by Katinka | May 12, 2014 | 2014, Adoption, Adoptive Parents, Awareness, Being Thankful, Child Care, Childhood, Communication, Cultural Differences, Family, Health, Inspirational, Mental Health, Motherhood, Parenting, Penguin and Panther, Relationships, Special Needs, Stress, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Even before I became a mother, I had a particular wish for my future children. Looking back at several not so fond memories of my childhood, I vowed I would do everything for them to have a better one. They shouldn’t have to grow up too fast. They would not have to feel unwanted, misunderstood or worthless. I would guard their innocence and happiness like a hawk.
The major driving force behind the different attempts of therapy I tried throughout the years, was the well-being of my (future) kids. I wouldn’t allow mistakes in motherhood.
In fact, I didn’t want them to become like me at all. Just like the mother who really tries hard not to show her child how much she is freaked out by spiders, in order not to raise a little arachnophobic like herself. My list of not-to-pass-ons was just longer: low self esteem, perfectionism, fear of failure, social clumsiness, easy overstimulation and of course CFD: ‘continuously fretting disorder’.
The first five years of motherhood, I had the impression I could accomplish all this. I actually felt like the perfect mother: patient, involved, crafty, warm. I even managed to stick to my not-to-pass-on-list. It would cost me quite some effort, but I would not interfere when my son was building a crooked tower, so he could not catch my perfectionism. Trying not to pass on perfectionism while desperately trying to be a perfect mother. It may sound absurd now, but back then, it totally made sense.
Three years ago, my perfect balance in motherhood shifted drastically. When our son turned five, we couldn’t ignore anymore that he was going to develop at a speed different from his peers. At the same time, our adopted daughter arrived, aged two and a half.
They both forced me to face my demons better than any therapy has ever done throughout the years.
My son and I, we discovered developing an intelligence and sensitivity far beyond our physical age, is a struggle we share. Where his friends will watch a grazing cow on a field trip and complain about the stench, he will likely try to understand why this mammal has four stomachs, how to measure the circumference of the pasture and how long it would take for the cow to eat all that grass. And how much dung it would have produced by then, of course. His sense of humour is still a seven year old’s.
My daughter and I, we’ve been battling childhood trauma and attachment disorder together. We cried together in the shower numerous times, holding each other fiercely. The battle has been rough. It still is. Sometimes I just can’t comfort her like I should, because I need comforting myself. But she amazes me with a resilience I just can’t manage. She might be jumping on the trampoline and singing imaginary happy-songs, while I crash on the couch to mentally recover from holding her mourning and kicking little body for over half an hour.
It has been extremely painful to see my least fond childhood memories revive in my kids.
Comforting a son that feels like an alien, desperately trying to cover up his super powers because he just wants to blend in. Reassuring a daughter that follows me around the house like a puppy because she just can’t believe she won’t be abandoned again.
Painful. Heart wrenching. And feeding the CFD by the tons.
However, I’m seeing now that our struggles do not necessarily have to be the same. Because, you know, they have me. Of course I can’t protect them from being hurt. No mother can do that for her children. It’s one of the curses of being a mother.
But as it turns out, as a ‘damaged’ mother, I might be the perfect guide for my heavy-hearted children.
I’m teaching my son first handed how to make use of his extraterrestrial powers, without a need to blend in. I’m even coaching him in failing and making mistakes without believe it’s the end of the world. I surely acknowledge how important that lesson is. He’ll get it much earlier than I did.
I’m confidently ignoring outsiders’ advice on how to deal with my daughter’s anxieties, since I recognize how she feels. When she’s grieving, I guard her like an eagle that will not allow anyone to question or mock her tears of grief. I’m determined to give her what I never got. I will make her feel loved and understood. Unconditionally.
Me, I’ve only discovered how to find happiness after a painful and lonely journey.
I intend to show my children all the short cuts.
They will have a splendid childhood.
How do you see your own childhood reflected in your children? Is it mostly warm or can it be painful as well?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by K10K from The Penguin and The Panther.
The picture 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 Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes | May 5, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Belgium, Communication, Cultural Differences, Culture, Eye on Culture, Family, Holiday, Husband, Inspirational, International, Kids, Motherhood, Tantrum and Tomatoes, Traditions, Womanhood, World Motherhood
These days, the internet is humming with all things Mother’s Day related: special brunches, crafts, gift ideas. All for that special person you get to call ‘Mom’.
Mother’s Day earned its place on the calendar thanks to the efforts of American Anna Marie Jarvis. She organized the first Mother’s Day to commemorate her own mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, who had helped organise the ‘Mother’s Day Help Clubs’ during the American Civil War. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson decided that Mommy Dearest would get her special day each second-Sunday of May.
Not here. In the rest of Belgium, yes. But not in the province of Antwerp. Here we wait until the 15th of August.
Not because we disdain the second Sunday of May, nor have a problem with holidays coming from across the Atlantic. No, as a matter of fact both the American and Antwerp traditions originated at much the same time.
For Antwerp and its surroundings it all began in 1913 when Antwerp born artist Frans Pieter Lodewijk van Kuyck started the tradition as a way of getting people to pay more attention to family values and social order. Modernisation and the industrial revolution, Mr. van Kuyck felt, had screwed society up a wee bit too much and it was time to take a stand, to defend traditional ways.
And since Mother is at the core of the family, when better to highlight her importance than on the 15th of August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. A Catholic feast already celebrated in Antwerp with a huge procession honouring the Virgin as protector of the city. There already was a party going on anyway, so why not add a little extra?
Mr. van Kuyck was not only an artist, he was also alderman for Culture and Fine Arts of the city of Antwerp. So in this official capacity he set up a propaganda committee, mobilised schools, companies and media into promoting the celebration of Mother. Children were to make a special gift and fathers were expected to buy flowers or jewellery. Brunch had not yet come into fashion then, otherwise I’m sure he would have made it mandatory too.
The rest of Belgium did not follow, but instead adapted the new ‘American’ version. Thus, during May when every other mother in the country smiles her lovely so-happy-with-the-macaroni-necklace smile and updates her Facebook status with pictures of her breakfast in bed/fresh flowers/chocolates/whatever…we trudge on and wait our turn until August.
Have no fear, thanks to the school’s Craft Hour, I too receive a pretty handmade gift from my daughters in May. But my husband still has to buy my flowers in August. Nah.
Does your country have a special Mother’s Day tradition? Or do you celebrate differently?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in Belgium, Tinne, of Tantrums and Tomatoes.
The image used in this post is credited to the author.
Born in Belgium on the fourth of July in a time before the invention of the smart phone Tinne is a working mother of two adorably mischievous little girls, the wife of her high school sweetheart and the owner of a black cat called Atilla.
Since she likes to cook her blog is mainly devoted to food and because she is Belgian she has an absurd sense of humour and is frequently snarky. When she is not devoting all her attention to the internet, she likes to read, write and eat chocolate. Her greatest nemesis is laundry.
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by Kirsten Doyle (Canada) | May 2, 2014 | 2014, Adolescence, Autism, Awareness, Canada, Motherhood, Older Children, Parenting, Puberty, World Motherhood
A few months ago, my older son George turned ten. I felt a sense of wonderment at the fact that I had actually succeeded in keeping a human being alive for an entire decade. To put this into perspective, let me just say that as a kid I ripped the limbs off my dolls. I was not exactly a poster child for parenting potential. I know more than a few people who might legitimately be surprised that I’ve been more-or-less successful as a mother.
As George blew out his birthday candles, though, I also felt a jolt of terror. These ten years have gone so quickly, and in just eight more short years, my firstborn child will be nominally (although probably not academically) ready to graduate high school.
But wait! Before that even happens, before we have to make scary decisions about adulthood and post-school life, we have to navigate the stormy teenage years – a period that I don’t think any parent looks forward to, never mind the parent of a child with autism. (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!
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by Meredith (USA) | Apr 25, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Communication, Education, Family, Gun Violence, Kids, Life Lesson, Motherhood, Parenting, Safety, School, Tragedy, USA, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Growing up in Illinois, when I was in elementary school, it was commonplace for our school to have several emergency drills in case there was a tornado. We knew to hide under our desks and cover our heads with our hands and wait until the drill was over. The thought behind the drill was that we would be ready if a disaster ever struck. We followed up with fire drills as well. We prepared for what we knew could happen but hoped would never happen to us… (more…)
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 Olga Mecking | Apr 21, 2014 | 2014, Awareness, Being Thankful, Bilingual, Communication, Family, Health, Humanity, Humor, Kids, Language, Life Balance, Maternal Health, Motherhood, Netherlands, Parenting, Siblings, World Motherhood, Younger Children
One of my very favourite human qualities is a sense of humour. I must confess that I sometimes find people lacking this wonderful quality, as boring. It isn’t nice of course but I believe a sense of humour is paramount to any human’s well being or even survival. Especially if you’re a mom.
I love all kinds of humour: simple, sophisticated, absurd, or even black humour. By the latter, I mean of course, serious matters that are funny.
When my days are filled with screams and cries and tantrums, the only thing that keeps me afloat is laughing about it. And when I share my pearls of wisdom on Facebook, not only does it make me feel better, it makes others feel better, too. I also love reading snarky, funny, honest posts that make me nod my head in agreement. When times are hard, humour helps me survive.
We all know that parenting is tough and humour can help with that as well. I, for one, rely heavily on it. When my daughter refuses to put on her jacket, I ask her to put on her pj’s. Then her bathing suit. Then her bathrobe. She laughs, says no to all I suggest and puts on her jacket without any problems. That is, obviously provided that I actually remember to laugh instead of to yell.
I often try to persuade my big girl that I have 10 legs. She kindly and patiently explains that no I really can’t have 10 legs. “Why?” I ask her. She tries to explain that humans only have 2 legs but to no avail. I really need to know why I only have 2 legs, not 10. I mean, 2 legs, how lame is that! At some point, she cracks up and so do I and we both laugh until we can’t laugh anymore.
So you see, it is not very surprising that I want my children to have a sense of humour and a big one at that. Puns, laughter and jokes are normal in our house. And already, I begin seeing it in my children. For instance, I loved a recent conversation with my three-year old.
“Mama?”- she asks me, with a glint in her eye, and a smile playing in the corner of her mouth.
“Yes, J?”- I answer, wondering what she’s going to say.
“Mama?”- she repeats, her tone still serious but the smile more visible.
“Yes, J?”- I repeat, not sure what to think of it.
“Pee-Pah-Paw!” she says, out of nowhere, her laughter filling the house. “Pee-pah-paw”- I say, and soon the whole family joins her till our bellies hurt.
My baby has a mischievous smile that makes my heart melt. When he laughs, I think I’m the luckiest mom on Earth. I ‘m sure that he too will grow up to have a sense of humour, just like his sisters.
I especially love when they make multilingual jokes, like “Ja-vocado” and “Nie-vocado” (“ja” is “yes” in German while “nie” means “no” in Polish). When asked what a ja-vocado is, my eldest daughter said that it’s a fruit that is yellow on the outside and pink on the inside and it is sweet and very delicious and that she likes it a lot.Funny that she can imagine liking fruit that doesn’t even exist.
I am always surprised how many functions humour can have: it can help you through tough times. It can turn a rejection into cooperation, in children and adults alike. It makes children clever and great with languages. It makes us see things in a different way.This is why I feel it is so important.
I’m not funny all the time, though and that’s fine. It’s OK to be sad sometimes. I won’t pretend that my day is better than it is. But when I remember, I find in myself the strength to stick my tongue out at the universe and say: “Pee-Pah-Paw”. And laugh until my belly hurts.
Are you raising your kids to have a sense of humour or appreciate humour?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in the Netherlands, Olga Mecking.
The image used in this post is credited to cherijoyful. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Olga is a Polish woman living in the Netherlands with her German husband. She is a multilingual expat mom to three trilingual children (even though, theoretically, only one is trilingual since she's old enough to speak). She loves being an expat, exploring new cultures, learning languages, cooking and raising her children. Occasionally, Olga gives trainings in intercultural communication and works as a translator. Otherwise, you can find her sharing her experiences on her blog, The European Mama. Also take a while to visit her Facebook page .
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by Salma (Canada) | Apr 18, 2014 | 2014, Death and Dying, Kids, Life Lesson, Loss of Child, Motherhood, Religion, Salma, World Motherhood, Younger Children
We read about it as young children in folklore and fairy-tales. If we grew up in religious homes, we were taught about various aspects of it, without a full understanding of what it all meant. While I have a different outlook at this stage in my life, I try to shield my children from the pain of it. We can all agree that death (or the idea of dying) is scary.
In January 2010 I became a Peer Infant Loss Support Worker; two months later I was pregnant with my first Rainbow baby. Last year I applied to volunteer at a palliative care facility. Having dealt with loss, being younger than most of the volunteers, and since I was going through the process of grieving my infant son who passed away in 2009, the coordinator was sure that I was just what the program needed. Interestingly, I became pregnant soon after. Call me superstitious, however, at this point, I came to one conclusion – I’d had enough with death – I needed a break. I quickly resigned.
While my resignation was totally unreasonable and my actions irrational, I never looked back until I gave birth to a healthy baby girl. After the death of my father in 1993 I began thinking about death; but it wasn’t until the death of my infant son that I began searching, speaking and learning about the practices, rituals and beliefs surrounding life and death. For instance, before my son’s death, I knew nothing about Islamic burial practices. My husband, who had been to a couple of funerals also had no idea what to do. Our lack of knowledge, coupled with grief made it extremely difficult to process the practice of what was being done and why.
It was not until after the death and burial, that I truly began to understand the Islamic view on death and dying. Muslims believe that human existence continues after death in the after-life, and that we are judged on our actions from this life. We are taught to prepare for the after-life by doing good deeds in this life. Upon death, the corpse is washed by family members, shrouded in a white cloth, buried on its right side, with the head facing Mecca.
After our experience I began to ask questions about death and dying. While I am by no means an authority on these practices, I have connected with many women who have shared their experiences. In our dialogue, I have learned about Tibetan Buddhist rites of passage and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, various Christian ideas like Catholicism’s idea of purgatory and resurrection. I also learned about practices, like Balinese Hinduism death towers and the Jewish ritual of Shiva.
Death is frightening. Words like eternal life and afterlife can be comforting and scary simultaneously, especially for those of us who connect these words with thoughts of retribution and judgement. A few years ago, a Social Worker noted: “…parents aren’t supposed to bury their children.” I’ve heard this before, but I don’t really believe or subscribe to this thought. I learned that life is a journey, and we are all here for different reasons. Sometimes our road takes us farther than others.
So has my experience with burying a loved one made it easier for me to swallow the concept of my mortality? Has my cross-cultural knowledge made it easier to speak about it? Not really. Without a doubt, death is central to our existence. I am not blind to the reality of it, especially when it seems imminent (watching a friend or family living with serious diseases), but I don’t want to deal with it unless I have to.
What practices/beliefs about death and after-life do you hold?
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Salma. You can find Salma blogging at Party of Five in Calgary.
Photo credit to the author.
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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