by Alison Fraser | Jun 14, 2016 | Canada, Equality, Eye on Culture, Life Lesson, Sports, World Voice
Hockey is Canada’s national winter sport, with most Canadians huddled around the television on Saturday nights to cheer on their favourite teams being featured on “Hockey Night in Canada”. Boys love hockey. Girls love hockey. And, they love it equally. But the treatment of both genders in the world of hockey is very different.
I live in a country where gender equality is of such importance.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was applauded for electing equal numbers of men and women to Cabinet during his 2015 election. When asked why this was important, he simply said “Because this is 2015”.
So true.
But gender equality in hockey does not always exist in Canada. Not even in 2016. And this is incredibly frustrating for the many girls and women who live and breathe the sport throughout the year. I have three daughters, and two play hockey. I have overheard men in our community, as I was rushing into an arena on a cold winter morning with one of my daughters, making comments about how it is a waste for girls’ hockey teams to be given ice time, as it was taking away from the boys. Our highest ranking women’s Canadian hockey teams never get the media coverage they deserve. Most Canadians don’t even know these female leagues exist, despite the incredible talent and sportsmanship these young women exhibit game after game.
This inequality is trickling through to younger generations as well. My one daughter plays on a co-ed hockey team. At only 10 years of age, she is already having to hear the boys on the bench tell each other NOT to pass to her because she is a girl.
One of our greatest Canadian hockey players, Hayley Wickenheiser, has spoken about the challenges girls face in sport. When people would say to her, “Girls don’t play hockey; girls don’t skate”, she would say – watch this!
Staying true to her word, Hayley has won multiple Olympic medals for hockey. Decades later, however, little girls who look up to Wickenheiser are still having to defend their place in Canadian hockey.
This is 2016, so when someone says you “play like a girl” it should be taken as a compliment. After all, this is Canada, a nation that prides itself on equality.
This is an original post by Alison Fraser who is Founder and Director of Mom2Mom Africa.
Photo credit to the author
Alison Fraser is the mother of three young girls ranging in age from 5 to 9 years old. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Alison works as an Environmental Toxicologist with a human environment consulting company and is an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). She is also the founder and director of the Canadian Not for Profit Organization, Mom2Mom Africa, which serves to fund the school fees of children and young women in rural Tanzania. Recently recognized and awarded a "Women of Waterloo Region" award, Alison is very involved in charitable events within her community including Christmas Toy and School Backpack Drives for the local foodbank.
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by Michelle Pannell | Jun 13, 2016 | 2016, Europe, Motherhood, Parenting, UK
I’m sharing today a letter to my daughters but not just to my daughters, to all your daughters as well. Come on Mums and join me in being the antidote to the norms and expectations of our society. Please make sure you celebrate your girls for who they are and not how they look. Let’s commit to sometimes going without make-up, to never talking down to ourselves and to often making a fool of ourselves in the name of fun. Only when we lead the way can our young daughters know it is OK for them to be truly comfortable in their own skin and to be able to say “I am beautiful and accepted just the way I am”.
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Dear beautiful girls,
You are nearly nine years old, still young, still with so much life ahead of you but sadly already you want to be grown up. To be able to go out alone with your friends, to have your ears pierced, to wear high heels and to dye your hair.
I know it is fun to think about how life will change as you mature and to picture what a future boyfriend, house or car might look like and that’s OK. We can all dream, it is good to dream but it is also good and right to enjoy the moment. To be content to be nearly nine, to take the time to cherish playing with your dolls, going on bike rides, crafting treasures and making camps.
My heart bleeds when I see you try on an outfit and look at yourself in the mirror and then take it off and throw it on the floor as you feel it doesn’t look good. You see it hug your beautiful little fleshy tummy which is just part of how your body is changing as you grow. It must be so hard to be only eight but to have the height and body of a twelve year old. I understand where the discord comes from but I want to assure you, that you are beautiful just the way you are.
God made you in His image and He doesn’t make mistakes. Each one of us is unique, we come with our own gifting’s and looks and that makes the world a really rich place. I know it is a cliché but honestly, it would be boring if everyone was the same. What I need more than anything, girls, is for you to be sure of who you are. What makes you you? Let’s figure that out and then cling to it. Hang on to your sense of self for dear life as the trouble, the downward spiral comes when you get sucked into the media lies that there is one prescription for beauty.
Over the years this perception of the perfect woman has changed: in the 50’s it was all about the hourglass figure, by the 80’s we had the Amazonian supermodels and today the desire is to be size zero. You do not have to follow the trends, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. You tell me I am beautiful and you know I am far larger than the average woman, you adore your Nan but also talk of her ‘crinkly’ face and one of the most beautiful woman I know has a massive scar on her face but her sunny disposition and kindness shines through.
Let me just assure you that it won’t be make-up, hair colour, tanned skin or a slim body that mean you are beautiful; it will be the traits you show that make up who you are and what you are about. Miss E your desire to protect your twin, your creative streak, your dry sense of humour, your love of snuggles and your hunger for what is right are just a few of the things that make you truly gorgeous.
Miss M, for you it is your passion, your willingness to challenge authority, your soft vulnerable side that you don’t often show, your generosity and your sense of fun that draw people to you. Those things are beautiful. They are the things that make me proud to say I am your mother and because I’m Mum I sometimes have to make myself unpopular and remind you that you can’t buy those shoes or wear that very short skirt as it is my job to keep you safe and to help you enjoy your childhood.
So yes girls, sometimes you are going to think I am the worst mum ever and you might cry and you might scream at me as you think you are old enough to make your own decisions and to follow what the world is saying is current right now but for me what will always be in fashion is you. The authentic and true spirit of my special little girls. When you choose to be true to yourself and perhaps step outside the crowd you are beautiful.
I couldn’t be more proud of the wonderful young women that you are growing into.
Love you so much, Mummy xx
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Mom, Michelle Pannell from the UK, who blogs at Mummy from the Heart and Progress Not Perfection.
Michelle’s tales of everyday life and imperfect parenting of a 13-year-old boy and 9-year-old twin girls and her positive Christian outlook on life have made her name known in the UK parenting blogosphere. Her blog, Mummy from the Heart, has struck a chord with and is read by thousands of women across the world.
Michelle loves life and enjoys keeping it simple. Time with her family, friends and God are what make her happiest, along with a spot of blogging and tweeting, too! Michelle readily left behind the corporate arena but draws on her 25 years of career experience from the fields of hotel, recruitment and HR management in her current voluntary roles at a school, Christian conference centre, night shelter and food bank.
As a ONE ambassador, in 2012 Michelle was selected to travel on a delegation to Ethiopia with the organisation to report on global poverty and health. Then in 2014 she was invited to Washington, DC, where she attended the AYA Summit for girls and women worldwide. When asked about her ambassadorship with the ONE Campaign, she stated, "I feel humbled to be able to act as an advocate and campaigner for those living in poverty."
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by To-Wen Tseng | Jun 10, 2016 | 2016, The Americas, To-Wen Tseng, USA, World Motherhood
Jennifer Grayson is an author, journalist, columnist, and a leading expert on environmental issues. UNLATCHED: The Evolution of Breastfeeding and the Making of a Controversy is her first book and her global exploration of the breastfeeding uproar and the bond that makes us human. #WorldMom To-wen Tseng is featured chapters six and seven of the book.
A conversation with Grayson:
What inspired you to write the book?
I had a few epiphanies that ultimately led me to write Unlatched, but the first one happened when I was pregnant with Izzy, my older daughter. One afternoon, I went to get the mail, and there was one of those maternity marketing “gift” packages waiting for me, with a large container of infant formula inside.
I had planned on breastfeeding, but like a lot of expecting moms I was nervous at the prospect of being my baby’s sole source of nourishment for the first six months. Could I really make it that long? So I went to the pantry to stash the formula, just “in case.” But before I could, my husband stopped me to look at the ingredients on the back of the package. I’m usually an obsessive label reader, so I was shocked when I turned over the container and saw corn syrup, soy oil, a plethora of unpronounceable ingredients… I had never even considered what was in this substitute that we so readily offer as an alternative to the breast. And then I realized: Hey, this is what I was exclusively fed as a baby! Those printed ingredients, on the back of that plastic package, were the building blocks of my life. I’ve struggled with chronic health issues since adolescence, and for the first time in my life I considered that there could be a connection.
The book is subtitled “The Evolution of Breastfeeding and the Making of a Controversy.” You explored some amazing and even shocking history about breastfeeding and bottle feeding. What impressed you the most?
One of the most surprising discoveries had to do with when, historically, the shift from breastfeeding to bottle-feeding first occurred. I had always thought it was during the 1940s and ’50s—the whole “better living through science,” post-war consumerism era where breasts became hypersexualized and Marilyn Monroe became an icon in a pointy bullet bra. But the shift actually began an entire half-century before, in the wake of America’s Industrial Revolution, in the late 1800s. For the first time in history, women were working in factories for long hours away from home, and they were living in big cities or even an ocean away from their own mothers and grandmothers who would have taught them how to breastfeed in generations past. It was these women—out of desperation—who first began experimenting with artificial breast milk substitutes, and to disastrous results. In fact, death by artificial feeding was one of the greatest public health issues of the early twentieth century.
And what’s really fueling the “mommy war” controversy?
I truly believe that the root of the current mommy wars is the utter lack of support for most mothers in American society. Nearly 80 percent of US mothers now start off breastfeeding, yet half give it up entirely or start supplementing with formula after just a few weeks. Why? Well, we’re one of pitifully few countries in the world without paid maternity leave, there is scant medical support for nursing mothers, and there are zero regulations on formula advertising in this country. Many governments around the world—like Taiwan’s, as you know—have taken dramatic steps to rectify this, in the name of public health. But more and more in the US, being able to exclusively breastfeed for the six months recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization boils down to a question of economic privilege. These are harsh truths, and I think it’s been easier to point fingers at each other than uncover and deal with the real issues.
Throughout the book we see that the benefits of breastfeeding have been well documented by many researchers. Do you feel, however, that breastfeeding is normalized in our society?
Well, I think that the very fact that we refer to it as the “benefits” of breastfeeding makes it very clear that breastfeeding is not normalized in our society. It seems more like formula is the norm and the natural elixir that our bodies have provided for eons is now seen as some sort of “boost”—like the one you might get from a pack of vitamins. But human milk is the human norm, and there are very real risks associated with not breastfeeding a child—including increased incidence of gastrointestinal and respiratory infection, obesity, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, leukemia and SIDS.
As an environmental journalist and a mother who breastfed her oldest for four years, surely you’re aware of those benefits of breastfeeding in the first place. Did you learn anything new when writing this book?
One of the most profound things I learned was how little we truly know about breast milk—which is not merely a foodstuff but an extremely powerful human tissue packed with complex nutrients, hormones, bioactive molecules, ancient microorganisms, and thousands of other compounds that scientists have yet to understand or even discover. We finished sequencing the human genome more than a decade ago and yet we still don’t have a comprehensive library of what’s in breast milk!
As you point out in the last chapter, human milk is becoming a big business. Why is that unfortunate? What would breastfeeding be like in an ideal world?
As any nursing mother knows, breastfeeding is more than just the transfer of a “liquid gold” of nutrients; it enables a profound connection between mother and child—one that has persisted throughout human existence. So yes, as science continues to discover more exciting things about the compounds present in breast milk, hopefully society will be encouraged to prioritize breastfeeding. Still, we have to be careful not to fixate only on breast milk itself, which is already happening: Formula companies and biotech startups are racing to distill human milk down to its essence, and it is now one of the most valuable commodities in the world, worth four hundred times the cost of crude oil. But do we really want what is free and available to nearly all mothers to be sold back to us in a bottle one day? In an ideal world, alternatives to a mother’s own milk would always exist for those who need it, but mothers would have the critical support they need to be able to breastfeed their children as long as they want to.
Did you breastfeed you own babies? Where do you stand on the breastfeeding controversy?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by To-Wen Tseng.
Photo credit to Harper Collins Publishing.
by Maryanne Waweru Wanyama | Jun 9, 2016 | 2016, Africa, Africa and Middle East, Boys, Child Care, Cultural Differences, Kenya, Motherhood, Parenting, World Motherhood
Over a sumptuous dinner with my girlfriends last weekend, we naturally got talking about our children. One of us had just enrolled for an eight-week programme specifically for ‘Mothers with Sons’.
For a cost of about $150 USD, with learning taking place once a week (Saturdays) for two hours, the course teaches how to raise our sons into fine young gentlemen. This is a good idea, if you ask me, because there is something about the crop of young men that we are increasingly seeing in Kenyan society today –men who are not as ambitious or focused as their fathers were, and men who would rather take the back seat as women take up the role of being the heads of the home.
In Africa, and I believe the much of the rest of the world, it is traditionally men who take up the leadership of the home. However, we are nowadays seeing more and more female-headed households.
This is due to a myriad of reasons, one of them being the fact that some men are just not willing to take up that kind of responsibility. This leads to the question: how were these men raised as boys? Weren’t our core values of hard work, discipline, consistency and responsibility instilled in them by their parents? This, I suppose, forms the rationale of such a programme that my friends and I were discussing last weekend.
The majority of moms who attend the programme are urban moms – career women who have enviable corporate or NGO jobs or run their own businesses. They are in their thirties to mid-forties, with their children mostly below the age of 12 years. These are women who receive updates from Baby Center and other informative parenting sites on how best to raise children. They attend First Aid courses and other related programmes about parenting. Some of these programmes are church-based, while others are sponsored by brands that seek out these types of moms and their children. Keen on learning different things about raising their children, you’ll find many urban moms today engrossed in courses and informative material about how to best raise their children.
But as my friends and I asked ourselves over dinner – do we pass on all we learn to the people who are helping us raise our children, specifically our housekeepers and nannies? In Kenya, most middle and upper-income families employ housekeepers and nannies to help with the domestic chores and take care of the children. They are the ones who actually spend a significant amount of time with the children during the day.
With all the demands of today’s modern woman – challenging jobs that require them to leave their homes at the crack of dawn and return at about 9pm – after spending hours in the traffic jam, or checking on their small business after work, or attending their Masters’ degree programme in the evening, attending a business meeting, or even having cocktails with the girls. By the time these modern women get home, the children are already asleep. On Saturdays, these women are busy running errands or attending weddings or baby showers/bridal showers, parenting classes and other such engagements and once again, return home late in the evening. Sunday is the only day where they get to spend time with their children.
So six days per week, it is essentially the nannies who are ‘raising’ their children. Nannies actually spend more time with their children than the moms do. So my girlfriends and I wondered, do these moms then pass on the information that they learn in their expensive courses, parenting newsletters and websites to the nannies? If the nannies are the ones spending the most time with the children, should we not focus on giving them the wealth of information we seek out about raising children? We didn’t get an answer, but I hope we will sometime.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Mom, Maryanne Waweru-Wanyama of Kenya of Mummy Tales.
Photo courtesy of Michal Huniewicz / Flickr.
Maryanne Waweru-Wanyama, a mother of two boys, writes for a living. She lives in Nairobi, Kenya with her family. Maryanne, a Christian who is passionate about telling stories, hopes blogging will be a good way for her to engage in her foremost passion as she spreads the message of hope and faith through her own experiences and those of other women, children, mums and dads. She can be found at Mummy Tales.
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by Purnima Ramakrishnan | Jun 8, 2016 | 2016, Asia, Happiness, Heartfulness, Humanity, India, Inspirational, International, Interviews, Meditation, Motherhood, Partnerships, Purnima, Spirituality, The Alchemist, World Interviews, World Moms Blog, World Motherhood
“Please join us in the 2016 #Heartfulness Meditation Conference in the USA. If you are a World Moms Blog contributor, or reader, or fan, please contact us (worldmomsblog@gmail.com) for a free pass.”
Our Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan in India recently interviewed Dr. Veronique Nicolai for World Moms Blog.
Part – 1 of Dr. Veronique Nicolai’s (Pediatrician and Trainer of Heartfulness Meditation) interview is published below. Part – 2 will be published on Friday.
Dr. Veronique Nicolai and Daughter
Dr. Veronique Nicolai is a pediatrician from France. In 1997, she spent six months of studies in Medical Universities in Chennai, getting to know more about India from a medical perspective. She moved permanently to India in 1999 and has been living in Kodaikanal, Bangalore and Chennai.
She is a practitioner and trainer of Heartfulness meditation. Since 2002 till date, she has contributed towards the development of an international training program that teaches Heartfulness meditation and the philosophy of Raja Yoga to practicants from all over the world.
Veronique has a strong interest in children. She compiled and illustrated two books for children to sensitize them to holistic living. As a pediatrician, she is involved as a school doctor in Chennai.
She has a daughter Shraddha (16 y.o), and a son Anand (13 y.o). Settled in Chennai, along with her husband, she calls this city as home. This pediatrician dons many hats, with interests in yoga, teaching, arts, baking and piano.
Purnima Ramakrishnan: How long have you been practicing Heartfulness Meditation?
Dr. Veronique Nicolai: I got to know about Heartfulness meditation when I was still at school, in the 12th grade. I had moved to a new city in the South of France, and my new best girl friend’s parents were meditating. We used to spend a lot of time at her house. I liked the atmosphere there and the profound conversations that we had with her parents. I found them wise and happy in their life. They were a great inspiration. Then my friend also started. By that time we both had started our medical studies and I thought she was crazy, as medical studies are very difficult. I observed her and she was doing great in her studies and in her life. It was the 90s and France was not at all opened to the idea of meditation. It was also a big step for me to take, to try something different. I read also about meditation on the heart and in 1993, I started, just like that, almost without warning. Meditation has been my companion since, and it’s been the most amazing inner journey. I had gone into the medical field to make sure I will never cease to learn new things, all my life. With meditation, I opened an entire new field of wonder and discovery.
If the practical and immediate benefits of meditation hooked me at the beginning, it is the beauty of the inner journey that has kept me doing it.
PR: How do you think the Heartfulness Relaxation technique helps children?
VN: I don’t think it helps, I have seen it help. I like to try things first on myself, and then on my children, before I actually recommend it. We have a big rule, we paediatricians; never advise something new (I am talking mainly about new treatments), unless it’s been used on the market for many years. We have to be very careful because we deal with delicate and growing beings. So we often wait and observe before acting. In the same way, I observed how meditation works on adults. Then my kids tried relaxation. My son who is 13 is so positive about its effect. A boy of this age is not that easy to convince.
The first time he tried it, he said he felt something like a cool shower relaxing him and he felt so good. I did not have to ask him to do it. He started doing it on his own, in class, before exams and especially at night. That’s how I know it works. Because they choose to practise it, I did not have to give it to them.
In my understanding, Heartfulness has something unique. It helps children first relax their body.
There is so much stimulation all around, that some kids have trouble just sitting on a chair, and some are either impatient or fear to even keep their eyes closed for just a couple of minutes. Slowly with relaxation, they learn to let go of their fear, their anxiety.
Obviously their sleep is also improved immediately. But it goes further. We give too much importance to the body and the mind. Nutrition and health is also about the balance of the body and mind.
What about the soul? One’s deeper self?
I remember when I was a kid, I was very anxious about the purpose of life; I had a lot of questions about death. The uniqueness of Heartfulness relaxation is that, it takes the child to his heart. And there, by staying in the heart for some time and with eyes closed, the child is able to tune with his heart and get familiar with what defines him, at the core.
So with a very simple exercise, we teach the child to recognise that (s)he is not defined by what (s)he looks like, or what is outside, or her/his intelligence, but by the heart. This is for me the most important gift that we can teach a child: to find her/his inner self, make it strong and teach her/him to listen to it and have a life guided by the heart.
PR: How does the Heartfulness Relaxation and meditation help a woman be an effective and better mother?
VN: I really wish all mothers would learn this wonderful method. I loved it when I was not yet a mother, but its importance in keeping my balance has only increased when I became a mother. A woman’s well-being reflects on the entire family. So when I come home, in the evening, tired, exhausted by the day, and I know I have to cook, and two grumpy kids because it’s late, or they are just tired too, I find 20 minutes for myself to meditate. I call it my heart-spa. I come out fresh. After 20 years of practice, I am still astonished at the new energy it gives me. So I can handle dinner, grumpiness, you name it. You will see that actually, the grumpiness of your kids disappears when you yourself are fresh!
It is also a great experience to have your children wake up in the morning, when you are already fresh from your own morning meditation. It changes the way you send them to school. That’s the immediate, practical effect in a day-to-day life.
But deeper than this, there are questions about you as a woman, as a mother, that need you to pause and introspect about. And, well, I am still learning, as I experience it more and more. Meditation has been a great life companion to me! It gave me insights that no medical book or journal could have given me. I suddenly could understand, get answers, things became clear. That is the result of a deeper change, very much linked to a regular practice.
Part – 2 of Dr. veronique Nicolai’s interview will be published on Friday.
World Moms Network has teamed up with the Heartfulness Institute as a media partner for their three upcoming U.S. meditation conferences. This interview post is part of the conference promotional, by Senior Editor, Purnima Ramakrishnan in India.
A limited number of free seats to the Heartfulness conferences are available to contributors and fans of World Moms Blog. You can register here!http://conference.heartfulnessinstitute.org/register
Please contact us (worldmomsblog@gmail.com) for a free pass.
Register for the Heartfulness Conferences
Photo credit to Dr. Nicolai and Heartfulness Institute.