by Karyn Wills | Feb 10, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Brothers, Childhood, Education, Family, Food, Health, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Milestones, Motherhood, Nature, New Zealand, Nutrition, Older Children, Parenting, Relationships, Traditions, Travel, Vacationing, World Motherhood
One of my enduring memories of childhood is of trapsing over paddocks, up and down hills, in gumboots too big for my feet picking mushrooms or blackberries. Eventually getting sore heels and aching legs. Eventually filling buckets and ice-cream containers with food.
Probably scrapping with my sisters. Probably moaning about having to do so. Definitely covered in blackberry juice and scratches on blackberry days. Definitely not impressed by having to pick mushrooms, which I didn’t like to eat.
This summer holiday, my boys got to harvest their own food. Not blackberries and mushrooms, though. They got to harvest seafood.
Tuatua (too-ah-too-ah) are a shellfish. The children love to collect them. We go out at almost low-tide or just after low-tide in thigh-high water. We do the Twist. Our feet sink into the wet sand and feel around for something hard. When we find one, we reach down and pick it up with our hands.
Sometimes, we are side-swiped by a wave. Sometimes, we pick up a round hard sea-biscuit instead. At times, instead of the Tuatua-Twist there is a Crab-Bite-Leap with occasional bad-language. There is almost always laughter and a competition to see who can find the most. This year, the boys and their cousins also took responsibility for collecting fresh seawater twice a day, to keep the Tuatuas in, while they spat out all the sand inside their shells. They kept them cool in the fridge and, when they were finally cooked, the children ate them: some with gusto, others not so much. To me, they taste a bit like chewy seawater…
Our eldest son, 12 year-old Joe, with his 13 year-old girl cousin, Billie, trapped their own crayfish.
Crayfish are related to rock-lobster and, in our extended family, are usually trapped off-shore and by boat, or dived for with scuba-gear and tanks. Joe and Billie had kayaked out around a small peninsula and discovered an old craypot on the rocks. They dragged it out of the sea and managed to convince their fathers to repair it. They then kayaked it out again and dropped it on a good rocky spot.
Each day they went out to check their pot, just as the adults do the other craypots. The first day they caught – seawater. The second day they caught – seawater. The third day they were a bit fed up and otherwise occupied, so didn’t go out. The fourth day or maybe it was the fifth, Billie was out fishing and Joe went out alone to see what was there and to bring the pot in for good. He was very excited to discover they had caught a legal-sized cray! Yes, duly cooked and eaten.
In these days where many children don’t know that carrots grow in the ground or that their meat comes from a real animal, I love that our boys are sometimes involved in the process of food-collection and the processes of preparing it for a meal. I know that these are the Good Old Days and these moments will create some of their childhood memories.
Do your children do similar things you did as a child? Are they involved in collecting or harvesting their own food?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in New Zealand and mum of three boys, Karyn Van Der Zwet.
The image used in this post is credited 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.
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by Olga Mecking | Feb 3, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Bilingual, Culture, Education, Expat Life, Humanitarian, Inspirational, Language, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Millennium Development Goals, Motherhood, Moving, Netherlands, Philanthropy, Shot@Life, Social Good, Stress, World Motherhood
Until a friend of mine had a terrible tragic accident in the Himalaya mountains that left her in a coma, I had never donated to a charity. We collected some money at our wedding to give to her husband, and my mom also donated some money to a charity that takes care of her, but that was it.
Since moving to another country and having children, I have been looking for ways to help others. I want to donate to more charities. I am just looking for the right one.
It isn’t easy. I have heard of many charities that have turned out to be scams or which just took people’s money and ran.
My situation is especially difficult because I live in a foreign country and do not know about the charities here. Though my Dutch is fluent, I still have trouble communicating in this language sometimes. In the Netherlands, many people go house-to-house collecting money for charities.
I think it is interesting to find out about charities that way because they’re often ones I’ve never heard of before. They are often small scale actions rather than big ones. But I think the mistake they’re making is the following one: before I contribute, I’d like to find out more about the organization, whether my friends have heard of it, whether there is something about them that raises red flags.
I think I might even agree to donate money if they were willing to leave a business card or something I could find them by. Instead, they want me to make a monthly commitment. Again, because I do not know them, I am not so keen on giving them my credit card number.
At the same time, my heart breaks for all the little children going through invasive treatments; who are terminally ill; who look like little ghosts because they have lost so much weight from all their chemo; for all the sick people who can’t get the treatment they need; or for children who are not so fortunate as mine; or moms in poorer countries, who have to travel for many days if they want to give birth in a hospital.
I really want to help. Since I became a mom and later a World Moms Blog contributor, I have been made aware of needs and dreams that can’t be fulfilled because of the bad conditions all around the world.
But the fact is that finding the right charity isn’t easy. I mostly say no to these door-to-door people. I do it with a heavy heart. I just want to make sure that I am really helping people in need, and not wasting my money.
Luckily, while looking for a charity to donate to, there is a lot I can do:
- In my circle of friends alone, there have been situations where help was needed, including domestic violence and pregnancy problems.
- I am considering taking the Shot@Life pledge and becoming a Champion.
- I can learn as much as I can about actions such as #MDG’s and participate in our Twitter Parties.
- I can find local communities, organizations, charities and brands.
- Many of my friends are absolutely talented people and use their talents to collect money for a good cause, and I can help them spread the word and participate.
I know this sounds like nothing, and I am not telling this to show off how good of a person I am. It is just to show that even though it sounds like nothing, we all can make a difference. I am still very new at this social good cause. I still have a lot to learn. Already I have asked my fellow World Moms Blog contributors for help choosing a charity I can actually trust and they have come up with great charities.
I need to do more. I want to do more. I will do more.
Do you have a charity or cause worth supporting? Tell us about it and help spread the word
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from Olga Mecking in The Netherlands.
The image used in this post is credited to Images Money. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Olga is a Polish woman living in the Netherlands with her German husband. She is a multilingual expat mom to three trilingual children (even though, theoretically, only one is trilingual since she's old enough to speak). She loves being an expat, exploring new cultures, learning languages, cooking and raising her children. Occasionally, Olga gives trainings in intercultural communication and works as a translator. Otherwise, you can find her sharing her experiences on her blog, The European Mama. Also take a while to visit her Facebook page .
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by Kirsten Doyle (Canada) | Jan 28, 2014 | Awareness, Canada, Mental Health, Mental Illness
When I was a teenager, I suffered from teen depression. When I tried to talk to someone about it, I was told to “pull myself together”. I didn’t mention it again, because I didn’t think it was OK to talk about it.
When I was in my early 20’s, my life fell apart. I managed to pick up the pieces, but I also picked up anxiety, PTSD and an eating disorder to go along with the depression. I didn’t talk about it, because I felt that my own bad decisions had led to the state I was in. In other words, it was my own fault, therefore I didn’t deserve to be helped.
After the birth of my second child, I found myself drowning in postpartum depression. I didn’t talk about that either, because I was so ashamed. How could I possibly be feeling so bleak – suicidal, even – when I had two beautiful children? What kind of horrible person was I, that I would even think about leaving my sons without a mother?
For pretty much all of my teen and adult life, I have dealt with mental health problems that I haven’t wanted to talk about. I struggled alone with the fallout from the crisis in my early adulthood for a full twenty years – twenty years – before I sought professional help.
Sadly, I am not alone.
The Toronto-based Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH) reports that in any given year, one in five Canadians suffers from a mental health problem.
We lose about eleven Canadians a day to suicide, with women being three to four times more likely to attempt it than men. The human, social and economic costs of mental illness are immense.
And yet people don’t want to talk about it – especially moms, who are so adept at tucking away their problems so they can take care of the people around them. People who suffer from mental illness tend to have this weird idea that it’s their fault, and that it’s a stigma that shouldn’t be spoken about. They fear that if their mental illness is known, it will hurt them socially and career-wise.
It is an unfortunate reality that stigmas surrounding mental illness do exist. According to CAMH, 55% of Canadians would hesitate to enter into a relationship with someone who has mental illness, and almost half of the population believes that mental illness is an “excuse”. All of this perpetuates the notion that mental illness is something to be ashamed of. And that in turn results in tragic loss of life and all kinds of trauma for those left behind.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
As moms, we are great influencers of the generation we are raising. I believe it is within our power to greatly reduce the stigma associated with mental illness. If we instil in our kids the idea that it’s OK to talk about mental health issues, they will grow up to be more accepting of those who have problems, and they will have the freedom to talk about their own experiences.
If people talk more about their mental illnesses, and if they feel that it’s all right for them to seek help, how many lives could be saved? How many tragedies could be averted? How many children would be saved the sadness of losing a parent, a friend or a sibling?
Today is a special day in Canada, as one of the biggest companies sponsors a mental health awareness campaign. Today is Bell Let’s Talk day. For every tweet sent using the #BellLetsTalk hashtag, and for every Facebook share of the Bell Let’s Talk image, Bell Canada will donate another five cents to mental health initiatives.
Let’s do our part, to raise awareness and let people know that there is support for them. Let’s send a positive message to our children and create a newer, brighter future for those with mental illness issues.
Let’s talk.
This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle of Toronto for World Moms Blog. Kirsten can be found at her blog, Running for Autism, or on Twitter @running4autism.
Kirsten Doyle was born in South Africa. After completing university, she drifted for a while and finally washed up in Canada in 2000. She is Mom to two boys who have reached the stage of eating everything in sight (but still remaining skinny).
Kirsten was a computer programmer for a while before migrating into I.T. project management. Eventually she tossed in the corporate life entirely in order to be a self-employed writer and editor. She is now living her best life writing about mental health and addictions, and posting videos to two YouTube channels.
When Kirsten is not wrestling with her kids or writing up a storm, she can be seen on Toronto's streets putting many miles onto her running shoes. Every year, she runs a half-marathon to benefit children with autism, inspired by her older son who lives life on the autism spectrum.
Final piece of information: Kirsten is lucky enough to be married to the funniest guy in the world.
Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Be sure to check out her YouTube channels at My Gen X Life and Word Salad With Coffee!
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