by Martine de Luna (Philippines) | May 29, 2012 | Breastfeeding, Eye on Culture, Motherhood, Parenting, Philippines, World Moms Blog Itinerary, World Motherhood
Photo of the author and her then 5-month old son
I won’t go into the old news that is Time’s controversial “mom enough” mid-May issue. We all know they sold enough copies on that matter.
Instead, I wanted to share some views on attachment parenting and breastfeeding expressed by fellow Filipino moms.
To begin, let me say that I am a babywearing, formerly nursing mom (my son recently weaned after being breastfed for two years and six months). In fact, here’s a photo of me a year and a half ago, when my son was just five months old.
Here in the Philippines, we are not new to the concept of babywearing and breastfeeding.
Velvet Escario‐Roxas, a breastfeeding counselor and representative of Arugaan (ah-roo-ga-an), a non-governmental, WHO-funded organization that conducts breastfeeding training for the Philippine Department of Health, gave a good picture of this when she posted a recent Facebook status update on the fan page of the popular breastfeeding blog, Chronicles of a Nursing Mom:
“Our Pinoy [colloquialism for “Filipino] ancestors have been doing these things since the beginning of time. We call it the Filipino way of living or raising of children. They on the other hand modernized it and called it attachment parenting. Look at the indigenous folks of the mountain provinces. (more…)
Martine is a work-at-home Mom and passionate blogger. A former expat kid, she has a soft spot for international efforts, like WMB. While she's not blogging, she's busy making words awesome for her clients, who avail of her marketing writing, website writing, and blog consulting services. Martine now resides in busy, sunny Manila, the Philippines, with her husband, Ton, and toddler son, Vito Sebastian. You can find her blogging at DaintyMom.com.
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by Ms. V. (South Korea) | May 25, 2012 | Breastfeeding, Eye on Culture, Motherhood, Parenting, South Korea, Women's Rights, World Motherhood
It was the boob shot seen around the world.
The recent cover of Time Magazine, has been quite controversial. A mother and her 3-year-old son face the camera as he stands in front of her, on a chair, and suckles at her breast. The accompanying headline is: “Are you Mom Enough? Why attachment parenting drives some moms to extremes – and how Dr. Bill Sears became their guru.”
There are a lot of words I could use to express my feelings about this cover, but very few of them are appropriate, so I’ll stick to just one word: infuriating.
This cover manages to insult mothers, attachment parenting, Dr. Sears, and any culture where breastfeeding beyond infancy is the norm. The photograph and headline are insinuating several things:
- Extended breastfeeding is so strange and unnatural that it requires props
- Extended breastfeeding is an “extreme”, one of many
- All attachment parents practice extended breastfeeding
- Those who practice attachment parenting and/or extended breastfeeding pass judgment on others and deem them as “mom enough” or not
- Those who practice attachment parenting view Dr. Sears as a guru (more…)
Ms. V returned from a 3-year stint in Seoul, South Korea and is now living in the US in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her partner, their two kids, three ferocious felines, and a dog named Avon Barksdale. She grew up all over the US, mostly along the east coast, but lived in New York City longer than anywhere else, so considers NYC “home.” Her love of travel has taken her all over the world and to all but four of the 50 states.
Ms. V is contemplative and sacred activist, exploring the intersection of yoga, new monasticism, feminism and social change. She is the co-director and co-founder of Samdhana-Karana Yoga: A Healing Arts Center, a non-profit yoga studio and the spiritual director for Hab Community. While not marveling at her beautiful children, she enjoys reading, cooking, and has dreams of one day sleeping again.
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by Carol (Canada) | May 18, 2012 | Breastfeeding, Motherhood, World Motherhood
Breastfeeding is a learned behavior. It isn’t instinctive as many women are led to believe. Do some women have zero problems with nursing? Sure. But most need some help. Even gorillas and chimpanzees, who have never seen other apes caring for their babies are unable to nurse successfully.
Women don’t need to be told TO breastfeed. Women need to be taught ABOUT breastfeeding, and so do their doctors and support staff. We need to be taught a new idea of what is “normal”, both in terms of infant behavior and in weight gain.
After all, if the average baby is still formula fed, is it any surprise that breastfed babies don’t measure up to “normal”?
Most women I speak to still believe common myths about breastfeeding, the most common of which is this one: (more…)
Carol from If By Yes has lived in four different Canadian provinces as well as the Caribbean. Now she lives in Vancouver, working a full time job at a vet clinic, training dogs on the side, and raising her son and daughter to be good citizens of the world.
Carol is known for wearing inside-out underwear, microwaving yoghurt, killing house plants, over-thinking the mundane, and pointing out grammatical errors in "Twilight". When not trying to wrestle her son down for a nap, Carol loves to read and write.
Carol can also be found on her blog, If By Yes, and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets
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by Carol (Canada) | May 10, 2012 | Breastfeeding, Canada, Health, Motherhood, World Motherhood
I want you to meet three women I know.
Mother A is a business woman, well into her thirties, who was bottle fed as a baby. She is a health nut who definitely wants her baby to get breastmilk, but doesn’t want to be tied down by the breast, so she hopes to do be able to do as much pumping as possible and to deliver the milk via bottle much of the time.
Mother B is an older woman who has finally conceived a long-awaited child with the help of a lot of scientific intervention. She has dreamed of being a mother for a long time, and wants to overcome her difficult childhood by showing her child the kind of unconditional love and care that she never received (more…)
Carol from If By Yes has lived in four different Canadian provinces as well as the Caribbean. Now she lives in Vancouver, working a full time job at a vet clinic, training dogs on the side, and raising her son and daughter to be good citizens of the world.
Carol is known for wearing inside-out underwear, microwaving yoghurt, killing house plants, over-thinking the mundane, and pointing out grammatical errors in "Twilight". When not trying to wrestle her son down for a nap, Carol loves to read and write.
Carol can also be found on her blog, If By Yes, and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets
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by Maman Aya (USA) | May 8, 2012 | Body Image, Breastfeeding, Family, France, Husband, Marriage, Motherhood, Sex, USA, World Motherhood
This topic may be taboo in some cultures, but I’m part French, and nothing is more important to the French then l’amour (although food and wine are very close contenders)!
I recently read an article somewhere that said many moms polled were having sex (I should say moms who are married or in a committed relationship) about 4 times a year… and they were ok with that, as were their partners. Once a quarter? Really!? I know we are all exhausted by the time we get to bed, but isn’t it important for your and your partner’s happiness? Isn’t it important for the health and well-being of your relationship with your significant other to be intimate? (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!
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by World Moms Blog | May 5, 2012 | Breastfeeding, India, Motherhood, Nigeria, Saturday Sidebar, Saudi Arabia, World Motherhood
This week World Moms Blog writer Kyla P’an wants to know…
“What book is on your night stand and would you recommend it to other World Moms?”
Check out what some of our World Moms had to say…
Asha of Nigeria writes:
“There are two books on my night stand. “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, which I’m reading to my oldest child. Also “Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I just finished. It’s about the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War. It was excellent and really informative about a period of Nigerian history I knew nothing about.” (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.
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