by Shaula Bellour (Indonesia) | Dec 4, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Cultural Differences, Domesticity, Expat Life, Family, Home, Husband, Indonesia, International, Kids, Life, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Parenting, Responsibility, Shaula Bellour, Twins, World Motherhood
This month marks our third anniversary of living in Jakarta. Considering how empty our house was when we first arrived here, I am staggered at how much stuff we have acquired in that short time.
We initially started out with garden chairs as living room furniture and took our time furnishing our new space. Though the house isn’t exactly cluttered, it feels full – and I feel daunted by the sheer volume of STUFF that seems to fill every closet and drawer.
It’s the never-ending tide of cheap party favors, orphaned toy and game parts, and plastic galore. It’s the piles of paper: children’s artwork, old receipts, and unfinished magazines. It’s all the things I never use or wear, the boxed objects I might use one day and the stock of (US-bought) items I think I can’t live without.
Moving from the US to East Timor 5 years ago was a great opportunity to clear things out and scale back. Although I did feel a little sad watching an expectant dad cart away our twins’ disassembled cribs the night before we moved, it felt good to sort through our accumulated belongings and assign categories: donate, sell, ship or store.
Donating unwanted items was easy. I arranged for a pick up with a local charity group, stacked everything on my porch and it was all magically whisked away. We sold our car and other big items, sent friends home with plants and other housewares and shipped our edited possessions to Dili.
Everything else went into our storage unit. A few years later I visited it for the first time and was amazed by what we’d deemed worth keeping at the time. I randomly peeked in a few boxes and found…sweaters. Lots of sweaters. What was I thinking? It was winter at the time and we didn’t know how long we’d be away, but still.
We also stored our furniture, though we recently realized that the cost of storing it for the last five years has probably exceeded its value. While visiting the US, my husband spent a day digging out furniture and giving it all away – couches, tables, lamps, washer/dryer…everything. I was thousands of miles away at the time but it felt fantastic.
Leaving East Timor prompted a similar purge. And yet here I am again, feeling the urgent need to reduce and simplify.
Here in Jakarta, this process isn’t as straightforward. While it’s fair to say that nothing will ever go unused, getting rid of unwanted items isn’t as simple as piling them on the porch. I frequently give outgrown kids’ clothes and shoes to friends or neighbors, donate household items to women’s association charity shops, or leave things out to be upcycled by our handcart-pulling bin man.
Last month my children got involved and we went through their toys, books and clothes and filled 10 bags with donations for a local orphanage. Though it was good for them to be part of this process, I would also really like for them to see where their donations are going and consider giving back in other ways (time, money, materials etc.).
Although I will never be a minimalist (or a light packer…), I’m committed to scaling back and am hopeful that this is a first step toward living with less.
A quick internet search reveals hundreds of creative ways to de-clutter, organize and simplify our homes – and ultimately our lives. We are told that having too much stuff is draining and overwhelming us, that we are wasting too much time and money managing our things and that getting rid of all this stuff can make our lives richer and happier.
All of this may be true, but for me the bigger question is about how to acquire less stuff in the first place.
Clearly I don’t have the answer yet, but it’s definitely something I would like to explore and practice – starting now.
Please share your strategies and tips to get me started!
How do you minimize/manage the “stuff” in your house and life? Do you have any tips for living with less?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Shaula Bellour.
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.
More Posts
by Maureen | Nov 20, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Elections, Eye on Culture, Feminism, Government, Indonesia, Inspirational, Media, News, Politics, Prejudice, Respect, Scoops of Joy, Women's Rights, World Motherhood
Susi Pudjiastuti, Minister of Maritime and Fisheries
Big changes are taking place in Indonesia lately with the new President Joko Widodo (or as we Indonesians lovingly call him, Jokowi) taking office last month.
Six days after he took office, Jokowi announced his cabinet lineup to the public. Eight women out of a total of 34 have been elected as ministers. It was the highest number of female cabinet ministers that has ever been elected in our country’s history and demonstrates Jokowi’s courage in giving women an opportunity.
Gender equality opportunity seems to have a brighter future with this cabinet lineup.
One of the women ministers that has been elected is Susi Pudjiastuti. She was elected as Minister of Maritime and Fisheries.
The media have been talking about Susi all of a sudden. She even became a trending topic on Twitter. Her election as a minister created a big controversy here.
She was not someone that came from any political affiliate. She is a bit different compared with some other women in world politics, like Hillary Clinton or Angela Merkel; she is a business woman. She smokes, she doesn’t have a PhD or any prestigious titles lined up behind her name – she actually dropped out of high school and unlike some others, she didn’t drop out of school because she was poor, it was actually because she felt she wasn’t happy even when she was reportedly a bright student. She decided to follow her own path at the tender age of 17.
With roughly $75, she started her first entrepreneurship in Pangandaran, Central Java with a fishery business. In 1996 she formed her own company called PT. ASI Pudjiastuti Marine Product. After her business expanded throughout Asia and America, she realized she needed a fast and reliable way to transport the seafood products to the buyers. Then Susi Air was born. She built her own aviation company even obtaining her own pilot license. Her airline now serves publicly in many remote parts of Indonesia.
Sadly, the media coverage she received was not because of her achievements or the many awards she has received over the years. The media coverage arose because she has tattoos, because she smokes, is a social drinker and a single mom, formerly married to Caucasian men twice.
Her detractors started judging her personal life, discrediting her ability to hold her role as a minister while she jumped head first into her new job in the government and making the necessary changes.
Among the negative comments however there also has been a lot of support for Susi. I am one of those big supporters.
In my eyes, I see a strong woman, someone very capable and who seems to have a strong character and is very intelligent despite her lack of a college education. Being a successful, independent single mother will really inspire other single mothers in Indonesia. We now have the first single mother minister in the history of Indonesia.
For the Indonesian patriarchy system, this feels like a big breakthrough and already she is busy working hard to fix the maritime and fisheries industry. Jokowi believes in her and that she has what it takes to get the job done and to create breakthroughs.
Jokowi is leading the way by giving Susi Pudjiastuti and the rest of the women minister an opportunity to take important roles in the government.
I salute all of these women and wish them all the best in their new roles.
There are many women involved in politics worldwide these days. Do any female politicians inspire you? What do you think of the increased number of women’s involved in politics?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer and mother of one in Indonesia, Maureen.
The image used in this post is from Susi Pudjiastuti’s public Facebook page. You can view more images of the politician here.
by Martine de Luna (Philippines) | Nov 13, 2014 | 2014, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Philippines, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Here in Manila, the Philippines, Christmas season is in full swing. Everywhere you go, there are signs of it: carols playing in the shopping centers; buildings decked out in holiday decorations; malls holding 3-day pre-Christmas sales; churches displaying the Christmas belen (Nativity) scene; people holding pre-Christmas parties and charity drives. Christmas here is a season of looking ahead to better days, and yes, also to December the 25th!
Speaking of carols, the line, “a thrill of hope” has been on my mind lately. I’ve not gotten around to bring out Christmas decorations (I’m one of those who waits til the end of November), but I have gotten around to thinking about that word “hope.” The line, of course, is from on of my favorite Christmas carols, O, Holy Night. As Christian, it means for me that I await Jesus Christ’s birth, because it holds for me “hope”, hope that He came to save the world in His coming.
Beside the belief that surrounds my religion’s commemoration of Christmas, I find the hope is something we all crave today in the world, isn’t it? With all the tragedy around us, the terror, the fear of disease… hope can often seem far away from our present reality.
And yet, it is always there. Thanks to efforts from the global community of “hope bearers” (like those mentioned this post on #BringBackOurGirls, or this post on the #AYA Summit), there is dialog going on; there is ACTION being taken. And by who? Well, at least for those in our community of global moms, women, mothers. As natural givers of life, I believe we as women are truly blessed with the capacity to HOPE. We know it all too well, during those nine or so months, for instance, when we bear that precious cargo in us!
I know it all too well, right now, in fact. As a second-time mother this coming 2015, I wait in hope for my baby daughter to arrive. I know I have hopes for her, too. For myself, I hope that I will be a good mother to two kids! (Help!) In fact, as I write this, she is kicking me vigorously and giving me quite a tiring episode, haha! I’m both tired and delighted to feel her kicks. Each one is a reassurance that all is well, and that I will see her really soon.
These “thrills of hope” — these summits we attend, the causes we support, the people we advocate through compassion and efforts to give — these all enthral us to ACT on hope. It amazes me that we have the energy to live outside of ourselves, of our own families, our children. And yet, it is right that we do, isn’t it? Because if there is anyone who can better relate to “thrills of hope” — and give fire to that hope — then it is us, world moms, from wherever we are around the globe.
What are your current hopes — for family, for yourself, or for the world around you? They can be big or small, or whatever. What’s important is to never lose faith in what’s possible!
This is an original post by Martine de Luna for the World Moms Blog.
Martine is a work-at-home Mom and passionate blogger. A former expat kid, she has a soft spot for international efforts, like WMB. While she's not blogging, she's busy making words awesome for her clients, who avail of her marketing writing, website writing, and blog consulting services. Martine now resides in busy, sunny Manila, the Philippines, with her husband, Ton, and toddler son, Vito Sebastian. You can find her blogging at DaintyMom.com.
More Posts
by Patricia Cuyugan (Philippines) | Oct 23, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Considerate, Being Thankful, Caring, Family, Friendship, Health, Home, Inspirational, Life, Life Balance, Maternal Health, Me-Time, Mental Health, Motherhood, Philippines, Time, Womanhood, Working Mother, World Motherhood
I was recently given the incredible opportunity to attend a life coaching seminar about investing in yourself. Truth be told, this wasn’t a subject that I had put any serious thought into before that day.
Our speaker, the amazing Coach Pia from the One Core Group here in the Philippines, shared five aspects that we must be able to balance in our lives:
- Family
- Work
- Social Life
- Sense of Purpose
- Self
After a quick assessment, I discovered that I may not have this whole life-balance thing in order. And I’m pretty sure that I am not alone. We all know that it isn’t easy to do this when you’re a mom.
Family, a.k.a. my son and my husband, comes first. Next focus is our home – making sure we are safe and secure, that we have food to eat, that bills are paid, and all of those other adult responsibilities. Work is after that, because as a work-at-home mom, I have taken it upon myself to contribute to the family finances. I am confident that each day is lived in fulfillment of my sense of purpose, so I get a check there. As for my social life, well it’s better now, and I do get to chat with many friends online every day. I also spend time with parents at school, and with neighbors and childhood friends as often as I can. So I guess that leaves just the “self” aspect.
How exactly have I invested in myself throughout the years? And why have I not asked myself this question before? My wake-up call came when this one powerful line was flashed onscreen before us:
What you invest in yourself influences your ability to succeed, to lead others and to make a difference.
We moms need to start investing in what Coach Pia calls our Hero Currency. This is the capacity to give of ourselves, armed with our talents, skills, and the enthusiasm we have for life. It consists of our commitment to personal growth, our ability to identify and accept our strengths and weaknesses, and our capacity to make the best decisions we can in every situation.
With every positive experience, you earn Hero Credits. These include monumental ones, like your child graduating or the day you were married, and little everyday victories too, like scoring an amazing parking space in the mall or choosing a salad over a slice of pizza for lunch. Things that have a negative impact on your life, like getting stuck in traffic jams or screaming at your child in anger, take away from your Hero Credits.
Assess your day and do the accounting. How much positivity do you put into your days, and how much of it is filled with negativity? Do you allow yourself to do things that fill up your Hero Credits, and balance out or even cancel out the daily negatives?
After this exercise, I discovered that investing in my self relies heavily on my perspective. I have to understand that success, whether big or small, begins with me.
I have to be able to gain focus, to sometimes just be silent and evaluate the decisions that I have made. I have to be able to identify my feelings and understand the reasons behind them. It is only then that I will be able to figure out how to convert my daily negatives into positives. I need to be able to open up to others and show vulnerability so that I can freely express love and concern. And I have to be able to work without seeking recognition and find total fulfillment within my self.
At the end of the session, I came to this striking realization: I have been investing in myself. The fulfillment and happiness that I get out of how I choose to live my life far outweighs any sadness or disappointment I may come across. Somewhere along the way of raising my family and creating a home, I managed to do something right for myself, too. I suppose that this means that I am exactly where I want to be in life, that I am surrounded by love, happiness, and acceptance. This realization really fills my heart with joy, and it is something that I wish for moms all over the world, too.
So, World Moms, are you ready to start investing in you? Then ask yourself this:
Where are you in terms of self-growth? Where do you want to be?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in the Philippines, Mrs. C.
The image used in this post is credited to SweetOnVeg. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Patricia Cuyugan is a wife, mom, cat momma, and a hands-on homemaker from Manila, whose greatest achievement is her pork adobo. She has been writing about parenting for about as long as she’s been a parent, which is just a little over a decade. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her reading a book, binge-watching a K-drama series, or folding laundry. She really should be writing, though! Follow her homemaking adventures on Instagram at @patriciacuyugs.
More Posts
Follow Me:
by Karyn Wills | Oct 20, 2014 | Me-Time, Motherhood, New Zealand
On Saturday, I took a couple of hours out of my day just to be. It’s something I try to do a few times a week but hadn’t been able to, due to my three boys being at home for their spring school holidays. I love all three of them to bits and they are super kids. They are also early risers, full of energy and loud. And, for my sense of wellbeing, I need peace and quiet, at least from time to time.
When they were babies and much younger (my youngest is now five years-old) I didn’t mind so much. Maybe I was just too exhausted and focused on getting through those lovely but long days? Maybe I was satisfied ‘just’ being a Mum and being the centre of their lives? Now they are past those intense years, I have more energy and know they, too, are better off having long breaks from me, with their father, or their grandparents, or their friends. So, I hopped in the car and headed for the beach.
It’s early spring here, in New Zealand. It was a warm day here, in Hawkes Bay. Here, in Napier, there were a lot of people out enjoying the playgrounds, parks and boardwalk. I bought myself a hot-chocolate and sat looking out over yachts and fishing-boats, mountains almost devoid of snow were in the distance. I found a sofa near a window and just….sat.
No-one called my name. No-one climbed on me. No-one wanted food, or clothes, or stories. It was wonderful. Incredibly, to me, though, I struggled to sit for longer than 10 minutes or so. Being on the go, and eating and drinking on the run, has become a habit over the past almost 13 years. I felt compelled to get up and get moving.
I strolled, yes, strolled along the boardwalk for about half an hour until I reached sand and the ocean. There were a lot of people biking and a few jogging. People were walking their dogs and dogs were walking their people. The sailing club had something on; there were a lot of small yachts out on the water. The playground was full. The beach was about as crowded as it gets here.
I took off my shoes, sunk my toes in the cold sand for a few minutes, then wandered down to the water and stood where the waves were washing and receding. I wasn’t there for long but it was enough. Sand, sea, sun, spring-breeze all combined to clear my cobwebs and restore my sense of inner-peace. I eventually wandered back to the car and headed home with a wonderful sense of calm and me-ness.
How do you take time-out from parenting? Do you get to do it often?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Karyn Van Der Zwet of New Zealand. Photo credit to the author.
Karyn is a teacher, writer and solo mother to three sons. She lives in the sunny wine region of Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand in the city of Napier.
More Posts
by Melanie Oda (Japan) | Oct 16, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Child Care, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Culture, Expat Life, Eye on Culture, Family, Health, Hospital, International, Japan, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Milestones, Motherhood, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My 6 year-old daughter had her tonsils and adenoids out over summer vacation. She had been diagnosed with sleep apnea several months earlier and since nothing else was helping, finally I reluctantly agreed to the surgery.
I was reluctant because hospital “culture” in Japan is very different from the US, where I am from, and because I knew I would be up against another cultural wall in regards to care for my older child.
This surgery, that requires a one-night stay in the hospital in either the US or UK (according to some quick research on my part,) here in Japan means seven nights in the hospital.
Since hospital rooms are shared, parents are not allowed to stay over night for any except the youngest of patients. Parents are expected to provide clean laundry and cutlery for the patient every day.
The children’s ward had a strict daily schedule, with times when they we’re confined to their beds (which literally had bars like a prison cell,) and times when, if they were well enough, they were allowed to use the playroom.
But absolutely under no circumstances whatever could they leave the children’s ward. And visitors under the age of 15 were not allowed in the ward.
This was a conundrum for me. I have a 9 year old son, who was on summer vacation at the time, and a husband who works 12 hour days, on a good day.
Hospital culture in Japan is strangely at odds with the wider culture in general. A high percentage of children co-sleep with their parents well into their elementary years. That is the cultural norm.
However, the hospital where my daughter had surgery, would not allow parents to spend the night with children over 2 years old.
This particular hospital allows parents of small children to stay until they fall asleep, but for my daughter, that may actually have been worse. Come lights out at 8pm, there was more crying in the children’s ward than from the nursery down the hall.
I had another child waiting at his friend’s house or at Baba’s (grandmother’s) house for me to come home, after all. My husband tried to get home from work at a decent hour, but I think he made it by 7pm once.
The day after the surgery, when my daughter was still feeling ill from the effects of the anesthesia and started bleeding from her nose, I was very grateful that she was in the hospital where I could have a professional attend to any concerns with the push of a nurse-call button.
Around Day 3, though, I could feel myself beginning to fall apart, fiber by fiber. The stress and plain old-fashioned exhaustion were starting to get to me.
My son at home was starting to feel the effects of being shuffled from place to place numerous times a day. My daughter wasn’t sleeping well and wanted to come home. I begged the doctor to discharge her a bit early, even a few hours would be great. His response was that the other child in the same room who’d had the same surgery on the same day was not recovering as well, and it would be upsetting for her if mine left earlier.
Excuse me, what? I thought, blinking several times, sure I had misheard. But I hadn’t.
On the day she was finally discharged, the nurses and staff presented her with a postcard, complete with a photo of her post-op, “to remember them by.” My first instinct was to burn it. Who would want to remember this? But I kept it, an ironic little reminder of the Japanese tendency to have “entrance” and “exit” ceremonies for everything.
I was reminded of a speech the principal of a junior high gave to the student body to announce that I was leaving: “People enter our lives, and at some point we must be parted. We should cherish each of these events.” Perhaps one day my daughter will value the card.
For now, she gets angry every time she sees it. The poor little girl has been waking up at night just “making sure I’m at home” for the past several weeks.
But now I look at the card and I feel profoundly thankful that my kids are, for the most part, healthy and happy. I don’t know how parents, who have to juggle (and it is a juggling with knives-type event, not harmless bean bags) a child’s hospitalization—along with the mundane tasks of everyday life that just keep coming, even when we are least able to deal with them—do it.
I say a little prayer for you every night, moms I do not know, and wish you strength and patience and space to breathe.
Has your child ever been hospitalized? What was it like for you, as a parent?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our mother of two in Japan, Melanie Oda.
The image used in this post is credited to the author.
If you ask Melanie Oda where she is from, she will answer "Georgia." (Unless you ask her in Japanese. Then she will say "America.") It sounds nice, and it's a one-word answer, which is what most people expect. The truth is more complex. She moved around several small towns in the south growing up. Such is life when your father is a Southern Baptist preacher of the hellfire and brimstone variety.
She came to Japan in 2000 as an assistant language teacher, and has never managed to leave. She currently resides in Yokohama, on the outskirts of Tokyo (but please don't tell anyone she described it that way! Citizens of Yokohama have a lot of pride). No one is more surprised to find her here, married to a Japanese man and with two bilingual children (aged four and seven), than herself. And possibly her mother.
You can read more about her misadventures in Asia on her blog, HamakkoMommy.
More Posts
