by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Dec 2, 2013 | Award, Childhood, Competition, Education, India, Inspirational, International, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Purnima, The Alchemist, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Younger Children
“Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man – Swami Vivakananda”
Sometime back I wrote about Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his son’s school teacher and my perspective and how it was appropriate for our lives here too. To bring up a good human being and to help him/her learn and get educated is the role of the parent and also the teacher at school.
Well, there were these competitions going on in my seven year old son’s school again, here, in India. This time it was Western Music. I am so fond of these musicals. My son sang some of my favorites and then Que Sara Sara and Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. He continued to the preliminaries, quarter finals, semi-finals and the finals. But one day while preparing for the finals at home, my son suddenly said, “Not all are going to win.”
I said, “Yes, they are not. But if you want to win, you need to practise.”
He was not the type of person who was interested to sing, but the type who loved to listen to music and songs. And I discovered this during this time.
“But amma, I don’t care.”
“Well, you should do your best. And then if you don’t get to win, that is fine. But you should not just give up.”
“I am not giving up. I just don’t want to sing.”
“Oh?”
Well, I was at a loss of words. I did not want him to do something he did not want to do. But then we were already into the finals, and I thought was it not a sheer waste if he did not even participate? This got me thinking…
The next day I found this quote in his school’s website.
Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man – Swami Vivakananda.
We send our children to school for education and the teachers and parents are loving and affectionate and try to encourage the children to imbibe knowledge.
But then, what do they actually learn? Only what they chose to!
And also, sometimes they don’t learn and at other times they are very smart in academics. They also indulge in sports and other extra-curricular activities. We are happy, sometimes sad, and at times indifferent to various achievements, successes and failures and mediocre performances of our children. So many choices, actions, results, and yet Swami Vivekananda says we are all perfect.
If everyone is perfect, then where are the gaps? Why do only some people win? Why are there so many differences and scales of grades? ‘Manifestation’ is the significant word. What manifests out of a child is important. And whatever manifests, the society, the parents and the teachers are responsible to some extent. And then the children themselves are finally responsible. We bring up a child, giving him a lot of room to explore, think, discover and find joy, and, thereby, allow him to manifest his perfection.
I did not ask him to practise a lot for the singing competition. If he is not interested, let him not be. Maybe he is interested in building robots. Maybe he is interested in literary pursuits. Maybe he is interested in astronomy when he points out the pole star and Venus.
Because he is talented to sing, does not mean he should want to do it or become the next pop star. Whatever he allows to be manifested from himself, only will be, and I cannot force it.
And the reason for what he focuses on, no one can understand. It is his own mind acting under his own will and there are no explanations for that. So, let me not put a restraint to the manifestation of his perfection. Let him lay down his own options and channel his own interests.
In the end, he did end up participating in the finals, but without practising and the results are not out! But I shouldn’t care about the results because he doesn’t, right?
Is your child exercising independence in what he wants to do in life and what he wants to achieve? If so, are they different from what you think? And how do you handle it?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Purnima, our Indian mother writing from Chennai, India. Her contributions to the World Moms Blog can be found here. She also rambles at The Alchemist’s Blog.
Photo credit to Wiki Media Commons.
by Mamma Simona (South Africa) | Nov 27, 2013 | 2013, Africa, Family, Home, Kids, Life Balance, Motherhood, Older Children, Parenting, South Africa, Stress, Womanhood, World Motherhood
Several years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. It’s a common disorder affecting about 5% of all women and is characterized by widespread pain and many other symptoms.
Fibromyalgia is not a psychiatric disorder, even though a particular kind of anti-depressant or anti-seizure medication is sometimes helpful in controlling the nerve pain.
In my case, on a “good” day I feel the same body “achiness” and fatigue normally associated with the flu. On a “bad” day any movement brings tears to my eyes.
The reason I mentioned my Fibromyalgia is just to illustrate a point – as moms we tend to put everybody else’s well-being ahead of our own. My daily pain and fatigue is my new “normal” so for the most part I don’t even mention it. Despite my daily pain, I hold down a full-time job, do chores, do charity work and study online. Do I think I’m “special” for doing all that? Absolutely not!
Yet I still feel guilty because my husband cooks most night. I also rely on my teenage daughter to do a lot around the house and on my son to clean up the yard. I constantly feel that I’m not doing a good enough job of taking care of my house and my family. I want to be a better wife, mother and employee but I’m physically unable to do more than what I already do.
My husband and children are very loving and supportive. They don’t have a problem with helping out. I’m the one who feels like a failure when I can’t do everything I think I should be doing.
Even knowing that I’m doing the best I can, my inner critic doesn’t seem to cut me any slack. My best is simply not good enough. There, I’ve said it. I don’t think I’m a good enough wife and mother and that’s all I care about. What’s funny is that I know (in my head) that I can’t be all bad. I know I must be doing something right because I have a great relationship with my husband and I’ve helped to raise two really amazing young people.
Recently I started feeling worse than usual but I just chalked it up to my Fibromyalgia and kept on going. I finally went to see my doctor when the bad days weren’t letting up.
It turned out that I was feeling so awful not because of my Fibromyalgia (although that surely didn’t help) but because I had a bacterial infection that had spread from my sinuses to my chest. I was diagnosed with sinusitis, laryngitis and a chest infection – all of which required antibiotics and bed rest. I didn’t even know it was possible to have all three at the same time.
Obviously my doctor booked me off work. I stayed home but of course I felt guilty about not going to the office. I know I’m far from unique in this regard. No matter how “good” we moms try to be, we always feel that we’re somehow dropping the ball.
Why is that? Why is it that we are able to be so supportive of each other and so compassionate towards others, but we’re so harsh with ourselves?
I know that I need to learn a new way of living. I need to find a way to stop feeling guilty about things that are outside my control.
If you were hoping for some answers from this post, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t have any answers, just a lot of questions.
How do you change more than 40 years of conditioning so that your children learn a different way of being through your example? How do you learn to accept your limitations with grace and gratitude? How do you start being as kind to yourself as you are to others?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Mamma Simona from Cape Town, South Africa. She shares her home with a husband, 2 kids, 2 cats and 2 dogs.
Photo Credit To: Hans Van Den Berg : Flickr Creative Commons
This photo has a creative commons attribution license.
Mamma Simona was born in Rome (Italy) but has lived in Cape Town (South Africa) since she was 8 years old. She studied French at school but says she’s forgotten most of it! She speaks Italian, English and Afrikaans. Even though Italian is the first language she learned, she considers English her "home" language as it's the language she's most comfortable in. She is happily married and the proud mother of 2 terrific teenagers! She also shares her home with 2 cats and 2 dogs ... all rescues.
Mamma Simona has worked in such diverse fields as Childcare, Tourism, Library Services, Optometry, Sales and Admin! (With stints of SAHM in-between). She’s really looking forward to the day she can give up her current Admin job and devote herself entirely to blogging and (eventually) being a full-time grandmother!
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by World Moms Blog | Nov 25, 2013 | 2013, Body Image, Child Care, Childhood, Communication, Cultural Differences, Education, Eye on Culture, Family, Guest Post, Kids, Language, Life Balance, Motherhood, Parenting, Preschool, Relationships, School, Sex, Sexuality, Traditions, Uncategorized, Women's Rights, World Events, World Interviews, World Mom Feature, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My neighbours in the Netherlands just had a baby and have proudly decorated their window with pink balloons and a garland saying: ”Hooray, a girl!”
This would probably be shocking to a new category of Swedish parents, who refuse to reveal the sex of their baby to family and friends as well as to daycare staff. The baby is given a gender-neutral name, and will be dressed in anything but pink and light-blue.
Why? The parents don’t want their child to be subjected to society’s division of human beings into male and female, claiming that the stereotypes linked to it limit the child’s freedom.
While this remains rather rare, there is a rapidly increasing number of preschools in Sweden where gender equality is the main ideological and educational basis.
In these schools, the staff strives to treat girls and boys equally in all respects. They don’t hide the fact that both sexes exist, but don’t make a point of it and won’t encourage the children to play and behave in a way that is typical for their sex. They won’t call them girls and boys, but refer to them as ”friends” or ”children”.
Conveniently enough, a new pronoun is making its way into the Swedish language: ”hen”, meaning both ”he” and ”she” (”han” and ”hon” in Swedish). When the practice of using ”he” for both sexes in law texts was changed to the more cumbersome ”he or she”, texts became difficult to read and people started looking for other solutions.
The idea of ”hen” comes from the Finnish language (although Finnish is completely different from Swedish; its closest relative among European languages is Hungarian), which uses the pronoun ”hän” for both sexes. Apart from being used in texts to increase readability, the Swedish pronoun ”hen” is now used by advocates of gender neutrality.
The new pronoun and gender-neutral preschools are hot topics in Sweden right now. An increasing number of people like and make use of them, but a big part of the population is very critical towards them.
Sweden is one of the leading countries when it comes to gender equality. Thanks to the important work that has been done in this regard, women and men now basically have the same opportunities in all areas of life.
When gender equality turns into gender neutrality, however, are we still going in the right direction? Isn’t there a risk that gender-neutral treatment introduces another type of prejudice? When girls behave in a traditionally girly way, and boys behave in a traditionally boyish manner, will this be happily accepted or will they feel that their behaviour is wrong? Will there be a new ideal of tough girls and soft boys, as some critics fear?
How will children develop when their parents actively try to conceal what sex they are? Will they think that it’s bad to be a boy or a girl? Will they revolt against their upbringing and shower their own daughters with princess stuff, and their sons with cars and toy guns? Or will these children simply be freer and more unprejudiced than those who grow up in more traditional families, and contribute to a positive change in society?
Time will show.
What are you thoughts on this modern, Swedish approach to gender equality?
Kristina was born in Hamburg, Germany, but moved to Sweden at the age of 8 (her mother is German, her father Swedish). She studied French and linguistics and works as a translator. At the moment she lives in the Netherlands with her French husband and their two daughters, aged 17 months and 4 years. Kristina is interested in psychology and right now particularly focuses on child and family psychology. Working three days a week and being a full-time mom the remaining days, she doesn’t find as much time to read, write and practice yoga and music as she would like, but appreciates her early mornings in trains. There is nothing like contemplating an awakening landscape from a train with a cup of hot chocolate.
The image used in this post is credited to Jonathan Stonehouse. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
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.
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by Roxanne (USA) | Nov 15, 2013 | Family, Home, Kids, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Rox is Brilliant, Single Mother, Unintentionally Brilliant, USA, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
When you walk into my apartment, you’ll see immediately three beautifully painted Athenian green walls. The fourth wall, one that also leads you down the hallway to the rest of the house, started off as your typical apartment-white. I started to paint it an off-white that I thought would match the green. When I realized it didn’t, I stopped painting. I never restarted the search for a secondary color. There is a distinct line between the two shades of white.
There is a particular shelf in my room that I put together and left on the floor for over a year before I finally got around to hanging it. It was another month before I put anything on the shelf. I haven’t even begun to pick a color for the walls, or hung curtain rods, or hung any decor. The walls are bare. My son’s room was painted when we first moved in, to avoid the baby sleeping with paint fumes.
I can’t even finish two loads of laundry in a single day because I leave it in the dryer for at least 24 hours before moving it to the couch–where it sits until I finally fold it a day or two later. (more…)
Roxanne is a single mother to a 9-year-old superhero (who was born 7 weeks premature), living in the biggest little city and blogging all about her journey at Unintentionally Brilliant. She works as a Program Coordinator for the NevadaTeach program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Roxanne has a B.A. in English from Sierra Nevada College. She has about 5 novels in progress and dreams about completing one before her son goes to high school.
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by Nihad | Oct 30, 2013 | 2013, Egypt, Family, Health, Holiday, Humanity, International, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Parenting, Uncategorized, World Motherhood
Writing this post was the most challenging of all the posts I’ve ever written. You may not find it that valuable, but I will still go with writing and publishing it. Actually I wanted and needed to write, but I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to share it. My thoughts and my mind are a real mess.
Since the beginning of the 2013, life was really hard for me. First, I lost my father, and although I was accepting this fact and apparently I was calm, I was unaware that I was plunging into depression. It took me five months to realize it and accept the idea that I needed therapy. When I started to feel better, the situation in Egypt deteriorated, and we were under curfew for months. I was imprisoned at home and rarely went out. I lost interest in everything except the political talk shows, but later on I realized that was the main cause of my feeling down and fearful most of the time. I totally lost motivation to do anything and lost interest in anything. All I wanted was to stay still and silent for hours. (more…)
Nihad is an Egyptian woman, who was born and has lived her whole life in Alexandria, Egypt. She says, “People who visited this city know how charming and beautiful this city is. Although I love every city in Egypt, Alexandria is the one I love the most.”
She is a software engineer and has worked in the field for more than twenty years. But recently she quit her job, got a coaching certificate and she is now a self employed life and career coach. She says, “I believe that women in this era face big challenges and they are taking huge responsibilities. That's why I have chosen my niche -- women looking for happiness and satisfaction. I help and support them in making whatever change (career change, life change, behavior change, belief change…) they want to bring more satisfaction and happiness in their lives.”
Nihad is a mother of two lovely boys, 15 and 9 years old. She states, “They are the most precious gifts I have ever had. I madly love them, and I consider them the main source of happiness in my life.”
Our inspiring mother in Egypt can also be found at Aurora Beams Life Coaching.
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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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