by Salma (Canada) | May 24, 2013 | Bilingual, Canada, Communication, Culture, Education, Family, Kids, Language, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parenting, Salma, World Motherhood, Younger Children
I am trying to teach my youngest child three languages. I am determined to make it work, even if I only speak one perfectly. I am making a conscious decision to do something that is almost as awful as pulling teeth (in my opinion). I am determined to force myself to come out of my comfort zone, even if it means being laughed at; yes, it happens sometimes. My attempts to teach my young child English, Arabic and French were inevitably a disaster waiting to happen, except that it happened right away. It is a deliberate act of madness on my part, and I hope that my son makes it out alive.
Here’s a little background on my adventures. I have always been a passive bilingual. In my case, I understand spoken French (mostly), I understand written French (greatly), and I can speak some French. The problem is, as the years go by, my linguistic ability coupled with my self-confidence dwindles. And boy is it ever complicated! Along with my love for French, I found it necessary to study and learn Arabic – I married an Arabic speaker. Sure, he speaks English, but my mother-in-law doesn’t speak more than ten words of English.
Learning a new language in your late 20’s is something different. I have always respected immigrants who move to new countries and learn the language (through no choice of their own of course), but now I respect them ten-fold. (more…)
An Imperfect Stepford Wife is what Salma describes herself as because she simply cannot get it right. She loves decorating, travelling, parenting,learning, writing, reading and cooking, She also delights in all things mischievous, simply because it drives her hubby crazy.
Salma has 2 daughters and a baby boy. The death of her first son in 2009 was very difficult, however, after the birth of her Rainbow baby in 2010 (one day after her birthday) she has made a commitment to laugh more and channel the innocence of youth through her children. She has blogged about her loss, her pregnancy with Rainbow, and Islamic life.
After relocating to Alberta with her husband in 2011 she has found new challenges and rewards- like buying their first house, and finding a rewarding career.
Her roots are tied to Jamaica, while her hubby is from Yemen. Their routes, however, have led them to Egypt and Canada, which is most interesting because their lives are filled with cultural and language barriers. Even though she earned a degree in Criminology, Salma's true passion is Social Work. She truly appreciates the beauty of the human race. She writes critical essays on topics such as feminism and the law, cultural relativity and the role of women in Islam and "the veil".
Salma works full-time, however, she believes that unless the imagination of a child is nourished, it will go to waste. She follows the philosophy of un-schooling and always finds time to teach and explore with her children. From this stance, she pushes her children to be passionate about every aspect of life, and to strive to be life-long learners and teachers. You can read about her at Chasing Rainbow.
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by Mannahattamamma (UAE) | May 22, 2013 | Body Image, Cultural Differences, Feminism, Human Rights, Religion, SAHM, Sex, Tunisia, UAE, Womanhood, Women's Rights, World Events, World Voice
I used to have a college professor—of women’s studies, of course—who would occasionally start class when we were particularly chatty and inattentive by saying, loudly, “SEX!” Our heads would whip around to stare at her and the room would be silent.
The professor would chuckle and then start the lesson, which almost never had anything to do with sex—or at least not sex in an interesting way. Her way of talking about sex was dry and academic, having to do with words like “hegemony” or “heteronormative.”
I thought about that professor a few weeks ago when I read about “International Topless Jihad Day,” sponsored by FEMEN in support of Amina Tyler, who had sparked a global controversy by posting a topless pictures of herself on Facebook with “my body belongs to me and is not the source of anyone’s honor,” scrawled on her naked chest in Arabic. Tyler’s life—and the lives of her family—were threatened after the pictures were posted; she has since left Tunisia, where she lived.
The topless jihadists claimed that their actions showed solidarity with Amina and sent a message to the world that women’s bodies belong to no one but themselves. And yet it seems a bit like my professor yelling SEX! FEMEN is yelling BOOBS–and the topless jihad did, it’s true, get a lot of press coverage. The coverage drew attention to Amina’s plight but also gave respected media outlets a chance to run pictures of boobs and more boobs: Huffington Post ran a whole slideshow of revolutionary boobs. (more…)
After twenty-plus years in Manhattan, Deborah Quinn and her family moved to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates), where she spends a great deal of time driving her sons back and forth to soccer practice. She writes about travel, politics, feminism, education, and the absurdities of living in a place where temperatures regularly go above 110F.
Deborah can also be found on her blog, Mannahattamamma.
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by hjunderway | May 20, 2013 | Being Thankful, Child Care, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Education, Expat Life, Family, France, International, Language, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parenting, Preschool, Relocating, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Looking back to my pregnancy as an almost mom to my one and only son, I literally had everything prepared for the first nine months of his life before his eyes ever saw the outside world.
Diapers and clothing gently washed and neatly lined up by size, ready for each growth spurt, each passage from newborn to infant and beyond. I bought “What to Expect….” for the first three years of his existence, pouring over every detail and mentally preparing myself for each developmental stage. I was ready for it all.
My planning served me well for the first three years of my son’s life, and then we up and decided to move to a foreign country. The “What to Expect” books were packed away in long-term storage in the United States, and along with it, my sense of direction as a mother.
We have spent the last year attempting to navigate our way through life in France when French isn’t your primary language, when there aren’t any grandparents to lend a hand, and when all that is familiar becomes a distant dream.
When we arrived in France, my son was 2 years, five months and together we plowed through understanding new social norms, French cuisine, and more recently, the education system.
We did this without a manual, and did okay without it. There were times when I just wanted to type in “raising an American boy in Paris” in Google to look for tips and clarity on what we were doing wrong (or right). If there had been a manual or how-to book, I would have read it 1,000 times and given copies to all of my new expatriate friends with children.
I wasn’t sure that we were doing right by our son when we entered him into a French school at age three (standard practice in France), when the teachers and students couldn’t even pronounce his name correctly. I wasn’t sure that we were doing it right when potty training took a huge deviation and we faced mounting laundry that took forever to dry on racks in our living room.
I know I wasn’t sure that we had done right by our son when he had a meltdown at a friend’s playgroup,hitting and kicking anyone and everyone who came into his path. When I had to pack him up early and head home, I may have had a meltdown myself. Again and again, I was looking for grand gestures in my son’s behavior as proof that he was adjusting appropriately to living in a new country, and I couldn’t find any.
Why do we always look for the grand gestures? Without a guide, we often get caught up looking for the big things and forgetting to spot the small ones.
For example, at 6 months of age, I knew that my son wasn’t able to crawl because he hadn’t developed enough upper body strength to support his head, which was off the charts developmentally. I knew this because the books and doctors told me so, and therefore I had an appropriate course of action to get him back on track. Having a guide instilled in me a parenting confidence that I knew my son and that we were doing everything right, but by whose standards?
Now, a year later and closer to preschool age than that of toddler, I find myself discovering more and more of the small indications that my little one is doing just fine transitioning in our new life abroad. I see it when my son doesn’t realize I’m watching and instead of saying, “Look, look!” with excitement, he yells out, “Regarde, regarde!” (Look in French.)
I see it when he stops to hug a strange toddler crying in the playground, or when he asks me if we can take an airplane home to see his grandparents and cousin. I see it when he takes my hand to cross the street but instead of letting go immediately, he gently slides his thumb repeatedly across my knuckles, something I’ve done to him a thousand times. As time goes on, he becomes more and more self-assured and more at home being who he is. And no manual could have prepared me for that.
Has there been a time when a manual or how-to book couldn’t help you effectively parent your child through a unique situation?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Jacki, an American expatriate mother living in Paris, France.
The image used in this post is credited to the author
Jacki, or “MommaExpat,” as she’s known in the Internet community, is a former family therapist turned stay-at-home mom in Paris, France. Jacki is passionate about issues as they relate to mothers and children on both domestic and international scenes, and is a Volunteer Ambassador for the Fistula Foundation. In addition to training for her first half marathon, Jacki can be found learning French in Paris and researching her next big trip. Jacki blogs at H J Underway, a chronicle of her daily life as a non-French speaking mom in France.
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by Sophie Walker (UK) | May 13, 2013 | Being Thankful, Childhood, Cooking, Family, Food, Home, Inspirational, Life Balance, Motherhood, Parenting, Sophie Walker, Traditions, UK, World Motherhood, Younger Children
The sun is shining through the trees at the bottom of the garden and dancing dappled light on the kitchen window. It gilds the pot of basil on the sill and warms our faces and illuminates the dust of flour in the air around us as Betty bends to her task.
She stands sturdily beside me, elevated on a kitchen chair, wrapped in a bright plastic apron. I have tied her hair up – though untidy tendrils still make their way across her cheek – and as she leans over to check her progress I have to resist the urge to kiss the perfect dimple in the nape of her neck.
Betty and I are baking. With nimble little fingers she is sieving the flour and baking powder, tap-tapping it against her palm like a tambourine and watching the clouds of white fall into the bowl. From time to time she looks up at me and grins, exposing the sweetly crooked front tooth that is the result of falling on her face mid-dash down the garden path a year ago. Betty does everything at a dash: most of her toys have to have wheels just to keep up with her. But today, she is by my side and she stays there. It’s Wednesday: our baking day, the day I don’t go to work. So here we are, elbow to elbow, delighting at our creations and the alchemy we work.
This is just as new to me as it is to Betty. I have always cooked, rarely baked. I have produced breakfasts, lunches, dinners; steaming layers of lasagne (“with GREEN pasta, Mummy!”); round, ripe tomatoes stuffed with rice; home-made turkey burgers with a secret parcel of melted cheese inside; roast chicken, roast lamb, roast beef; fat, gleaming omelettes; pancakes on feast days and naughty nuggets and chips on holidays and just-because-we-can days. But baking: that was for people who had time. I provided proudly but quickly and efficiently and then I got on with the next thing on my list.
What Betty and I do now is different. I watch her tap the egg oh so carefully on the rim of the mixing bowl before gripping it with both her little thumbs and attempting to prise it apart. Her approach is not working, so she grips it harder with her little fist and the egg crunches and splatters into the creamy whiteness of the blended butter and sugar. She makes a sound of consternation and looks up at me. I laugh, and she relaxes, and together we pick out the bits of shell. We are both learning to be patient, to enjoy the process as much as the outcome. She is so entranced by what happens when she stirs the ingredients together that she forgets to fidget and want to run. I am so entranced by her absorption that I forget to worry about what’s next on the list.
Week by week we work our way through her favourites. My baby daughter has my heart already but week by week I give it to her all over again in every offering: tender yellow vanilla-scented cupcakes that she decorates with butterflies; sturdy banana and cherry loaf; chocolate chip cookies that expand so alarmingly while cooking that we shriek and slam the oven door shut quickly and giggle. We make flapjacks, shaking oats and raisins into the mixing bowl and I smile to see her eyes widen and her hand wobble at the weight of the golden syrup we spoon in next, inhaling the bitter metal smell of the glutinous mass, our mouths watering.
Sometimes Betty gets tired and pushes the bowl back over to me to mix. Sometimes she rests her head against my side and curls a small arm around my back, sucking the first two fingers of her other hand as she watches me turn the mixture over and again and back on itself until the lumps are gone and the components blended. Then she stirs to help me transfer it into multicoloured cases, or buttered tins, before setting about licking the spoon clean, rosy pink tongue lapping like a kitten’s.
When our cakes are baked and ready, our kitchen smells of love.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our contributor in the UK and mum to 2 daughters and to 2 step-sons, Sophie Walker.
The image used in this post is credited to the author.
Writer, mother, runner: Sophie works for an international news agency and has written about economics, politics, trade, war, diplomacy and finance from datelines as diverse as Paris, Washington, Hong Kong, Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad. She now lives in London with her husband, two daughters and two step-sons.
Sophie's elder daughter Grace was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome several years ago. Grace is a bright, artistic girl who nonetheless struggles to fit into a world she often finds hard to understand. Sophie and Grace have come across great kindness but more often been shocked by how little people know and understand about autism and by how difficult it is to get Grace the help she needs.
Sophie writes about Grace’s daily challenges, and those of the grueling training regimes she sets herself to run long-distance events in order to raise awareness and funds for Britain’s National Autistic Society so that Grace and children like her can blossom. Her book "Grace Under Pressure: Going The Distance as an Asperger's Mum" was published by Little, Brown (Piatkus) in 2012. Her blog is called Grace Under Pressure.
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by Kyla P'an (Portugal) | May 3, 2013 | Childhood, Culture, Family, Feminism, Girls, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, School, Social Media, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Not long ago, I attended a parenting seminar featuring excellent keynote speakers and a number of child development specialists. The seminar must have impacted me more than I realized because this is the second time I find myself writing about sage wisdom imparted during it (the other time I brought it up was in this post).
A major topic of the keynote address centered on how US parents today are getting more involved with their children, sometimes to a detrimental degree.
Most US women of my generation, Gen X—as products of mothers that fought for equality and women’s rights back in the 1960’s—are more accomplished, both academically and professionally, than our fore-mothers. After obtaining college and often graduate school degrees (sometimes more than one), Gen X women go on to establish our financial independence in the workforce; and in many cases, then elect to leave the workforce in order to raise children.
This trend is called “Opting-Out” and it’s common in tony suburbs around the US. But it’s a trend with consequences. Women, who had achieved success professionally find themselves somewhat under-challenged domestically. Eager to apply their professional talents at home, many of these women turn child rearing into a second career. Though fathers are not as likely to Opt Out, some still do, leaving the mother as main bread winner. As a result, helicopter and over-bearing parenting has become ubiquitous; the outcome of which has yielded a population of coddled and unresilient kids.
I am not claiming this phenomenon endemic to the US but it’s certainly a growing concern. Perhaps this is why the message in the parenting seminar’s keynote address by Robert Evans resonated so much for me. He spoke about how today’s parents are so focused on their kids that they are willing to do everything for them: intervene at the slightest sign of trouble; help them with projects and homework the children should be responsible for; even criticize teachers and authority figures for treating their child unfairly. In essence, these parents are clearing life’s path of all obstacles and challenges that would help a child build character, resilience and stamina.
“Parents don’t need to prepare the path for their children…instead, they need to focus on preparing their children for The Path.”
– Bob Evans
Preparing our children for the path…what does that mean exactly? And where do we draw the line?
I would not label either my husband nor myself a helicopter parent—Drill Sargent, perhaps–but as a freelance writer with a flexible work schedule, I avail myself to my children and their school and activity schedules. I’m a room parent, active member of the Parent/Teacher Organization and volunteer for many roles at my children’s schools and extra-curricula. But I don’t think I over-do it.
At my daughter’s elementary school, there’s a rumour that the teachers have an acronym for the (mostly female) parents who should get out of the school and get a job. I don’t know what the acronym is and pray it’s never associated with my name but I can understand why it exists.
In parents’ defense, however, we can’t help feeling more protective and sometimes over-bearing about our kids. We want to be able to let go of their hands and let them find their own way but there are a lot more demons along the path now. Social media, for one, has rendered our lives more public than ever before. I often find myself more concerned about the fall-out of a misstep on Facebook than a misstep in real life. Take for example the recent milestone our daughter achieved, which I was initially so proud of but ultimately never posted online about:
Our house is a half-mile away from our elementary school. To get there, you walk along a lovely open path along a ridge, down the hill across the soccer fields and arrive at the school. You can see the school from the top of our street. My children and I have been walking to school along this path, which we dubbed the Faery Path, for four years now. Recently, we allowed our independent 1st- grader to walk to school on her own. There are other kids in our neighborhood who also walk to school but none of them without a parent. For this reason, I got nervous about it.
I wasn’t nervous for our daughter, she’s a very capable and spunky 7-year-old, I was nervous for what others would think about my decision to let her walk alone; how they would judge my parenting style.
Later that day, when I picked my daughter up from school, she effervesced about how exciting it was to walk to school on her own and how responsible it made her feel. With heavy-heart, I informed her that it was the only time she would get to walk the path on her own for a while.
It’s just not how today’s parents are doing things.
How do you help prepare your children for the Path? Do you feel the judgement of others has a negative outcome on your child rearing decisions?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Senior Editor and mother of two, Kyla P’an.
The image used in this post is credited to Nina Mathew’s Photography. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Kyla was born in suburban Philadelphia but spent most of her time growing up in New England. She took her first big, solo-trip at age 14, when she traveled to visit a friend on a small Greek island. Since then, travels have included: three months on the European rails, three years studying and working in Japan, and nine months taking the slow route back from Japan to the US when she was done. In addition to her work as Managing Editor of World Moms Network, Kyla is a freelance writer, copy editor, recovering triathlete and occasional blogger. Until recently, she and her husband resided outside of Boston, Massachusetts, where they were raising two spunky kids, two frisky cats, a snail, a fish and a snake. They now live outside of Lisbon, Portugal with two spunky teens and three frisky cats. You can read more about Kyla’s outlook on the world and parenting on her personal blogs, Growing Muses And Muses Where We Go
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by Ana Gaby | May 1, 2013 | Cultural Differences, Expat Life, Eye on Culture, Family, Indonesia, International, Living Abroad, World Moms Blog
Lately I’ve read so many articles regarding the so-called “mommy-wars”. They are all over the news, on magazine articles on blogs and even on TV. Every time I read a new article I’m surprised to find that alongside fulfilling the always challenging role of being a mom the expectations and pressures we put on ourselves to be perfect in everything we do are not only unattainable but exhausting.
When I think of these things, I’m just so glad to be in someway sheltered from it. I live in a completely different world. I live in South East Asia, and I’m not a local, so the expectations put upon me are quite bearable and, in fact, easy to fulfill.
From the day I became a mother and gave birth to my first son in Thailand (where the nurses pampered me with massages and asked me if I would prefer the Thai, Japanese or Western menu!) to the day I came to Jakarta with a big pregnant belly and was rushed thru the express lane in the airport, being a foreign mom in South East Asia has been a fun and eye-opening experience from day one. (more…)
Ana Gaby is a Mexican by birth and soul, American by heart and passport and Indonesian by Residence Permit. After living, studying and working overseas, she met the love of her life and endeavored in the adventure of a lifetime: country-hopping every three years for her husband’s job. When she's not chasing her two little boys around she volunteers at several associations doing charity work in Indonesia and documents their adventures and misadventures in South East Asia at Stumble Abroad.
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