by Jill | Jan 15, 2014 | 2014, Africa, Being Thankful, Cultural Differences, Expat Life, Family, Food, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Poverty, World Motherhood
It used to be so easy.
A $30 box of Rice Krispies was worth writing home about. Sewing pillowcases from pagne fabric was so exciting that I had to Skype my friend in Virginia. Our morning oatmeal topped with cheap passion fruit was worthy of photographic documentation.
I couldn’t stop collecting stories from the new people who suddenly surrounded me. I clearly remember walking to my neighbor’s house one night thinking excitedly, “I am walking…in Africa!” and wondering if I should write a poem.
Now, everything about my life seems either too complex to describe, or just not worth it. A few weeks ago I tried to write a fluff piece about the blue tins of Nivea lotion that are ubiquitous around Kinshasa and before I knew it, I was going on about globalization. Other things, I just forget to mention. I don’t notice anymore that it’s weird to pay $40 for laundry detergent, soak your veggies in filtered water and vinegar, stop your car conversation briefly to say “pas aujourd’hui” to a seven-year-old beggar, or pop a live worm out of a person’s skin. These events are ticked off neatly in the daily rhythm of life. I don’t honor them with the thought I once did.
When I sit down to write about my life in Kinshasa, my mind is blank. Sometimes I tell myself that this sudden block is self-preservation. After almost three years, the compounding effects of this city are just too much. In order to function as a nurse and a teacher and a mother and a friend and wife, I can’t stop and ponder every injustice; whether it’s my righteous indignation at the price of the imported fruits I can very well afford to buy, or the story my gardener tells me about the three pregnant teenagers he and his wife feed every day, sometimes giving up their own portion of dinner to do so.
At other moments, I pardon myself by remembering that my lack of enthusiasm is the natural progression of time and familiarity. The honeymoon period with Africa has passed and now I’m just living life. No wonder I don’t hold my pillowcases in rapt reverence anymore. They’re just my red and white pillowcases, getting a little grimy and thin with age. The sellers of trinkets tap at my car windows and I greet those that I know with an open window and a few words and ignore the others. It’s not dramatic, it’s the way to the grocery store.
Then there are the times I berate myself. I’ve become comfortable in my pretty bubble. I let it happen. I cancel French lessons to go to kickboxing class. I allow my housekeeper to buy fruits and veggies for me instead of trekking down the hill to the market and doing it myself. I haven’t learned Lingala. I’ve never seen where the woman who helps me raise my children lives. I’m ridiculous for not being able to write about the Congo. I’m not satisfied with rice and beans and spend hundreds of dollars on imported food that sometimes goes bad before it’s eaten. I don’t listen enough and complain too much. Just another expat.
My parents came to visit Kinshasa just after Christmas – their first time. I felt sad that I couldn’t seem to muster excitement for showing them “our life in Africa.” I couldn’t seem to tap into that newcomer’s elation and share it with them. I hardly took any photos (usually an obsession) and was uninspired by the shots I did snap. My suggestions for food, sights, and experiences were halfhearted. I couldn’t figure out what to do. Even in retrospect, I can’t figure out what I could have done to give them a more authentic experience of my home – which I consider to be wonderful in so many ways. Trying to provide a planned glimpse into my contradictory life proved impossible.
Congo is often described as a country of vicious contradictions: a land bursting at the seams with diamonds, coltan, and fertile dirt yet home to some of the poorest people on earth. NGO workers throw up their hands in frustration and spit nails about failed projects over too many drinks at night. Many of my Congolese friends struggle with the creeping knowledge that they’ve always truly believed it will get better, and it never has. No one I’ve asked has any great ideas. Everyone is just doing the best they can.
I’m not sure what to do with the reality of the Congo I know, so I do the very best I can. Sometimes, that means that I throw myself into the stories of those around me, asking questions I know will lead to heartbreaking tales. Sometimes I read Celebrity Baby Blog instead of Congo Siasa. Sometimes I eat beans and rice. Sometimes I complain loudly about the price of my cereal and buy the box anyway. Sometimes I talk incessantly about the number of mothers and babies who die in this country every day to people who I know are not interested. Sometimes I hear my daughter speaking Lingala and smile proudly.
Sometimes I fret that when I no longer live in Kinshasa, all I will want to do is live in Kinshasa.
What things about your life are too complicated to talk about or even ponder?
This is an original post written for World Moms Blog by Jill Humphrey. You can find Jill blogging with Sarah Sensamaust at Mama Congo.
Photo credits to the author.
by Mirjam | Jan 13, 2014 | 2014, Being Thankful, Childhood, Competition, Family, Kids, Life Balance, Me-Time, Motherhood, Netherlands, Parenting, Relationships, Siblings, Stress, World Motherhood, Younger Children
My husband has a brother and a sister. I have two sisters. So we both grew up in a family with three kids. To us it was just a normal situation, not too big, not too small. I don’t think I ever gave it much thought, except when I watched the Cosby show. I thought our family wasn’t big enough. I desperately wanted an older brother and I thought it would be great if I had that many kids later in life.
Now that I am a mother, I am positive that 5 children would be the death of me. I have absolute respect for those that are able to pull it off. I am a mother of three, and I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this adventure.
Sure, I realized that we were going to need a bigger car, a bigger house and that it was going to be busy but the reality of mothering three kids is not at all what I expected.
Being a Mom of three is sometimes like an episode of ER. The camera zooms into a touching scene. Soft music is playing, the surroundings are faded, then suddenly you’re being swept away into utter chaos with the passing of a stretcher.
A lot of my days are like that. One moment I sit and cuddle at night with my youngest, the next I am a referee in a heated discussion between siblings. I get yelled at by my oldest and at the same time my youngest passes me dancing and twirling in a princess dress.
I congratulate my daughter for passing her swimming exams and take my other daughter for her first swimming lessons. I gradually loosen the reins around my son as he gets older, while I pull my daughter extra close as we cross the street. I dance to a song on Sesame street with one kid and listen to the other kid calling it childish.
My days are full, my days are never the same. Some days are harmonious, filled with routine, smiles, kisses and singing in my head. Some days are heavy, burdened and feel like a group of giant rocks rolling over me the moment I get out of bed. Some days are loud. I yell, my kids yell, they stomp the stairs like a herd of elephants, something falls, something breaks, doors get slammed and voices are raised.
Most days are hectic, dropping off kids, picking up kids, cooking cleaning, planning, running around.
None of my days are dull.
I do have a chance to read a magazine or to simply sit down with a cup of tea, but that mostly happens when the kids are away or asleep. My husband and I run a tight organization. We plan and schedule, there are doctor’s visits, sports, school meetings, swimming lessons, all times three. When one of the kids gets sick, our entire schedule is disrupted and the whole house quickly turns to chaos.
Date night is a rare thing for us. We mostly watch a DVD together and try not to fall asleep before the movie ends. You are probably shaking your head right about now. And I haven’t even told you about the finances yet.
But there is another side.
There are moments my husband and I pause to look at each other, silently agreeing that we have the best kids in the whole wide world.
When I wake up Saturday morning and all three of them are snuggled in one bed reading stories to one another. When I put on music and they do silly dances together. When we sing songs in the car on our way home. When they play self invented games together. When one of my kids jumps in, to help another kid before I get a chance to. When I watch them watching TV, hanging upside down on the couch. When one of the kids says or does something silly and we laugh until our bellies hurt. That is the other side. A moment that takes my breath away, times three.
How many kids do you have? What are your challenges, and what are your blessings?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in the Netherlands and mother of three, Mirjam.
The photograph used in this post is attributed to the author.
Mirjam was born in warm, sunny Surinam, but raised in the cold, rainy Netherlands.
She´s the mom of three rambunctious beauties and has been married for over two decades to the love of her life.
Every day she´s challenged by combining the best and worst of two cultures at home.
She used to be an elementary school teacher but is now a stay at home Mom. In her free time she loves to pick up her photo camera.
Mirjam has had a life long battle with depression and is not afraid to talk about it.
She enjoys being a blogger, an amateur photographer, and loves being creative in many ways.
But most of all she loves live and laughter, even though sometimes she is the joke herself.
You can find Mirjam (sporadically) at her blog Apples and Roses where she blogs about her battle with depression and finding beauty in the simplest of things. You can also find Mirjam on Twitter and Instagram.
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by Tara Bergman (USA) | Jan 10, 2014 | 2013, 2014, Body Image, Health, Life Lesson, Maternal Health, New Year's Resolutions, Stress, Tara B., World Motherhood
I don’t make resolutions for the new year. December is so full of celebrations and commitments, and I find the idea of sitting down to think through the ways I need to improve myself and make the world a better place overwhelming. I’m a change-as-it-strikes-me-anytime-during-the-year kind of gal. When I can help someone or donate my time and resources somewhere, I do it. As for my personal development, I take stock often. So as I am writing this, with 2013 coming to a close, I’m not focusing on who I will be in 2014. Instead, I’m celebrating on a few key changes I made this past year. (more…)
Tara is a native Pennsylvanian who moved to the Seattle area in 1998 (sight unseen) with her husband to start their grand life adventure together. Despite the difficult fact that their family is a plane ride away, the couple fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and have put down roots. They have 2 super charged little boys and recently moved out of the Seattle suburbs further east into the country, trading in a Starbucks on every corner for coyotes in the backyard. Tara loves the outdoors (hiking, biking, camping). And, when her family isn't out in nature, they are hunkered down at home with friends, sharing a meal, playing games, and generally having fun. She loves being a stay-at-home mom and sharing her experiences on World Moms Network!
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by Mama Mzungu (Kenya) | Jan 8, 2014 | 2014, Brothers, Kenya, Kids, Milestones, Motherhood, Parenting, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
As a new mother, I felt disoriented a lot, I imagine like most of you. I mean, who was this wondrous little creature, equal parts mom and dad and maybe bit of a wayward uncle somewhere in there.
New babies are all instinct, nervous system and an unrelenting digestive system. We, the new moms, eagerly search for any hint of their uniqueness – anything that separates them from other babies and helps us learn about the little emerging person they are. Are they independent or clingy? A giggler or more serious? An old soul or a new one (if you’re so inclined to think that way)?
And with every expression of something new – a proclivity or an interest or an emotion – I wondered: Is this just typical baby stuff or is it an expression of his unique Caleb-ness. We found it incredible how much he responded to music and loved to kick around balls with a deftness that seemed beyond his babyhood. We harbored fantasies related to orchestral and athletic prowess. But, really, wasn’t this stuff universal? Don’t all babies love music and playing with orb-shaped objects?
That was the root of my disorientation: which of this stuff was the embodiment of babyhood and which was the embodiment of this particular baby? In this one way (and ONLY in that way) I was a bit envious of a friend who had fraternal twins. At each developmental stage their uniqueness was obvious. Susie was the shy one who loved to snuggle and Jack was the independent one who never wanted to sleep.
With an only child there is simply no point of comparison. A first born defines what a baby is. It’s a tall order for such a little guy.
Now here I am with my second boy in my arms. And everything he does is inevitably compares to his brother. He talks later, clings more, sleeps worse, snuggles more, fears strangers more etc… THAN his brother. His teeth came in closer together, his fingers are longer, he loves animals more, is less interested in television shows and wants to be carried more THAN his brother. You’d think I’d finally be relieved by being able to know my baby in comparison to some precedent.
But instead of providing a touchstone to better understand my baby, I find myself wondering if these comparisons are fair to the little guy. It’s as if I can’t understand him outside of his relation to his brother. Somehow, now that I have a frame of reference, I find myself doing the inevitable human thing of sorting and comparing. Sometimes it provides a useful orientation, and sometimes I wonder if it prevents me from fully seeing my baby.
I love those boys more than I thought possible. I feel more protective of and endeared to them than anyone else on the planet. And cliché as it is, that love grows every day. That love defies an intellectual “understanding” of who each one is as person. But, knowing your child is the color within the thickly etched lines of that raw human love. I want to see those colors as clearly as possible.
What do you other mamas think of this? Do you have trouble truly “seeing” your kids not in relation to their siblings? Does it even matter?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by our writer in Kenya, Mama Mzungu, who writes at www.mamamzungu.com .
Photo credit to the author.
Originally from Chicago, Kim has dabbled in world travel through her 20s and is finally realizing her dream of living and working in Western Kenya with her husband and two small boys, Caleb and Emmet. She writes about tension of looking at what the family left in the US and feeling like they live a relatively simple life, and then looking at their neighbors and feeling embarrassed by their riches. She writes about clumsily navigating the inevitable cultural differences and learning every day that we share more than we don’t. Come visit her at Mama Mzungu.
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by Kirsten Doyle (Canada) | Jan 6, 2014 | 2014, New Year's Resolutions, World Interviews, World Motherhood
Welcome to 2014! As we bid farewell to 2013 with all of its ups and downs, we are ready to look forward to the year ahead of us. Some of our World Moms have shared their resolutions. Read and enjoy, and add your own resolutions in the comments!
The European Mama from The Netherlands: Learn to read sheet music and play the piano. Have one or more of my blog posts published on a high quality website. Get paid for my posts. Learn more about blogging. Be a better parent. This mama has blogged about her resolutions.
Nicole @ Sistersfromanothermister from Florida, USA: In 2014 I need to find my center. My world seems as though it has been upside down for so long, I need to center my life to focus on what is most important. I need to take care of myself, so that I can take care of others. I need to strive for change on what I can control and let go of all that is beyond that control. And the relationship I have with my girls is all that I make it, and I cannot ‘fix that for anyone else’.
Tara B. from Washington, USA: Play more!
Mrs. P. Cuyugan from the Philippines: I need to seriously de-clutter. Our stuff is all over the house, my email inboxes (yes, all of them) are out of control, everything is just out of order. Even my thought process is messed up. I need to get rid of a lot of junk and try to sort things out and make sense of everything in my life right now. That’s my promise to myself for 2014.
Maureen @ Scoops Of Joy from Indonesia: My 2014 resolution is to focus on my health even more. I’m fighting uterine fibroids and changing my way of eating to avoid surgery so that will be the center of my 2014.
Susan Koh from Singapore: My mantra for 2014- Less Stuff, More Life. I’m aiming to find contentment with what I have, decluttering and purging what I don’t need in my life from toxic friendships to too many cereal boxes that I think I’ll need for crafts with my daughter.
Jennifer Burden from New Jersey, USA: There is one person that I could be spending more time with lately…my husband! My resolution is to make more couple time this year! And family hikes with the kids! And I was thinking the other day that I really want to drive a race car, a totally new desire for me. Not sure if the race car is for this year’s or another year’s resolution yet. I’ll let you know!
Sarah Hughes from New Jersey, USA: I want to step back this year and slow down. Less non-family responsibilities (other than work) and be absolutely 100% present in the moments with my children. Oh and I need to lose 15 pounds, it’s a must!
Karyn @ Kloppenmum from New Zealand: To eat cake, drink wine and have as much fun as is humanly possible.
Mom Photographer from California, USA: Exercise more. Organize more. Eat more. Reading books, more. Being more happy with what I have instead of thinking about and longing for what I don’t have. And funny thing, because driving a racing car is on my bucket list, Jennifer, and just as you, I am not sure if it’s doable in 2014 but definitely sometime in the future.
Elizabeth Atalay from Rhode Island, USA: I am not big on New Years Resolutions, as is evident in the same 10lbs I’ve been talking about losing for years now! That said, Family, friends and travel are paramount, but I’d like to connect the dots a bit more, and this year I intend to start making mini-documentaries as digital content,oh, and I’d like to really make a positive difference in the world through my work somehow.
Mama Aya from New York, USA: To find some time for me! I have been really burnt out lately between the kids, working full time, traveling for work, de-cluttering so that we can sell our place and move, etc. It is affecting everything in my life including my relationships with my husband/mother/friends and is causing me much stress. I resolve to do things for myself, like spend time at the gym or go for a manicure, regularly so that I can be a better mom, wife, daughter, sister, and friend!
Mamma Simona from South Africa: My resolution last year was to stop making resolutions!
Kirsten @ Running For Autism from Canada: To give myself permission to follow my dreams instead of neglecting my passions so that others can shine. To understand that there is room for what I want to accomplish while still being supportive of my husband and children.
K10K from Belgium: I have two. (1) I will finally finish at least one of the books I am writing and find the courage to send them to a publisher. (2) I will hide an encouraging or funny little note or drawing in my kids’ lunchboxes once a week.
World Moms Blog wishes moms all over the world a happy and fulfilling 2014. So, tell us your New Years resolutions!
Photo credit: toolmantim. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.
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 Jennifer Burden | Dec 27, 2013 | 2013, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
Last year at this time, I admit, I was burnt to the ground in exhaustion, and I thought about shutting World Moms Blog down.
It is a really tough thing for me to admit.
With a one-year old at the time home all day, who was down to one nap, and a 5-year old in only half-day kindergarten, I felt like I couldn’t keep on top of anything else. I couldn’t. Only by burning the midnight oil and hiring a babysitter here and there. Things got really busy, and the website was, at the time, plagued with technical difficulties that I was treading water to keep up with.
I was a mom first. And I felt like a failure when it came to managing the website. I felt like I couldn’t be the leader that the site needed and the stay-at-home mother of my children. My instinct was to shut the whole thing down. Really.
Friends asked me “how I did it all”, and to be honest, I cringed when they said that because I didn’t feel like I could squeeze in just enough time to keep things running. It only made me think of all of the things that I hadn’t done yet. Or the ideas to make World Moms Blog better or to bring in a cash flow that I didn’t have the time to work on.
Even my proclaimed-by-me-work-a-holic husband had found the time for us to spend together, and he was now asking me to find the time for us. Last year at this time was the roughest of rough spots when it came to being a mom, wife and leading World Moms Blog. I felt like we were a Forbes Best Website for Women that was beginning to unravel from lack of good leadership by me.
World Moms Blog editors and contributors gave me the encouragement it took to keep us going. They loved the site and our community, and they pitched in and weren’t letting go, when I was falling.
In early 2013, Purnima won a BlogHer International Activists scholarship that would fly her to the USA. This was the motivation to keep us going until August when we would meet in Chicago at the BlogHer conference. But long before then, we were well back on track. Then the NY Times Motherlode called us a “must read”. I cried. We can do this.
Then, Forbes Woman listed World Moms Blog as a Best Website for Women for the second year in a row. Our contributors and I were on cloud 9. We worked together and they helped me bring World Moms Blog into 2013!
The blog was founded by me, but exists today because of the World Moms editors and contributors who nudged me on, knowingly and unknowingly, to get through the tough time and continue to volunteer their best work. And to the organizations who told us in their own way that our work is valuable to society.
The paragraphs above were not the paragraphs I set out to write. They were written after I decided that the year in review post was finished. They are the words inside that I wasn’t sharing with my blogging community, peers and readers. I don’t just get by easily. I have no secret to doing it all. Some things will fall through the cracks. I stayed up very late for many nights in 2013. But, we made it.
We hired technical help and made more volunteer editing positions available to our contributors. We also reorganized our editing and scheduling system, which empowered our regional editors. These moves also helped relieve the pressure and free up my time for my life and for leading the blog. And then October came, and both my daughters were at school, and I had office hours.
This year was my toughest, time-wise. I got through it, we all got through it, and we’re headed enthusiastically into the future. I can assure you, we’ve come along way, and World Moms Blog is here to stay! If I had a magic ball last year to tell me where World Moms Blog would be today, when I really needed it most, the paragraphs to follow are what it would have told me. So glad everyone helped me through the tough time and our year turned out more than incredible…thank you, everyone.
This year World Moms Blog made it onto Forbes Woman’s “Best Websites for Women” list for the second year in a row, and we were called a “must read” by the NY Times Motherload. Did that really all happen??!! But oh wait, there’s more…our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, won a BlogHer International Activist Scholarship to come to the US and speak, and Mama B.’s post from Saudi Arabia on women’s rights won a BlogHer Voice of the Year award!
Also, as our founder, I received a scholarship as a “Global Influencer” to the Social Good Summit this year, where some of our moms were onstage for Shot@Life, and for the first time EVER, we were invited to the UN by the ONE Campaign and the GAVI Alliance. The UN!!! A dream come true!!!
Here in 2013, famous sex therapist, Dr. Ruth posed with our Lady World Moms Blog logo and World Moms Blog’s Middle East & Africa editor, Susie Newday, while Susie was reporting from the Israeli Presidential Conference in Tel Aviv.
And there were too many global contributor meet ups to mention — Jakarta, NYC, Walt Disney World, Toronto, Dar es Salaam and more! Our World Moms are truly, beyond grateful for this catapulting momentum!!!
Here we are with a new addition to our writing team and the former Miss World Africa, Nancy Sumari of Tanzania and Carolyn Miles, the CEO of Save the Children!
#Moms4MDGs — Nancy Sumari, Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children, Nicole Melancon, Elizabeth Atalay, Jennifer Burden and Jennifer Barbour just after a discussion on children refugees from the Syrian conflict. September 23, 2013 in NYC.
Here’s when Purnima from India was in Chicago, USA for the BlogHer Conference, and we met with Sheryl Sanberg of Facebook!
We attended the Disney Social Media Moms weekend in May at Walt Disney World in Florida. Guess who also happened to be in the park? One of our editors from Africa, Kim from Mama Mzungu! It would be awesome if all of you could have been there! Here’s a photo of World Moms Blog editor, Nicole Morgan of Sisters from Another Mister, me and Kim at Disney’s Contemporary Resort!
There are too many World Moms Blog contributor meet ups to mention, so here’s a compilation of some that happened in 2013! We should make a whole page for these, shouldn’t we?! My heart sings looking at this collage:
Also, the World Moms Blog community helped provide over 100 birth kits this year for CleanBirth.org to help better maternal health in Laos. We attended many conferences including Moms+Social in NYC, where I was honored to present a panel. A group of our moms also attended and helped lead advocacy training at the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Summit in Washington, DC, USA, where we lobbied the United States Congress for aid for global health. World Moms Blog was also a finalist for the Bloganthropy award, which led us to the Champions for Kids conference in Arkansas, US this year, too.
Our #Moms4MDGs campaign on the web and on Twitter has been amazing. We have been working with non profit organizations to raise awareness on how to help end world poverty and support global health initiatives. And we’ve brought many new people into the conversation through social media. There are still 3 months of the 8 month #Moms4MDGs campaign to help the UN raise awareness about their Millennium Development Goals. We’ve made our promise to keep the conversation going after Moms + Social! We hope you will join us!
2013 has been a great year for us in so many ways. Thank YOU to our readers for being along for the ride. You are our inspiration!
As we take a much needed “blogcation” break to recharge for 2014, check out some fantastic great reads on World Moms Blog that you may have missed!
Did you catch this story from Nihad on her motherhood experiences since the coup in Egypt?
Or when Melanie in Japan posted about trying to protect her children from pornographic images in Tokyo?
Can an Ave Maria played at 6pm on the radio in Brazil help a mother get through the toughest part of her day?
Do you approach danger the same way Karyn in New Zealand approaches danger with her kids?
What would it be like having been raised in a communist state and now raising your daughter in a non-communist state? Read Olga Mecking of Poland’s motherhood experience!
Does what Mama B. in Saudi Arabia thinks is appropriate and inappropropriate for girls the same as what you think is appropriate?
Despite cultural Asian norms, should Ruth in Singapore find a nursing home to help her care for her mom with dementia?
What values do you think bond Hispanics from many different countries together? Read what Eva Fannon in the USA has come up with!
Does your child’s dad play a part in helping you out? Tina in the Phillipines sent a shout-out to all the World Dads this year!
Need to cry and just let it out? Our editor Susie Newday in Israel interviewed her good friend Neta on the realities of living with metastatic breast cancer.
More in the mood to change the world with World Voice, our social good and human rights column edited by Elizabeth Atalay? Check out these things you can do with your child to celebrate world human rights by Jennifer Prestholdt in the USA!
And, check out the latest dates for our moms’ campaign, #Moms4MDGs, to help raise awareness for the UN’s goals on world poverty and global health!
Wondering what our contributors are up to behind the scenes? Here’s a look into World Moms Blog at the UN this year!
Last, but not least, need a motherhood pick me up? Then search no further from this self-examining, truthful motherhood post by Polish Mom Photographer — you’ll be glad you did!
We’ll be sharing more great posts from 2013 on our World Moms Blog Facebook Page and Twitter, too, this week chosen by our Social Media editors! And there are way too many great posts from 2013 to mention — so have a poke around our site!
Meet us back here on Monday, January 6th to kick off 2014 running with our moms’ resolutions on World Moms Blog! See you then!
Signed,
World Moms Blog’s Reenergized and Now Fearless Leader Going into 2014 with the Always Awesome WMB Editing & Contributing Team, Jennifer Burden 🙂
P.S. I really can’t wait to see what the mothers at World Moms Blog will accomplish in 2014!
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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