by Ecoziva (Brazil) | Jul 1, 2016 | 2016, Brazil, Family, Identity, Kids, Life, Life Balance, Maternal Health, Motherhood, Parenting, SAHM, South America, Stay-At-Home Parent, The Americas, Womanhood, Work, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Many women nowadays have to split their time between a full time job and their kids (and their husband, and taking care of their home, and and and…). Another group of women is able to work from home, at least part of the time, or to work some at home and some in the office. If you, like me, are in this second group, some days it might seem like there are two women chatting in your head, the Professional working mom and the Homemaker. For me, a typical work day outside of the home goes more or less like this…
Professional – Oh my gosh it is so great to be able to get some work done in peace! I love to work!
Homemaker – The kids are growing up so fast… soon they will be teens and won’t even want to look at you!
Professional – The kids need to see their mother working and doing something she likes.
Homemaker – Come on, don’t be cynical, you don’t even like your job that much! It’s just a way to escape the kids a bit!
Professional (ignoring the Homemaker) – If only I could work outside of home for more days I could get sooooo much done!! My career would skyrocket! Maybe I should put the three-year old in play school next semester. Imagine, working in peace five mornings a week!?
Homemaker – Oh yeah? And where would you find the extra money? What about the car pool? You can barely find rides for two to come home from school, three would be worse! And he is so little…
Professional – Oh no! I can’t believe it’s time to go home already!! I didn’t do ten percent of what I needed to!! Ahhhhh! Another sleepless night awaits me!! I am so tired! I need chocolate… Sob…
On other days, a typical day at home goes like this…
Homemaker (at the park) – Oh, look at them. They are so cute and cuddly. I love being a mom. I can’t believe the youngest is already three. I will miss having little kids around. Should I have another baby?
Professional – Are you out of your mind?????
Homemaker (ignoring the Professional working mom) – If only I could afford to stay at home all the time… And then, when they started to grow older, I could work in what I really like. I would also have time to take better care of the house and to exercise and get in shape again.
Professional – My job is stable. I can’t earn enough money to raise kids doing only what you like. That’s so naïve.
Homemaker – It’s so peaceful here with them. If only I could stay at home in peace and not need to hear you worry about work and deadlines and…
Professional – Oh no! That deadline! You need to drop them off at grandma’s now!!
Homemaker – You know they only stay at grandma’s once a week max. Otherwise they get stressed out. You can work tonight.
Professional – I need to sleep!! I already worked last night! You know I can’t work all night two days in a row! I am not twenty anymore!
Homemaker – On that we agree! We get so crabby when we don’t sleep enough. It’s not good for the kids. Maybe you should stop working nights and work only during the weekend when they can stay with their father.
Professional – No!!!!! I have so much to do!!!!! Weekends are not enough.
And so it goes….
And you… Do you work from home, from an office or both? How do you find balance? Please share your story below.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Ecoziva in Brazil. Photo credit to the author.
Eco, from the greek oikos means home; Ziva has many meanings and roots, including Hebrew (brilliance, light), Slovenian (goddess of life) and Sanskrit (blessing). In Brazil, where EcoZiva has lived for most of her life, giving birth is often termed “giving the light”; thus, she thought, a mother is “home to light” during the nine months of pregnancy, and so the penname EcoZiva came to be for World Moms Blog.
Born in the USA in a multi-ethnic extended family, EcoZiva is married and the mother of two boys (aged 12 and three) and a five-year-old girl and a three yearboy. She is trained as a biologist and presently an university researcher/professor, but also a volunteer at the local environmental movement.
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by Ewa Samples | Dec 4, 2015 | 2015, Communication, Economy, Ewa Samples, Family, Feminism, Happiness, Home, Identity, Inspirational, Life, Life Balance, Motherhood, North America, Parenting, Polish Mom Photographer, Responsibility, USA, Womanhood, Work, Working Mother, World Motherhood
Photo credit: Iryna Ishchenko Photography
Sometime ago, I opened my email and saw this subject line in my inbox: “Mompreneur. Worst word ever.” At first it made me kind of irritated, and I almost moved that email to the trash without reading it. Then I actually read it. I wanted to see who and why would say that a word that describes a business woman who wears way more hats than anybody else, should be so shameful for using that word. At that point in my life I was very proud of using this word to describe myself, and I was curious, because maybe, just maybe, I was missing something. (more…)
Ewa was born, and raised in Poland. She graduated University with a master's degree in Mass-Media Education. This daring mom hitchhiked from Berlin, Germany through Switzerland and France to Barcelona, Spain and back again!
She left Poland to become an Au Pair in California and looked after twins of gay parents for almost 2 years. There, she met her future husband through Couch Surfing, an international non-profit network that connects travelers with locals.
Today she enjoys her life one picture at a time. She runs a photography business in sunny California and document her daughters life one picture at a time.
You can find this artistic mom on her blog, Ewa Samples Photography, on Twitter @EwaSamples or on Facebook!
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by To-Wen Tseng | Sep 18, 2015 | 2015, Babies, Child Care, Life Balance, Motherhood, Preschool, SAHM, Stress, To-Wen Tseng, USA, Working Mother, World Motherhood, Younger Children
From time to time, I got questions like, “Why do you send your baby to day care when you’re staying at home all day long?” or “Why don’t you cook everyday? Don’t you have plenty of time at home?”
I just shrugged and said, “because I am a bad mom.”
You see, my little one started to go to day care when he was 3 months old. When my previous employer refused to provide breastfeeding accommodation, I quit my full time reporting job. I became a work-from-home working mom when my little one turned 6 months old…but he continued going to school. (more…)
by juliegd | Apr 27, 2015 | Interviews, Portugal, World Interviews, World Moms Blog Writer Interview
Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?
At the moment I live just outside a small rural village in the Alentejo region of Portugal. I say at the moment, because I have moved across the Atlantic from Brazil to Portugal and back again more times than I can count in the last six years. My background is even more complicated. I was born in a small village just outside Munich in Germany to an English mother and German father, meaning that I consider both England and Germany to be my home countries. As an added twist, my maternal grandmother was also born in Munich but emigrated to England just before WWII…I guess I have a multicultural, nomadic bent in my blood.
What language(s) do you speak?
English is the language I work in and speak to my baby boy, my husband is Brazilian so we also speak Portuguese at home – unfortunately, I now only speak German to relatives from my father’s side of the family. That doesn’t leave much space in my brain for the smattering of French and Spanish I learnt at school, which doesn’t stop me from trying whenever I get the chance!
When did you first become a mother (year/age)?
In July 2014 I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in the city of Vila Velha, Brazil just a few months shy of my thirtieth birthday. We started trying for a baby about a year beforehand because we felt we would be happy to settle in our apartment by the beach for a while. Of course, life had other plans and we ended up moving to Portugal with a 4-month old baby in our hand luggage.
Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you work?
Both. I stay at home with my baby boy and work from home as a freelance translator. I feel very lucky to be able to do this.
Why do you blog/write?
Because I can! Teachers at school and university were always critical about my writing style, which meant I left higher education feeling that I was a complete failure at writing. That changed when I sat the UK translation diploma and chose Literature as one of my specialties. Passing this exam the first time gave me a super boost of confidence. Just perhaps those teachers at school had been wrong about me? I’m still finding out.
What makes you unique as a mother?
Everything and nothing. I’m a bit of an introvert and being a mother has made it much easier for me to connect to other parents – I feel that no matter our background, beliefs or culture we immediately have something in common. On the flip side, parenting can be quite isolating when you feel other people don’t share the same ideas on how to raise children. That’s why the internet can be such a great resource – when you feel like you’re on your own, you’ll always find a mother with a similar outlook blogging from somewhere in the world.
What do you view as the challenges of raising a child in today’s world?
Giving our kids the freedom to grow. Everywhere I look children seem to be limited in some way. Babies are taught to sit still in strollers. Primary school kids can no longer walk to school. School days are getting longer and more test-oriented. Afternoons are filled by a strict regime of activities. While all of these decisions are made in the best interest of the child, I feel it is limiting their ability to grow naturally both physically and mentally,.
How did you find World Moms Blog?
One of those lazy, rainy pre-baby days where you first click on one link, then on another, then another and suddenly find yourself at World Moms Blog!
These interview questions were answered by Julie from Portugal for World Moms Blog.
Julie, her husband and baby boy are currently living in Portugal, having spent the previous three years in the southeast of Brazil.
She considers herself a bit of an obsessive reader, and even more so since discovering she was pregnant. All that information has to go somewhere, which is why Julie started her blog, happy mama = happy baby, where she documents all the quirky parenting ideas she has collected so far.
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