While not all, but a great number of countries recognize Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May, this week we asked our writers…
“What is the best gift you could receive for Mother’s Day?”
Here is what some of our World Moms said…
Maggie Ellison of South Carolina, USA writes:
“A head-to-toe day at the spa with my sister would be the ultimate gift!”
Great Grandmother
That fact that I am here today to write this post, or rather, that I am even walking the face of this earth, is actually a miracle. A miracle that occurred three generations ago, when a little lady persevered with her son’s life. This post is a tribute to that wonderful woman who was my great-grandmother.
In an age where having 10-12 kids was considered the norm, my maternal grandfather was an only child. And, not by choice either.
My great-grandparents had completed over 16 years of married life before their one and only son was born. Living in a little town called Thrissur in the royal state of Cochin, they had tried just about every treatment that was available to them in India in the early 20th century, somewhere in the 1920s.
It was around then that an acquaintance told them about a big hospital in Madirashi (later called Madras and today known as Chennai), where they had had success in treating infertility. My great-grandparents must have been pretty well off then (history, a.k.a my aunts from whom I learned this story, are not particularly clear on that point), for they decided to go to Madras to pursue the new treatment there.
Unlike today, in those days if a couple did not have children, it was thought that maybe God had cursed them and things were left at that. (more…)
Where else would I start? I’m talking about the beginning of motherhood – the day my daughter was born is the date I’m going to use for myself. Certainly, many people would say a woman becomes a mother from the moment she conceives for the very first time, and I’m not going to refute or debate that.
I definitely bonded with my baby while she was in my belly, but in the interest of keeping things simple, I began this thing called motherhood on June 7, 2009, just about 22-months ago.
Our daughter arrived on her due date – right on time. I was working from home that week on account of it being hot and humid and not being able to rely on the good graces or [un]common courtesy of Metro riders in Washington, DC to give up their seat to a VERY pregnant lady. In addition to the hazards of commuting, the hazards of sitting at my desk had just gotten to be too much and so it made sense to really take it easy at Week 40. (more…)
My childbearing days are over. There, I said it. Now I can move on and go about my life as normal.
Sigh.
If only it were that easy.
Being raised in the Southern United States, specifically Arkansas, the long standing joke is that we are all hillbillies and women are kept barefoot and pregnant. In reality, we are actually a modern society with running water and indoor toilets. However, as a woman, from a young age our focus is trained on marriage and motherhood, specifically in that order. (more…)
Delivering my baby by C-section was, for me, something that would be only done in an emergency — if the baby’s heart rate was falling during labor or something else serious that would have threatened my baby or myself.
I delivered my first baby vaginally, and I intended to do the same for this one. My due date is March 21, 2011, and I have already started reading my “Hypnobirthing” book that got me through the beginning of labor with my first. I hadn’t ruled out having an epidural again, but if things happened too fast, I wanted to have some relaxation tricks up my sleeve.
At 35 weeks last week, I was already ½ centimeter dilated! This didn’t alarm me because I walked around for the last two weeks being 3 centimeters dilated with my first child. But, I was excited that things were happening. My body was planning on birthing this baby!
But, things have recently taken a turn in a different direction… (more…)
Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.
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One of the things which link mothers from around the world and between generations, is our birth stories. We all have them, and often they are really good yarns.
I’ve given birth three times. The last two births were horrible, long and ended in emergency c-sections, but the first is a story I like to tell. I often wonder if anyone else, these days, has had the same experience…
We were on holiday, the baby wasn’t due for three weeks, so we figured we had at least a week up our sleeves before we became parents. We intended to head home the following day, and to use the following week for our final preparations.
Apart from the huge lump I was carrying around, I wasn’t consciously thinking of the birth. I think I was probably blocking all thoughts of pain, and besides, it was my first baby – all adventure and new beginnings. The hard bits were theory – not yet reality.
