by Katinka | Oct 21, 2013 | Adoptive Parents, Being Thankful, Belgium, Birth Parents, Childhood, Cultural Differences, Domesticity, Family, International, Interviews, Kids, Penguin and Panther, Relationships, Siblings, Special Needs, Uncategorized, Working Mother, World Moms Blog Writer Interview, Writing, Younger Children
Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
I was born, raised and proudly remain stuck in the Belgian mud. I would sometimes dream about moving abroad, but it turns out I’m quite happy staying right here. I do like to travel several times a year, mostly for work.
What language(s) do you speak?
My mother tongue is Flemish (which is basically the same as Dutch), but with Belgium being a trilingual country, I also speak French and I can understand German. Obviously, I also speak – and write – English. About ten years ago I also decided to learn Indonesian, but all I remember of it now are the words kamar kecil, which means I can actually ask where the bathroom is if I would make it to Indonesia one day.
In addition, I would love to learn how to read and write music, and to understand Amharic, the first language of our daughter.
When did you first become a mother?
This is a tricky one, because in my experience, I can call on two firsts. Two totally different ways of expecting a child, of becoming a mother, both wonderful and intense. In 2006, I first became a mother when our son was born, the one I love to call our cuddly Penguin. Five years later, in 2011, I first became an adoptive mother when we brought our two-year-old daughter home, our darling Panther.
Is your work, stay-at-home mom, other work at home or do you work outside the home?
Apart from being a full time mom, full time housekeeper and full time wannabe writer, I also have a full time job outside my home. Some might even say I’m building an exciting career as a geomicrobiologist, enabling me to go on missions abroad and to research amazing subjects, but they should know that my favorite moments are without doubt coming home, be it after a working day or a business trip.
Why do you blog/write?
I started blogging (in Flemish) during our adoption procedure, merely as a way to keep friends and relatives posted on any news we would get in those long years. Along the way, blogging became a kind of therapy, enabling me to vent frustrations and personal struggles, or to focus on optimism and fun facts. I also learned just how much I loved to write.
I kept on blogging until our daughter was home for two years. I recently decided to stop, mostly for the privacy of my children and because I felt like I was getting ‘addicted’ to blogging. It was a hard decision, disappointing to quite some readers who liked the plain honesty in my writing. But, as a go-between, I decided to start a low frequency, anonymous, English blog about life with my Penguin and Panther, and to contribute to WMB every once in a while. And in the extra spare time I have now, my newest endeavor is to write children’s books, which has long been a dream of mine.
How would you say that you are different from other mothers?
As a typically modest Belgian, I truly find it awkward to differentiate myself that way. I don’t believe I have something special about me as a mother, or a person for one. But since I have to, well, I guess I would be different from other mothers because my kids come in two opposite colors and with some extra needs. Our blond haired Penguin is an overly sensitive philosopher who understands more than is good for him, while our curly Ethiopian Panther deals with attachment, anxiety and health issues. They leave me both exhausted and enriched every single evening, but I guess that’s no difference to other mothers…
What do you view as the challenges of raising a child in today’s world?
I don’t even know where to begin! Every day is a challenge, when raising children, isn’t it? One of my major concerns though, is to let our children remain children as long as possible. I strive to keep a delicate balance between guarding my children innocence and purity, and still teaching them about the need for respect and care for the less fortunate or for our struggling environment. With today’s society going so fast, having everything within reach, leaving nothing to the imagination, I try to create an island of simplicity and ‘slowness’ for our children (and ourselves!) at home, where they can develop at their own pace. But when time comes, I still want them to be able to catch one of society’s speed boats that are racing by our island…
How did you find World Moms Blog?
I just bumped upon WMB through a cartoon someone shared. I think. My kids often beat me at ‘Memory’, so I can’t be sure about it. But I do remember I started reading and reading and couldn’t stop for another hour.
This is an original interview of our new writer in Belgium, K10K – pronounce it as Ka-ten-ka and you will come quite close to her real name – from The Penguin and The Panther
The image used in this post is credited to the author.
If you ask her about her daytime job, Katinka will tell you all about the challenge of studying the fate of radioactive substances in the deep subsurface. Her most demanding and rewarding job however is raising four kids together with five other parents, each with their own quirks, wishes and (dis)abilities. As parenting and especially co-parenting involves a lot of letting go, she finds herself singing the theme song to Frozen over and over again, even when the kids are not even there...
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by Ruth | Oct 17, 2013 | Domesticity, Family, Health, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Ruth Wong, Singapore, World Motherhood
Credit: FrameAngel, freedigitalphotos.net
My mom has just been diagnosed with dementia. I knew it in my heart even before the geriatrician announced his diagnosis. The signs were there – her poor memory, her inability to reason, and in recent times, her increased anxiety and (almost incessant) repetitive questioning. That last bit has been the hardest part to deal with.
At the moment, I am very blessed to have a good live-in helper. But her work contract is coming to an end soon and I am not confident that she will stay. If I’m in her position, I’ll choose to work elsewhere. It is one tough job.
So a thought that I have pushed away for a while is resurfacing: Should I send my mom to a nursing home?
While it seems common for people in the ‘West’ to live in a nursing home in their old age, the decision to send one’s parents to an old folks’ home in this part of the world is often imbued with moral implications.
Here, we are inculcated with the value of filial piety from young and children are expected to look after their parents in their old age. Sending one’s parents to a nursing home is often frowned upon as being unfilial.
A long time ago, I used to think the same way, too, that sending one’s parents to a nursing home is wrong. Back then, life was just black or white; grey was not accommodated. But after I graduated from university and started my first job as a medical social worker, it opened my eyes to the predicaments of caregiving and I realized my views had been too simplistic. Placing one’s parents in a home does not mean the children no longer love or care for their parents. Sometimes, it’s simply that the level of care required by the elderly person is beyond the children’s abilities to manage. (more…)
Ruth lives in Singapore, a tiny island 137 kilometres north of the equator. After graduating from university, she worked as a medical social worker for a few years before making a switch to HR and worked in various industries such as retail, banking and manufacturing. In spite of the invaluable skills and experiences she had gained during those years, she never felt truly happy or satisfied. It was only when she embarked on a journey to rediscover her strengths and passion that this part of her life was transformed. Today, Ruth is living her dreams as a writer. Ironically, she loves what she does so much that at one point, she even thought that becoming a mom would hinder her career. Thanks to her husband’s gentle persuasions, she now realises what joy she would have missed out had she not changed her mind. She is now a happy WAHM. Ruth launched MomME Circle, a resource site to support and inspire moms to create a life and business they love. She has a personal blog Mommy Café where she writes about her son's growing up and shares her interests such as food and photography.
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by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Oct 14, 2013 | 2013, Babies, Being Thankful, Brazil, Child Care, Childhood, Culture, Domesticity, Eye on Culture, Family, Health, Home, Inspirational, Life Balance, Maternal Health, Me-Time, Motherhood, Parenting, Religion, Spirituality, Traditions, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My maternity leave is now coming to an end, but throughout it a typical week day has meant about 12-14 hours alone with the kids.
I usually wake up at 5:20 a.m. and my husband leaves with our eldest around six. I spend my mornings with our 2 ½ year old girl and our six month old baby boy. Our son returns from school approximately 1:30 p.m. Sometimes my husband returns early, but he usually gets home between 6 and 8 p.m. depending on traffic, his schedule, etc.
I love my kids dearly. Yet any mother knows that such a routine is not easy. On the typical day, by 6 p.m. my patience starts to wane. By nature I have a calm personality, but if there is screaming on my side, 90% of the time it will be after 6 p.m.
I once heard that 6 p.m. is one of the most difficult times of the day. On an individual level it is the time when stress peaks and on a collective level it is the time when most crime, car accidents and other such things happen. I don’t know if there is data backing that, but in a way it does make sense.
In my case, it is around 6 p.m. that the less-than-noble feelings will start to take over my mind, such as resentment, self-pity and repetitive worrying about pending work (although I have been legally on leave and have not been teaching, I did choose to maintain some activities from home). Other days I wish I could just stop working and truly be a full-time mother.
One thing that has helped is practicing acceptance and gratitude: A student sent me her research project two weeks ago and I haven’t even managed to open the file. Sorry, I am doing the best I can. My daughter has been screaming for 15 minutes in a temper tantrum. How great that she is healthy and her lungs are working! The kitchen sink is piled with dishes and the whole house is a mess. Things will get better as the kids grow older.
Of course it is easier said than done and one thing I try to do every day is to pray that my patience lasts past the kids’ bedtime.
I recently thought about how in the past it was a custom here in Brazil – a mostly catholic country – for the radios to play the Ave Maria in Latin at 6 p.m. In the small town I lived in when I was little, the Catholic church’s bells also tolled at six.
I haven’t been much of a radio listener for the past few years so I went on the web to check if the custom was still present. I learned it is a practice that has been carried out here in Brazil for the last 54 years. It comes from an old Portuguese tradition that in turn derives from the Angelus [*] – a Christian devotion recited at 6 a.m., midday and 6 p.m., which refers to Mary and the Annunciation. In simple terms, it is a time of prayer and meditation.
While reading about the 6 p.m. devotion and thinking about the emotional condition of mothers who spend the whole day alone with their children, I realized that it was the kind of practice that makes sense in the context of motherhood. After all, regardless of religion or debates on the specifics of Mary’s story, in a greater context she can be seen as a symbol of an inspiring and caring mother.
With that in mind, this week I am experimenting with short “Mary meditations” around 6 p.m. to see if it helps extend and deepen my patience and acceptance.
And you? What strategies do you use to help you face the challenges of the day-to-day motherhood routine?
[*] If there are any Catholics out there reading this and I am explaining this wrong please correct me! I was sort of raised Catholic in a Catholic country but I’m not actually Catholic, so I don’t have in-depth knowledge of the Angelus.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our devoted writer and mother of three in Brazil, EcoZiva.
The photo used in this post was taken by the author.
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Meredith (USA) | Oct 11, 2013 | Body Image, Childhood, Cooking, Domesticity, Exercise, Family, Food, Health, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Nutrition, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
When I was growing up, I had a mother who loved to cook and bake. It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up smelling homemade cinnamon bread just out of the oven, and come home from school smelling homemade rolls for dinner.
In my family, if you didn’t eat everything mom made on your plate, she worried there was something wrong with you.
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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 Angela Y (USA) | Aug 16, 2013 | Being Thankful, Communication, Domesticity, Family, Grandparent, Home, Humor, Husband, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My dad is famous for his quotes. Some of them are wise words that we all repeated as children, like “When the sun comes up, it’s time to get up. When the sun goes down, it’s time to lie down.”
Some are spin-offs of known quotes; for example, “The early bird gets the pizza.” (Instead of “The early bird gets the worm.”) In this case he is referring to the leftover pizza in the fridge; it does make a great breakfast the next day, especially with a fried egg on top!
But the saying that my dad is most famous for, that is, amongst our family and friends, is what we have dubbed, “The Rule of Doing.”
The “Rule of Doing” is simple: “The one doing the doing, gets to do it his or her own way.” Simple? Very. Highly logical? Yes. Easy to break. All the time! (more…)
Angela Y. is in her mid-thirties and attempting to raise her two daughters (big girl, R, 3 years; little girl, M, 1 year) with her husband in San Francisco, CA. After spending ten years climbing the corporate ladder, she traded it all in to be a stay-at-home mom! Her perspective of raising a child in the city is definitely different from those who have been city dwellers all their lives, as she grew up in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) surrounded by her extended family.
Angela Y. and her husband are on their own on the west coast of the United States — the only family help they receive is when someone comes for a visit. But, the lifestyle in San Francisco is like no other for them, so there, they stay! This exercise conscious mom is easily recognized, especially when she is riding around her husband-built bike with two seats on the back. And, when she’s not hanging out with the girls, you can find Angela Y. in the kitchen. She loves to cook for her family, especially dessert, and then eats some herself when no one is looking! Sneaky, mom!
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by Ewa Samples | Jul 12, 2013 | 2013, Babies, Communication, Domesticity, Family, Husband, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Maternal Health, Motherhood, Polish Mom Photographer, Relationships, World Motherhood, Younger Children
A few months ago, while waiting in our laundry room, I saw some magazines left on the table. I picked one of them and started flipping through. Being in a not so very happy period of my life, one article drew my attention: Give yourself a happiness makeover. Beneath the title: Longevity expert, Dan Buettner traveled the globe to discover what makes people happiest. This caught my attention more than the title itself.
Essentially it was an article about how to improve your happiness in 10 steps. I normally don’t read that crap but then I thought: what the heck, it won’t hurt me.
So here are a few steps listed in this article:
- “Make the most of your mornings.”: CHECKED. Two kids (one newborn), three if counting husband, four if counting a recent (at that time) addition of a high-maintenance puppy to our family. I didn’t even remember my mornings…I didn’t even remember my name!
- “Stop spending; start saving.”: Don’t have much to spend or save, I thought. CHECKED.
- “Get a daily dose of friends.”: Well, I have 303 friends on Facebook…CHECKED, right?
There was even advice for those who don’t go to church: “Start going.” Duh!
Anyway, the list went on, and then, there it was, the golden advice: “Gain Peace With a Pooch.” Now it got more interesting! (more…)
Ewa was born, and raised in Poland. She graduated University with a master's degree in Mass-Media Education. This daring mom hitchhiked from Berlin, Germany through Switzerland and France to Barcelona, Spain and back again!
She left Poland to become an Au Pair in California and looked after twins of gay parents for almost 2 years. There, she met her future husband through Couch Surfing, an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals.
Today she enjoys her life one picture at a time. She runs a photography business in sunny California and document her daughters life one picture at a time.
You can find this artistic mom on her blog, Ewa Samples Photography, on Twitter @EwaSamples or on Facebook!
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