by Maureen | Feb 1, 2013 | Education, Family, Indonesia, Kids, Life Balance, Motherhood, Parenting, Scoops of Joy, Single Mother, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
“Come here, baby…”
He snuggled closer to me, allowing me to inhale a faint smell of his shampoo on his thick, getting-too-long hair.
For a boy who is no longer a baby who can be dead stubborn about his ways sometimes, I am lucky he still wants to snuggle close to his mother.
His working mother that is.
Yes, I returned to the corporate world last December after being a work-from-home mom for almost a year.
While I enjoyed returning to my old job, excited that my previous employer offered it to me, and happy to see my old friends again, there’s part of me that feels guilty – again.
Same old cycle of guilt…the working mom’s guilt. (more…)
by Melanie Oda (Japan) | Jan 23, 2013 | Japan, Motherhood, World Motherhood
Teru-teru Bozu
As I write, the kids (and my husband) are glued to the TV, watching the weather, trying to determine when and where Typhoon #17 will make landfall, carefully calculating whether or not they will have to go to school (and work).
I’ve spent the morning doing laundry while I can (having no dryer puts the laundry at the mercy of the heavens), doing the grocery shopping while I can, and bringing inside anything that might be blown away or blown into a window. Been there, done that, paid 5000 yen.
The winds have picked up a bit, and the air has turned heavy and humid. The children have to periodically brush away the curtains that keep being blown into their faces as they play by the open window on the floor.
They will go to bed tonight, excited and anxious, like American kids waiting for a snow day. Except of course there will be no playing outside in a typhoon! They’re looking forward to staying home, watching daytime TV, building a metropolis out of legos, and (I’ll be honest) fighting with each other. (more…)
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
by Elizabeth Atalay | Jan 22, 2013 | Childhood, Cultural Differences, Health, India, Motherhood, Shot@Life, Vaccines, World Events, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Younger Children
The Author’s Mother
She had one leg shorter than the other. Not in such a glaringly obvious way that one would immediately notice, but you could tell if you studied her walk or she pointed it out to you, like she did to me when I was little.
I couldn’t fully understand the story as a child, but my mother had contracted Polio when she was around three years old, and almost died. I remember that part because she had two names. Mildred was the name she was given at birth, and Goldie was the name she was re-named after she had recovered, as is customary in the case of near death experiences in the Jewish religion.
By the time I was born, the Polio vaccine had been developed and was administered widely to children in the United States. Polio was nearly eradicated in this country by then, and so the story of my mother’s near death from Polio became to me a long-ago folk tale from her childhood.
Sadly, that has not been the case for the rest of the world. Sure the numbers have dropped 99% since 1988 when there were 350,000 known cases around the world, to the 218 reported cases in 2012. Still, the fact is, that as long as Polio remains in even one child, children the world over are at risk of contracting the disease. The victims of the highly infectious Poliomyelitis virus that attacks the nervous system are usually children younger than five years old.
(more…)
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.
More Posts
by Ms. V. (South Korea) | Jan 21, 2013 | Human Rights, Safety, South Korea, World Voice
Knotted Gun sculpture outside UN Headquarters in NYC.
Here, in South Korea, as in every other part of the world, there has been grief and shock over the shootings in Connecticut. The loss of so many young lives in such a vicious act of violence is incomprehensible across languages, religions, and cultures.
After tragedies like this one, which are all too commonplace in the US, people want as much information as possible about the shooter, their family, their upbringing. Any clue at all as to how this could have happened, even though we all know that no answer will ever satisfy us. There is nothing we could discover that would make this ok or comprehensible.
As people across the world ask why – why on earth would someone do this? – in many places people are asking why this young man had access to weapons that could fire 6 bullets per second. (more…)
Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states.
Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.
More Posts
Follow Me:
by Shaula Bellour (Indonesia) | Jan 17, 2013 | Childhood, Cultural Differences, Family, Indonesia, International, Kids, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Shaula Bellour, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Every day, my 5-year old son asks if he can ride his bike. Rain or shine; straight off the school bus, and often way too early on weekend mornings. With the training wheels off and his helmet on, he’s ready to go.
Lucky for us, this is possible. We may live in a chaotic city of 10 million, but our quiet street is a welcome oasis – a dead end lane with just 10 houses and 20 other children to play with. The older kids all attend different schools, but usually gather when they get home – riding bikes, swimming, playing at each other’s houses, exploring tropical backyards, and visiting the “farm” (a.k.a community garden) at the end of the road. It’s a pretty ideal set up for our family.
With its crumbling sidewalks, crazy traffic and lack of parks, Jakarta isn’t known for its public green spaces or outdoor culture. Although there are plenty of family-friendly activities here, a lot of kids spend much of their free time indoors – in cars, malls and air-conditioned play areas. I don’t know of any public playgrounds or parks near where we live, which makes us even more grateful to have safe outdoor spaces at home.
The many benefits of outdoor play are well-documented, contributing to physical and cognitive development, emotional and social well-being, creativity and imagination, a sense of community, and (more…)
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 Melanie Oda (Japan) | Dec 17, 2012 | Childhood, Cultural Differences, Education, Eye on Culture, Family, Holiday, International, Japan, Living Abroad, Religion, Traditions, World Events, Younger Children
Christians are a minority in Japan, comprising only 1% of the population. Well, actually I’d say anyone who is “serious” about their religion is a minority here.
The Japanese, in general, have a very laid back approach to it, adding and subtracting as they see fit, often participating in a mish-mash of rites from various beliefs that can be quite surprising to the outsider.
It is often said that Japanese are born Shinto, marry as Christians, and die as Buddhists. This is referring to the popularity of the “100 Day Ceremony” held at the Shinto shrine when a baby has attained that landmark, the Christian-esque chapel weddings that are popular with young couples, and the Buddhist funerals most families choose to have.
I guess you could say they like to cover their bases in Japan.
As a result, Japan often seems to have trouble understanding why the rest of the world gets so worked up about Christmas. I wouldn’t consider myself devout, by any means, but I have found myself in an uncomfortable position many times when it is expected that I should just be okay with praying at a Shinto shrine or throwing money into the collection box at a temple. Usually, I just stand respectfully by and draw as little attention to my non-praying heathen outsiderness as possible.
The kids, though, are often forced to participate. (more…)
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
