs that decided that they did not want a nanny at all and at most had a cleaning lady come to their house once a week. The Balinese woman in the playground told me that that’s the way it’s done here, you have a maid and a nanny and a cook even if you are a Stay at Home Mom. Exactly like my nonna.
My husband offers to pay for nannies and cooks and maids all the time when I complain of being tired of the work but I keep on saying “no”.
I have finally given in to a cleaning lady who comes three times a week to do the mopping and bathroom scrubbing. I also managed to get a gardener so now my front garden and backyard are looking beautiful. I have made “friends” with a couple taxi drivers so essentially I have a chauffeur. What I still don’t have is a nanny, and that might take a long time for me to feel comfortable with.
The need for Domestic Help I have come to realize is totally a psychological thing, you get it if you feel you need or want it.
If you can’t afford it then you pass the days wishing you could have it. If you have it, then you pass the days thinking of how you are wronging your kids by not being with them as much as other moms. It’s a lesson to learn and find balance in how you manage your house and kids. I feel that I am still learning.
What is the “domestic-help” scenario at your own place? And what is your take on it?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Mom, Orana Velarde in Bali, Indonesia.
Orana is a Writer, Artist, Mother and Wife; Peruvian Expat currently living in Kyiv, Ukraine with her husband and children. She works as a writer, designer and social media manager for diverse organizations around the world.
Toy cars were no doubt invented as a sanity-restorative for frazzled mothers of demanding toddlers. No, I am not for the world suggesting that we turn material in our pursuits of family fun. But when the cabbage is being coaxed into softness and the aubergine threatens to burn, a 4.5 cm by 2 cm., inexpensive but dinky car can magically transform a wailing child into a cherub.
The droplets of tears begin to dry on the cheeks. The eyes are wide and unblinking while the tiny fingers explore each molded plastic bit of this new entity. Exploratory pushes are hugely successful and now, Abhi, my toddler-of-rainbow-moods, looks up at me with a huge grin, as if to say “thanks, Ma!” Soon, entertainment time gives way to education, as he decides he wants to see how this actually works. Initial tugs at the wheels yield very little. But gradually, the hapless thing succumbs to determined and surprisingly dexterous fingers. “Aha!” thinks Abhi. “Now I will learn more.” But the battered car is a silent sphinx, yielding no more secrets about its magic. With a sigh, Abhi pushes it away. Later, I will try to salvage the once-pristine car and get it in working order. Toddlers have thankfully short memories (or so we like to believe!) and I might put it away for now.
From toy cars onto the real thing. Travelling by car is fun-time for Abhi. He likes all those loud things that move next to his box on wheels, occasionally flashing bright red lights. His immediate response to the brake-lights of the car ahead is a triumphant “aao, aao!” (meaning “aalo”, which in Bengali language means light). He also enjoys fiddling with the louvers of the air-conditioning duct. But the activity that really brings a gleam into his eyes is playing with the gear stick.
Comfortably ensconced in Ma’s lap, he eyes it longingly for a long while, watching it change position under his father’s hands. He decides to try for himself. With a sudden lunge, he grabs the head. Almost. The ever alert Ma pulls him back. She wags an admonishing finger at him. Abhi is ensconced once again in a safe but unexciting lap. How utterly boring! What is life without the gear stick of a moving car? He kicks his legs up and down. Hopefully, these silly, white socks will fall out and off his feet. Why his parents insist on sheathing his feet in goody-goody socks, is yet a mystery to him.
At this point, Ma notices the socks seemingly growing past his toes and, with a chuckle, pulls them back in position. This is too much to take. Abhi’s dignity is definitely hurt. Only the gear stick can change that. He makes a brave attempt, bends forward to grab the tantalizing, black thing and almost succeeds, when…Ma promptly pulls him back. She makes it known in no uncertain terms that the object of desire will have to wait. For several years in fact.
He is indignant. They are doing this to him, their own little precious son?! The corners of his lips droop down and tremble. Ma refuses to be browbeaten and coolly gazes out of the window. He decides to withdraw into a hurt calmness. Gradually, his eyes down their shutters, halfway. What is life? Abhi ponders over this, cars, gear sticks and stubborn parents…
Another day, another time. Abhi is sure that the difference between “p” and “bh” is irrelevant. While gazing out of our tall windows, we spot a passing jeep. I point it out to him and in my best, “child-instruction voice” say “jeep”. Abhi grins at me with a “why are you trying to fool me?” look. He promptly sticks out his little, pink tongue and waggles it to show me what a ‘jeep’ is. Just to make sure I have got the point, he starts a “lo-lo-lo-lo…” chant with the said organ. At which point, I interrupt him to clarify, “This is your Jeebh(Hindi and Bengali for tongue) and that is a Jeep”.
By now, the vehicle in question has vanished. Abhi looks at where my finger is pointing. He sees nothing resembling his tongue, or a vehicle for that matter. He turns to look suspiciously at me. I hurry to retrieve his dog-eared book of vehicles and victoriously point to a picture of the object under dispute. Indisputably, a jeep. He looks surprised and exasperated, as if to ask,”How can you possibly give the same name to two things? Grown-ups, bah!” Catching my frustrated look, he switches to a serene “I know it happens to the best of us” smile and walks away saying “lo-lo-lo-lo…”
What has your child been fascinated with in his toddler-hood continuing into childhood?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Mom, Piya Mukherjee of Mumbai, India.
Happy New Year #WorldMoms! If 2016 is anything like 2015 for us it is going to be a fantastic year! Here are some highlights, impact, and accomplishments of World Moms in 2015.
Founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden, accepted the UN Correspondents Association award on behalf of World Mom, Purnima Ramakrishnan of India:
Purnima was unable to attend the event in New York as she was busy reporting on the flooding in Chennai, India where she lives with her family.
Managing Editor Elizabeth Atalay joined Jen at Cipriani in New York City for the UNCA Award Gala where they also caught up with Dan Thomas, a Communications Director at the UN. Dan was formerly our World Moms contact at the GAVI Alliance when he was in Switzerland!
Jennifer and Steve Burden were in NYC to commemorate World AIDS Day and 10 years of ONE and (RED) with special guests Bono and The Edge, Hozier, Danai Gurira, Trevor Noah, Bill and Melinda Gates and more! #WAD2015 #WorldMoms
Kirsten Doyle of Canada, visited her home country of South Africa in 2015. No international journey is complete without meeting up with a local World Mom! Here she is with Mama Simona in Cape Town!
We celebrated #DayoftheGirl with our daughters from around the world. World Mom, Aisha Yesufu in Nigeria, wrote our post for #DayoftheGirl and her daughter is pictured below.
Our editors stay connected with global Skype calls throughout the year.
World Mom, Kristyn Zalota, continued to help to provide nurse training and Clean Birth Kits to mothers in Laos through the non-profit she founded Cleanbirth.org.
World Mom, Susie in Israel, took her daughter in to the hospital where she works hard saving lives in Israel for “Take Your Daughter to Work Day!”
There were lots of speaking engagements around the world including:
World Moms Blog’s panel at the World Bank in April 2015 in Washington, DC on the importance of universal education for girls!
World Mom, Cynthia Changyit Levin, also spoke at a RESULTS conference in Washington, DC on ending poverty.
World Mom, To-wen Tseng, spoke at a Breastfeeding Conference in LA.
And World Mom Sophia Neghesti Johnson spoke at a storytelling event for children, including a village story from Kenya, and one from Austria.
In September while in New York for UN General Assembly week World Moms met up at a ONE Campaign “Poverty is Sexist” party and hung out with activist and Reggae legend, Rocky Dawani. We were also in NYC at that time for the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Social Good Summit.:
In Kenya World Mom Tara Wambugu toured an elephant orphanage in Nairobi.
Managing Editor, Elizabeth Atalay, and Social Media Editor, Nicole Morgan, advocated for vaccinations for children who need them most in Washington, DC with the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Campaign and were both 2015 United Nations Foundation #SocialGood Fellows:
This summer World Mom, Jennifer Burden, visited the woman who wrote the very first post on World Moms Blog on November 1st, 2010! Astrid Warren, formerly known as pen name Asta Burrows, helped Jen raise the Lady WMB colors in Sogndal, Norway! The two took their families camping together among the fjords this past summer!
World Mom Alison Fraser, Founder of Mom2MomAfrica visited students benefitting from the program she started in Tanzania.
World Moms Blog Founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden, interviewed the CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles, in April 2015 at the UN in New York City. They were there for the UNCA press conference for the State of the World Mothers Report.
Aisha proudly voted in the March Elections in Nigeria.
World Mom, Aisha Yesufu of Nigeria, proudly votes in her country’s elections this year.
World Moms Blog Founder and CEO, Jennifer Burden, met the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban ki moon, at the UNCA gala in New York City in December.
We are excited to head into 2016 with new partners and exciting plans, and to see what this new year holds! Happy New Year!
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
An “anchor baby” is a child that born to a noncitizen mother in a country which has birthright citizenship. The term is especially offensive when viewed as providing an advantage to family members seeking to secure citizenship or legal residency.
And this, of course, has a lot to do with China’s one-child policy. For several decades, the only way for a Chinese couple to have a second child, is to give birth outside of China in a country which has birthright citizenship.
Taiwanese, though not under the one-child policy, like to have their babies born in the U.S. for a “potentially better future” for the children. It is reported that last year about 300 Taiwanese woman traveled to the U.S. just to have their babies born here.
Now, a recently announced rule allowing couples to have two children will be officially adopted on the first day of next year in China, and some Chinese couples have canceled their plan of giving birth in the U.S.
For example, a girlfriend of mine from Nanjing is pregnant with her second child, due next May. She was planning to come to the U.S. to give birth here, but she changed her birth plan after the China’s National Health and Family-Planning Association made the announcement that it was ending the one-child policy, which was instituted in the late 1970s.
She told me that many mothers from her QQ (Chinese Facebook) group “Giving Birth in America” also changed their mind about giving birth in the U.S., since the announcement.
This is good news. In fact, it is very risky for these Chinese women to travel to the U.S. and give birth here. The high demand of giving birth to an American baby among Chinese mothers has led to the illegal operation of “maternity tourism” in California, New York, and other areas where Chinese-Americans have settled.
The maternity tourism service providers arrange for the Chinese mothers to enter the U.S. on tourist visas and hide them in apartment homes, or so called “maternity centers,” while waiting to give birth. This practice is often associated with visa fraud, conspiracy, and other crimes in which women were helped to fabricate documents for visa applications and coached to falsely claim that they were traveling to the U.S. for tourism.
I followed the maternity tourism story for years as a journalist. The stories that occur in the “maternity centers” can be scary. Some of the “maternity centers” are very popular, so popular that the service providers want all the mothers to give birth and leave as soon as possible. This is so they can arrange more maternity trips for more mothers. The centers often give drugs that induce labor to the mothers, and the drugs can be harmful to the babies. Earlier this year when the Federal government raided maternity tourism in California, hundreds of mothers with little big bumps or tiny babies were throw into the street. It was horrible.
Many mothers knowingly came to the U.S. in full awareness of the risks. It’s hard to understand why they would be willing to risk their health and the the babies’ well-being. Let’s wish the trend will slowly die down with the end of China’s one-child policy.
A report I did on maternity tourism back in 2012, way before the main-stream media noticed the trend. (Chinese with English subtitles):
This is an original post to World Mom Blog by World Mom, To-wen Tseng of California, USA .
Former TV reporter turned freelance journalist, children's book writer in wee hours, nursing mom by passion. To-wen blogs at I'd rather be breastfeeding. She can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
Congratulations on your achievement! It was our honor to attend the UNCA Gala and accept this award on your behalf. We wished that you were with us, but we thought of you at home in Chennai helping your family during this time of crisis with the flooding. All of us at World Moms Blog know that our families are our first priority. You are exactly where you need to be.
We will further recap the event soon!
Thank you for the opportunity!
Love,
Jen & Elizabeth
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by CEO and Founder, Jennifer Burden and Managing Editor, Elizabeth Atalay.
Elizabeth Atalay is a Digital Media Producer, Managing Editor at World Moms Network, and a Social Media Manager. She was a 2015 United Nations Foundation Social Good Fellow, and traveled to Ethiopia as an International Reporting Project New Media Fellow to report on newborn health in 2014. On her personal blog, Documama.org, she uses digital media as a new medium for her background as a documentarian. After having worked on Feature Films and Television series for FOX, NBC, MGM, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Castle Rock Pictures, she studied documentary filmmaking and anthropology earning a Masters degree in Media Studies from The New School in New York. Since becoming a Digital Media Producer she has worked on social media campaigns for non-profits such as Save The Children, WaterAid, ONE.org, UNICEF, United Nations Foundation, Edesia, World Pulse, American Heart Association, and The Gates Foundation. Her writing has also been featured on ONE.org, Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter.com, EnoughProject.org, GaviAlliance.org, and Worldmomsnetwork.com. Elizabeth has traveled to 70 countries around the world, most recently to Haiti with Artisan Business Network to visit artisans in partnership with Macy’s Heart of Haiti line, which provides sustainable income to Haitian artisans. Elizabeth lives in New England with her husband and four children.
