by World Moms Blog | Nov 19, 2011 | Babies, Communication, Culture, Education, Eva Fannon, Eye on Culture, Family, Husband, Indonesia, International, Kids, Motherhood, Multicultural, Parent Care, Parenting, Saturday Sidebar, Saudi Arabia, Scoops of Joy, South Korea, Third Eye Mom, USA, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
This week’s Saturday Sidebar Question comes from World Moms Blog writer, Diana @Hormonal Imbalances. She asked our writers,
“Are there any differences in your culture on how boys and girls are raised? For example, is there a change in discipline when dealing with one gender versus the other? Education? Expectations in behavior? Changes in rules as they grow up? Do you agree or disagree with your culture’s parenting methods?”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Mama B. of Saudi Arabia writes:
“Where to start? I am going to generalize now so… in general, in our culture there is a big difference between what is expected of boys and what is expected of girls. As far as discipline goes, girls get the iron fist, while boys get a slap on the hand. (more…)
World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children.
World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.
More Posts
by Melanie Oda (Japan) | Nov 17, 2011 | Childhood, Family, Japan, World Interviews, World Moms Blog Writer Interview, Writing
Where in the world do you live? Are you from there?
I live in Yokohama, Japan, which is part of the greater metro-Tokyo area (but don’t tell anyone I said that! Yokohama citizens have a lot of pride.) I’ve lived in Japan for eleven years, ten of those in Yokohama.
My family moved around a bit when I was a child, but when people ask me where I’m from I say “Georgia.” It sounds pretty and it’s more or less the truth; I lived there for seven years. When Japanese people ask me where I’m from I simply say “America.”
What languages do you speak?
I speak English and Japanese. My spoken Japanese is fluent I guess, though I would never be mistaken for a native. Japanese is a notoriously difficult language to read and write, with two different phonetic alphabets consisting of 47 letters each, plus about 2000 commonly used Chinese characters (called kanji). With both alphabets down pat and a little over half the kanji, I’m proud to say I can read better than my first grader. (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 Karyn Wills | Nov 17, 2011 | Family, International, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, New Zealand, Parenting, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Call it Mummy amnesia, but I’m certain that our older two children were, well, older when they began to insist on doing things “myself.”
Our lovely Mr Butterfly is the grand old age of two and has insisted on doing things himself for a few months now. Once again I am faced with the mixed emotions of delight (that he wants to do things for himself and often can) and horror (at the things he wants to attempt).
Climbing has been a regular fixture in our family. Mr Hare (nine) spends a good portion of his life a-top tall trees, and Mr Owl was months old when he began climbing chairs to get on to the top of the dining table. I have strategies (mostly involving selected blindness and deep breathing) for dealing with the climbing.
It’s been a long time since we’ve fed Mr Butterfly, and cleaning up the mess beneath his chair, on his chair, beside his chair, on the front of the table, the side of the table and the top of the table, are simply part of my regular after meal routine. We have plasters and hugs a plenty, so in our house small people using scissors and knives is really no big deal. (more…)
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.
More Posts
by Maman Aya (USA) | Nov 15, 2011 | Family, Family Travel, Holiday, Husband, Motherhood, Travel, USA, Working Mother
So here I am, on vacation with my family (down at the Jersey Shore for those of you familiar with the awful TV show with the same name), enjoying, or supposed to be enjoying, the beach.
We were lucky enough to be able to find an apartment for rent, which is right next to the beach. This is so convenient, since we don’t have to worry about eating out every single meal while on vacation (which as you moms know, is not as healthy as preparing the food at home). It’s also convenient for when the little ones are tired, and we can just call it a day and walk up to our apartment.
The problem is, I find that I am spending more time in this apartment than on the beach, usually with one, if not both, of my children. In fact the only “alone time” I have had since we arrived, is a two-block walk to buy some bread for lunch the other day. (more…)
Maman Aya is a full-time working mother of 2 beautiful children, a son who is 6 and a daughter who is two. She is raising her children in the high-pressure city of New York within a bilingual and multi-religious home.
Aya was born in Canada to a French mother who then swiftly whisked her away to NYC, where she grew up and spent most of her life. She was raised following Jewish traditions and married an Irish Catholic American who doesn’t speak any other language (which did not go over too well with her mother), but who is learning French through his children. Aya enjoys her job but feels “mommy guilt” while at work. She is lucky to have the flexibility to work from home on Thursdays and recently decided to change her schedule to have “mommy Fridays”, but still feels torn about her time away from her babies. Maman Aya is not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but has been drawn in by the mothers who write for World Moms Blog. She looks forward to joining the team and trying her hand at writing!
More Posts
by Kirsten Doyle (Canada) | Nov 11, 2011 | Canada, Childhood, Education, Family, Holiday, Motherhood, Tragedy, World Events
The sounds of my son’s footsteps echo as he runs from one end of the enormous space to the other. From time to time he stops, distracted by the sight of yet another wondrous artifact of history.
After a pause, he’s off again, barely able to contain his excitement at seeing everything in this place. And then, finally, a magical moment arrives. He is taken up a stairway, and at the top, his father lifts him up and lowers him into the cockpit of one of the planes.
This isn’t just any place, and it isn’t just any plane. We are at the Canadian Air & Space Museum looking at the World War II planes that were built in this very space back in its day as an aircraft manufacturing plant. The plane that my son is now seated in is a full-sized replica of the Avro Arrow, a plane that revolutionized Canadian aviation history before the government of the day abruptly pulled the plug on the project and ordered the entire beautiful fleet destroyed.
This museum—which pays tribute to Canada’s part in the war, thanks the veterans who came back, and honours those who didn’t—is about to go the same way as the Avro Arrow. It is being evicted, and the building which is itself an artifact of (more…)
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!
More Posts
Follow Me:
by Fiona Biedermann (Australia) | Nov 10, 2011 | Family, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Oceania, Parenting
I’ve been a mother for almost 23 years and a nana for just 4 short months and I thought I’d heard it all. Maybe I’ve just been out of the loop for too long and not reading all of the parenting books that I used to. My education has obviously been lacking though because I’ve only recently heard about helicopter parents and lawnmower parents. What the…….?
So maybe I’m showing my age now, because when I became a mother at the tender age of 17 we were warned about not wrapping our children in cotton wool.
It seems that the more common term now is ‘helicopter parenting’, whereby there are parents who hover overhead, rarely out of sight of their children whether needed or not. Or if you’re a lawnmower parent then you smooth out and mow down your children’s obstacles.
In essence, it’s about over-parenting; parents solving their children’s problems and keeping them from harm. It’s about not letting children learn for themselves by letting (more…)
Fiona at Inspiration to Dream is a married mother of three amazing and talented MM’s (mere males, as she lovingly calls them) aged 13, 16 and 22, and she became a nana in 2011!
She believes she’s more daunted by becoming a nana than she was about becoming a mother! This Aussie mother figures she will also be a relatively young nana and she’s not sure that she’s really ready for it yet, but then she asks, are we ever really ready for it? Motherhood or Nanahood. (Not really sure that’s a word, but she says it works for her.)
Fiona likes to think of herself as honest and forthright and is generally not afraid to speak her mind, which she says sometimes gets her into trouble, but hey, it makes life interesting. She’s hoping to share with you her trials of being a working mother to three adventurous boys, the wife of a Mr Fix-it who is definitely a man’s man and not one of the ‘sensitive new age guy’ generation, as well as, providing her thoughts and views on making her way in the world.
Since discovering that she’s the first blogger joining the team from Australia, she also plans to provide a little insight into the ‘Aussie’ life, as well. Additionally, Fiona can be found on her personal blog at Inspiration to Dream.
More Posts
