by Elizabeth Atalay | May 10, 2016 | 2016, North America, World Moms Blog, World Voice
World Moms Elizabeth Atalay, Tes Silverman and Founder Jennifer Burden met up at the 4th annual Moms + Social Good conference last Thursday at the New York Times Center in New York City. The one day event was hosted by The United Nations Foundation and Johnson & Johnson, with support from BabyCenter, Global Citizen, Fatherly and Charity Miles. The goal, in honor of Mother’s Day, was to highlight some of the greatest challenges women and children across the globe are facing today.
The buzz word that came up in almost every panel and topic of conversation, whether the discussion was on the refugee crisis or the importance of global vaccines, was EDUCATION. The importance of education to rise above any circumstance was underlined again and again.
We were impacted by the Save The Children special report this year. Save The Children usually conducts a State of the World’s Mother’s Report released around U.S. Mother’s Day. The surprising statistics on maternal and child health in the USA in last year’s global report (The US ranked number 33 worldwide) inspired the compilation this year of The Shriver Report Snapshot: Insight Into The Resilient American Mother instead. The study polled 1000 mothers in the United States of various backgrounds. The findings were surprising.
- Overall 85% of American mothers polled think that the US is becoming a worse place to raise a child.
- Despite this alarming finding, almost all moms, also said they are optimistic about their future and their children’s future.
- 6 in 10 said that the US business culture makes it “nearly impossible” to balance work and family.
- The top stressors for American moms were bills and expenses.
- American moms are conflicted whether technology and social media do more good than harm for their children.
- When it comes to helping kids, American mothers overwhelmingly want the next president to focus on education.
One of the highlights of the day was World Moms Blog Founder, Jennifer Burden’s, interview with Save The Children CEO Carolyn Miles about the report. (More to come on the blog about the interview!)
World Moms Blog Founder, Jennifer Burden, interviews Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children at the Moms + SocialGood event in NYC on May 5th, 2016.
Gene Gurkoff and Elizabeth Atalay
Three years ago at Moms + Social Good we met Gene Gurkoff, Founder and CEO of Charity Miles, an app that lets you donate to the charity of your choice when you work out. We’ve been doing Charity Miles ever since while watching his company grow to do more and more good in the world each year.
Also, we tracked down the US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power after her panel on how they are working hard to take out Boko Haram and the importance of education. Just last month, Ambassador Powers was in Abuja, Nigeria visiting with the mothers of the Chibok Girls. There, she met our contributor, Aisha Yesufu, at the sit in. We were so excited to tell her about our connection to Aisha and our support for the moms in Chibok!
US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power with Jennifer Burden, Founder and CEO of World Moms Blog, at Moms + SocialGood in NYC May 5th, 2016.
And here is Ambassador Power weeks earlier in Abuja Nigeria with our World Mom, Aisha Yesufu!
As our good friend Ilina Ewen said on her panel, From local to global challenges: Focus on the whole child, “The sisterhood of motherhood is universal.” This is something we know and feel every day at World Moms Blog.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our Managing Editor, Elizabeth Atalay of the USA. It was updated at 11:36am EDT on May 10th, 2016.
Photo credits to the author.
Photo credit of Aisha and Ambassador Power to Aisha Yesufu.
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.
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by ThinkSayBe | May 8, 2016 | 2016, Heartfulness, Inspirational, International, Meditation, Motherhood, North America, Parenting, ThinkSayBe, USA, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
#Heartfulness Meditation Within Motherhood
Engaging in daily meditation is a thought I have had for many years. Fortunately I finally began practicing it a few months ago through Heartfulness Meditation. I choose the word ‘finally’ carefully because as much as it is true that I have used it in the past, it is also true that I don’t view life as things having ‘finally’ happened. Things like babies growing and learning how to talk or crawl or sleep through the night….. I used to never feel like I wanted them to ‘finally’ happen.
So when I say I finally began the practice of meditation, I really mean it. It is something I would have done well to have started a long time ago.
Within my role of being a parent I feel many emotions. With my 14 year old daughter I get to feel a love that one can only get from a close companion. I am her mother, but we also can hang out as friends. She can share things from her life that I can compare to my own memories from that age. With my 3 year old I get to answer the many questions she has; many of which are repetitive, but come only from a want and need to learn about the world around her. The one and a half year old doesn’t yet talk fully. He says some words and does express himself with sign language or by making particular sounds for certain things. So with him I get to watch a young human develop, as I did with the girls, but I also can see a young boy grow up. He is always ready to give kisses and bury his face into mine as he takes small, quick breaks from his activities.
So why the need to meditate?
Because life needs balance, and it doesn’t come from all things being fantastic and happy, easy and understood all the time. I believe the balance comes from all types of situations arising and being created and our ability to learn who we are and how we handle the different situations. You may have heard the saying, which loosely says ‘it’s not the situation, but what you do with it’.
Having said that, my life as a parent and specifically as a mother has had its challenges to go along with the myriad blessings. I am not implying that a father’s experience is easier or less test-filled. I am only speaking for my own experience as a mother.
I am not a question person. In high school it bothered me infinitely to be asked a redundant question.
When someone would see me coming back from the shops and asked me if I was back: “oh are you back from the shop?”
“Yes. Yes I am back from the shop.”
I worked on it. It still has been hard through the years, but not as much. Now being a mother brings and innumerable amount of questions. As I said above, many of them are repetitive, and the repetition happens within seconds. It’s like a cosmic joke. I try to stay calm and remember I am these children’s primary educator as I stay at home with them.
However, there are other factors too, that make the effort hard to maintain. Having to wake up when the little kids are awake, staying awake and aware the entire day, and sleeping with one eye open at night in case they wake up screaming, or crying, or simply calling your name; figuring out what to feed them, cook, clean, let them help you clean, coming up with school-like lessons, making sure you run the laundry machine while doing other chores or playing with them, making sure they get some time outside the house or otherwise use up their energy and yours, very frequently saying all of these – “stop hitting! Kiss your sister and say sorry! Don’t snatch that from your brother. Be nice. Stop yelling. Don’t jump on the couch, eat your food, don’t use it to practice your long throw!” The list goes on.
Sophia with her kids
In the midst of it all you try to maintain your individuality and you try to have a little side gig, a blog, a life on social media, go to school, do some art… Something or maybe just meditate…!
At the end of the day, or week, or even in the middle of the day, you’re exhausted. You are frustrated. You want to tell your three year old to play the quiet game and not ask you questions for 60 seconds.
So I ask my three year old to play the quiet game, as I get dinner on the table and just want a moment of silence. She seems to understand and want to play, but then she comes to me and whispers a question.
Cosmic jokes, I tell you.
I am not going to get into the role of wife, but it is a part of life that is different from when we were single and without children. Sometimes having a partner can feel like they are a haven, and sometimes they can’t help.
This and I mean all of this and many such “this” is why I choose to meditate.
Sometimes I am so done with the day that I don’t want to meditate. I want to watch last week’s episode of such & such on Hulu or some such service. When I tell myself to meditate, however, it is always exactly what I needed to do.
The 30 minutes to the hour I take to breathe in deeply and consciously, be aware of and absorbed in the Divine Light and Love of the Universe in my heart, remove negative energy from my body and mind, actually is the best thing I do for myself and for my family.
Heartfulness meditation has been helping me in being more patient. It has helped me in remembering my decided role to my children, to myself as an individual with my needs, and finding happiness within that role.
Meditation helps me be present and centered so that I can enjoy these times as I honestly want to; regardless of how tired or frustrated I may be.
My two younger kids sometimes watch me meditate, and I have told them, at separate times, to sit down and do the same. So now they both will do it when they feel like it.
My fourteen year old is currently living in another city. It often makes me feel an angst I can’t explain. While I meditate I am able to not think about it, or anything that is going on in my life. I can just reconnect with … life. After I meditate I feel a bit less like I did before in regards to my oldest child. Then I just meditate again when angst levels rise again (smile).
I strongly suggest Heartfulness meditation to all mothers and all parents. Even if you feel happy 99% of the time, I believe meditation can uplift you then too.
It is not something, I can explain in words, even after all these 1000 words of a blog post. It is something for you to experience for 20 minutes to feel it within you.
This Mother’s Day, give yourself the best gift, your soul would cherish! Visit your nearest Heartfulness Center.
Please join us, the Heartfulness Institute and World Moms Network this summer at the USA for the Heartfulness Conferences. Write to us at worldmomsblog@gmail.com for your free tickets.
Heartfulness Conference 2016
Follow @WorldMomsBlog on Instagram to check out all the Mother’s Day pictures from our contributors.
Picture Credits: Heartfulness conferences, www.artsfon.com, https://pixabay.com
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 To-Wen Tseng | May 6, 2016 | 2016, Bedtime Routines, Boys, Health, Kids, Meditation, Motherhood, North America, Parenting, Sleep and Children, To-Wen Tseng, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children
When meditation became the big thing last year, just like yoga in the 1970s, my editor at Taiwan’s Commonwealth Parenting Magazine wanted me to write a piece about meditating with children. So I interviewed Jeff Zlotnik of Meditation Initiative for this assignment. He told me that kids can begin to practice meditation at the age of five, starting with a two minute session.
“Seriously? Does that really work?”
“Yes.” He then explained to me, while scientific evidence shows that human brains benefit from meditation sessions longer than 40 minutes, it is almost impossible to ask a 5-year-old to sit and meditate for that long. A two minute session is appropriate for a 5-year-old, and “even a short session like that helps relief stress and calm kids down.” (more…)
by ThinkSayBe | Apr 22, 2016 | 2016, Advice, Awareness, Being Considerate, Being Thankful, Blogging, Caring, Communication, Family, Happiness, Health, Home, Humor, Husband, Identity, Independence, Life, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Memories, North America, Partnerships, Peace, Respect, Spirituality, ThinkSayBe, Uncategorized, USA, World Motherhood
I love post-prompts like this one, as they make me think about my everyday actions, especially the ones that come out of habits I created overtime, and no longer think about. Let’s get right to it and I’ll say that even though some of my dos and don’ts apply to varying types of relationships, I am focusing on romantic relationships like the one I have the pleasure of having with the man who is my husband. These are only a few of my favorites: (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 Meredith (USA) | Apr 15, 2016 | 2016, Education, North America, School, USA, World Motherhood
When I think of my own elementary school experience, I remember recess games and lunch time chats. I remember “round robin” reading and math fact drills. I remember class time and spelling tests, but I also remember having time to play with my friends, and that was one of the highlights of going to school. We were able to have two times a day where we had unstructured recess time to just go outside and have time to play with our friends. (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 Sisters From Another Mister | Apr 8, 2016 | 2016, Heartfulness, Identity, North America, Social Good, USA, World Motherhood
You can get a little lost in this life journey when all around you people are featured on sites and being published in real books – even publishing books of their own. Perfect families seem to smile at you every day from your screen as touched up shots appear of beaming children, and moms are coiffed and styled while you clutch your third cup of coffee in the pajamas you have been wearing since yesterday.
I find myself falling down rabbit holes of reading as I meander, clicking from one page to another, finding beautiful words and photographs from writers in nearby states or far flung places. Here and there I subscribe to voices that are new to me, writers I have never met whose words and hearts touch mine or educate, amuse and inspire.
Oftentimes I make the terrible mistake of judging the low points in my life by the highlights showcased by others around me. The perfection featured on Facebook pages can unravel you … when in all honesty, you should rather consider them like Pinterest pages … works of art that may not really work out to such perfection in real life.
I wonder where it all fits together.
I think it through some more and realize that too often returning from blog conferences I feel overwhelmed and unaccomplished. Yet when I return from a social good conference, I feel as though I added a little goodness into the world. I feel motivated to be a voice for change – inspired to feel that I can be heard and make a difference.
Every little action begins a ripple … just one small voice.
And that voice can be heard from in my home, where I can share in my two day old pajamas without anyone knowing I should really be emptying my dishwasher or folding laundry – or taking a shower.
Social good has helped me find my way in recent years, because there is much truth in finding perspective while helping those who need it more. Maybe it is not so much finding your voice, but maybe your voice lies in your heart … and all you should do is listen closely. When I listen – my heart smiles.
Hugs and kisses – Nicole.
This is an original Post for World Moms Blog by Post by Nicole of Sisters From Another Mister in Florida, USA. She can also be found on twitter @thesistershood.
Photo credit to the author.
Sisters From Another Mister ...
A blog born from the love of 'sisters' around the world who come together to lift eachother up no matter where they are on their life journey.
Meet Nicole, a transplanted British born, South African raised, and American made Mom of two girls living on the sunny shores of South Florida, USA. A writer of stories, an avid picture taker and a keeper of shiny memories.
Sharing the travels of a home school journey that takes place around the globe - because 'the world truly is our classroom'. Throw in infertility, adoption, separation, impending divorce (it has its own Doom and Gloom category on the blog) and a much needed added side of European humor is what keeps it all together on the days when it could quite clearly simply fall apart! This segues nicely into Finding a Mister for a Sister for continued amusement.
When not obsessing over the perils of dating as an old person, saving the world thro organisations such as being an ambassador for shot@life, supporting GirlUP, The UN Foundation, ONE.org and being a member of the Global Team of 200 for social good keeps life in the balance.
Be sure to visit, because 'even tho we may not have been sisters at the start, we are sisters from the heart.'
http://www.sistersfromanothermister.com/
https://www.facebook.com/SistersFromAnotherMister
https://twitter.com/thesistershood
http://pinterest.com/thesistershood/
Global Team of 200 #socialgoodmoms
Champion for Shot@Life and The United Nations Foundation
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