BRAZIL: Cultural Criticism for Outdoor Play

BRAZIL: Cultural Criticism for Outdoor Play

Girl in Rain

If you happen to walk by my house around 6 a.m., you will most probably encounter me in my pajamas, a jacket and my hair on end, being pulled towards the street with surprising strength by my 15 month old son (who – unlike myself – will be looking quite adorable with his hair on end!). My three year old girl will be fast asleep for another half hour or so and, if it is a weekday, my nine year old and my husband will have already left for school/work .

If permitted, my toddler (and all three of my children, for that matter) would probably live outside 24/7. However, we are currently entering winter – a.k.a. the rainy season and also my least favorite time of the year.

Don’t take me wrong. If I could spend the day curled up in my warm bed reading, it might even be my favorite season! In practice, this is what happens:

First of all, no matter how many times the repairmen come to straighten up the roof, the cats will manage to part the tiles again, especially over our bed (think cold water dripping on your leg suddenly at 2 a.m.!). Also, fleeing the rain, huge ants make nests and leave their very succulent eggs in anything left untouched for more than three days, lest we wrap it in plastic. Plus, the floor is always humid, and everything sticks to it. Last but not least: it is so hard to get out of bed at 5 a.m. and so chilly!

Outside of the home, traffic becomes ten times worse than it already is, everyone is late for everything (and even if they aren’t, the rain will be an excuse for it). The streets fill up with water, cars stop functioning and trash floats.  The city is astonishingly unprepared for rain considering the fact that it has had to deal with the sort of weather for over four centuries.

And the kids still want to be outside all the time. Of course, that it great.  Kids should be outside, preferably in more natural environments, as much as possible.

Among other benefits, being outside fosters a healthy connection with nature and promotes environmentally responsible behavior in adulthood.

The other day the rain had stopped, and I took advantage of some moments of sun to go out front. I got the kids all prepared in jackets, pants and tennis shoes and thought we could take a relatively “unmessy”, dry walk on our unpaved dirt road (LOL!). Of course in a few minutes they were playing in a puddle. There was mud not only on their clothes, but in their hair, their face and most everywhere. I relaxed and surrendered to their joy.

Witnessing such joy is what gives me the strength – as a current frazzled mother of three – to endure the sometimes overwhelming amount of soaked shoes, mud-soiled clothes and dirt covered floors!

I also find it somewhat amusing how bothered people here in the tropics get when they see kids out in such weather. Especially nwhen I recall the period we lived in Quebec – during what was reportedly one of the toughest winters ever – and how, regardless, parents and children had fun outside in the snowy, below zero weather.

On that same mud-covered day, one woman turned her neck 180° as she drove by and gave me a stern look that said “They’re going to catch cold you irresponsible mother!”

A person working in a construction nearby advised me never ever to let them play in street puddles again because “animals die in the streets”. To top it, a neighbor (who at most has said “good morning” to us in the ten years we have lived here) stopped, announced formally that he is a Veterinary Doctor, and gave me a complete list of all maladies they could catch from that malignant puddle, including leptospirosis , bubonic plague, toxoplasmosis and several others. Of course it didn’t help when I tried to tell him that, despite being a biologist and knowing the risks, I also believed playing in puddles helped them boost their immune systems!

I know, deep down, everyone means well in their advice. Yet, I still prefer to follow the guidance of Mother Nature and allow my kids to be outdoors as much as possible, in any weather!

Do you encourage your kids to go out in all weather? What season are you in now?

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Ecoziva in Brazil.

 

Ecoziva (Brazil)

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.

More Posts

EYE ON CULTURE: Brazil and the World Cup

EYE ON CULTURE: Brazil and the World Cup

Kids and Brazil World Cup

Even if you have heard very little about Brazil, you probably know soccer is a big thing here. In fact, for a long time Brazil was known mostly for its soccer, its Carnaval (its version of Mardi Gras), its beautiful women and, perhaps, its forests. Unfortunately, considering that Brazil is a huge and extremely diverse country in so many senses, that is a very limited view of the country. However, as we are a few days away of the World Cup, today I want to speak about soccer. The World Cup is something that has always brought about an overall sense of excitement, regardless of whether one is or not a soccer lover. It is the time people bring out their flags and most everyone shows a tad of patriotism. Of all of the World Cups I have witnessed in my lifetime, three come to mind. The first is also the first World Cup I remember, held in Mexico, in 1986. I lived in a small town in northeastern Brazil, and I recall being enthralled by the big, spontaneous party in the streets after Brazil won one of the games. There were firecrackers and people parading and dancing in the town plaza.

Others drove up and down the cobblestone streets honking their horns, the vehicles full of people half out of the windows or even on top of the cars, shouting “Brazil, Brazil!”, while waving their flags.

Unfortunately, Brazil did not win that cup, and the heavy silence that followed was a big contrast to that party, even to myself, who barely knew about soccer then and didn’t really understand what was going on. Fast forward to the 1990s. 1994 was a big mark, of course, because Brazil won the cup for the fourth time. I was a teenager and much of the excitement was because so-and-so players were cute. The mother of a friend got a couple of autographs of the team captain for me and a friend of mine, which I still have. The upside was that I was visiting family in the United States, where we watched the games together and where the cup was actually happening (although I didn’t go to any games live). On the other hand, I remember being somewhat bummed because I was still travelling when the players returned to Brazil and paraded in one of the main streets of my city to commemorate the victory. And, of course, there was a big party that I missed. The third cup that I recall with fondness happened in 2006. One of my best childhood friends, who is from India and presently lives in Singapore, came over to visit, and we watched some games together. The World Cup always brings special memories of our friendship as she was a soccer enthusiast (she’s the friend who got the other autograph!), and we always saw the games together as teenagers. Unfortunately, that cup in 2006 was the last time we saw each other in person.

This year, the World Cup will be in Brazil. In fact, one of the games will be in a town neighboring mine. When one of the World Moms Blog editors suggested I write a post about the pre-cup climate here in Brazil it made me realize two things: 1) how detached I have been from this whole World Cup thing lately and how little excitement anticipation of the games have brought me this time 2) a sense that I might not be the only one feeling this way.

The last time the World Cup was held in Brazil was in 1970. Had a World Cup occurred here during my adolescent years, it would have been a big happening for my friends and I! Yet ,now, we have three kids, a demanding job and very little spare time; and what I really have been looking forward to are the days I will have off because of the games and how much overdue work I will get done while others watch the games.

Yes, in case you don’t know, everything stops here during the games that involve Brazil – stores close, companies send their employees home early or TVs get turned on in the companies themselves, and so on. Basically everyone stops to watch the game, no matter what day of the week.

That takes me to the second point. As I said, I have been a little detached from this whole World Cup reality, so I don’t know how accurate the following words will be, but the feeling I get is that the excitement is not as big as it would have been a few years ago, and it probably is a good sign. When it was first decided that the cup would be here in 2014, there truly was a sense of excitement, not only for the championship itself, but because of possible job, business opportunities and the like.

Yet, the years went by and people witnessed millions (billions?) spent on stadiums and other cup-related costs, while so many other essential areas need investment, notably education and health care.

To illustrate, here is a joke that has been going around these days. The parents take their newborn baby to the notary to get his birth certificate. When the notary asks what they are going to name the baby, the mother says: “World Cup Stadium – that way the government will surely invest in him!” As I said, I don’t know how accurate this perception of lesser excitement is, or if I am an anomaly, but if it is true, I take it as a good sign. It means that the population is maturing and that at least part of it won’t fall for the bread and circus trick any longer. Not that the World Cup, soccer or any kind of entertaining is bad in itself – but, as a country, there must be priorities.

Are you a Brazilian mother? If so, do you share the same sentiment?  And, for all the World Moms out there, who will you be supporting in the games? 

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by EcoZiva in Brazil. 

Ecoziva (Brazil)

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.

More Posts

BRAZIL:  The Esquel Group

BRAZIL: The Esquel Group

This post follows up on WMB’s eight-month campaign to raise awareness for the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In this post, we reflect on MDG #7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. The following is an interview with Silvio Rocha Sant’Ana, president of the Esquel Group

Esquel

World Moms Blog:  What are some examples of how the Esquel Group supports environmental sustainability?

SRS: We have been working with other civil society organizations (CSOs) and governmental institutions in the fields of adapting to climate change, combating desertification (in Northeast Brazil), designing proposals for public policies on these matters, and dialoguing directly with financial agencies (public and private) in order to make them more adjusted to sustainability criteria.

How can mothers help support your organization in achieving MDG #7?

SRS: It is a new question for me. Thinking aloud: mothers have a fine sense of survival and can operate in adverse conditions much better than men. We work with a lot of very poor mothers (especially at the Pastoral da Criança and the microfinancing project). The way they think (and act), their relationship to the environment, the ability to allocate resources in the difficult social conditions they live in – all of this is a continuous lesson we can learn from. In fact, it would be interesting to have an environment that would enable us to maximize their teachings and contributions.

What countries does the Esquel Group mainly work in?

Silvio Rocha Sant’Ana: Esquel is currently active in the USA, Ecuador and Brazil. Each organization is independent, and defines its own agenda; we have common concerns and themes.

How does Esquel Group bridge the gap of joining people in economic development?

SRS: We have developed many activities in different fields. In Brazil we have focused in the Northeast region (where there are severe environmental and social restrictions), on children aged 0-6 years in Brazil, and in the field of technical support. We also work closely with the Pastoral da Criança, including microfinancing for employment and income generation (mainly for women).

What is the Esquel Task Force?

SRS: The Esquel Task force is an initiative from the USA Esquel Group and fosters dialogue, advocacy and lobbying among American and Latin American organizations.

Is there a specific example in Brazil where Esquel made a big impact when it came to the environment?

SRS: There is a very famous Project in Brazil called “1 million cisterns” – tanks to collect rain water in the semi-arid region of Brazil. Esquel has had a leading role in building up this project and the related public policies. It is considered an extraordinary and successful case of public-private cooperation and has mobilized, to date, more than US$200 million. It is a project managed entirely by CSOs and its main goal is to create a new pattern of social wellbeing in the semi-arid region, with full respect to environmental conditions.

What would you say are the greatest environmental issues facing Brazil today?

SRS: Adaptation to climate changes and associated cultural adjustments within an “economic and social environment”, which favors “economic growth” above all things (including social and environmental welfare).

What is the unifying theme of all Esquel’s activities worldwide?

SRS: The unifying theme of Esquel’s activities is the strengthening of civil society, specifically citizen organizations that further democracy.

This is an original interview post for World Moms Blog by our writer in Brazil, EcoZiva.

For more about the Esquel Group, visit their website at http://esquel.org/.

Ecoziva (Brazil)

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.

More Posts

BRAZIL: Emotional Entanglements, Part I: Mother or Child?

BRAZIL: Emotional Entanglements, Part I: Mother or Child?

entaglementsYou know how someone can tell you something that you already knew but in just such a way that finally  something “clicks” inside you?

That is what I felt when I read Argentinean psychotherapist, Laura Gutman’s, work recently. Laura Gutman’s books are best-sellers in several Spanish speaking nations, where she is known for promoting conscious mothering.

Three of her books have been translated into Portuguese, of which one has also been published in English. I had heard so many good reviews of this particular one (Maternity, coming to face with our own shadow) that I bought it as a Christmas gift for a friend, who is planning on getting pregnant soon. For another friend, I bought a second one, whose title seemed interesting – it could be roughly translated as The power of maternal discourse.

I confess that – after three kids (including a baby), having read tons of parenting books and with restricted time for reading anything unrelated to work – I didn’t plan on tackling either anytime soon. I didn’t really think there would be anything new. However, when I picked up The power of maternal discourse I couldn’t stop. And immediately after I finished I read Maternity...

Yes, a lot of it was not new to me and some parts I did not fully agree with. Yet, overall the way she said it (and all of the case studies she used as examples) made such a difference that it produced somewhat of a revolution in my life, especially in three areas: my relationship with my mother, my relationship with myself and my relationship with my children. In this part I would like to talk about how it affected my relationship with my mother.

For starters, my relationship with my mother wasn’t exactly affected in a positive way, at least not in practice. In fact, we had a huge fight right after I read the book which ended up in us not spending Christmas together. Yet, although unpleasant, it was necessary as we both said things that had been kept inside for years.

One of the main arguments of The power… is that our own personal story is mostly constructed by what the dominant adult in our childhood (usually our mother) said, which is not necessarily accurate or entirely true. Thus, Gutman states, the unsaid truths are often what hold us back, producing our so-called “shadow”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of shadow, it would be our unfaced “dark side”, a side we try to suppress or deny, often at high cost. Additionally, as other authors have argued, we must try to understand, accept and learn from our shadow, and one way to do that would be by trying to reconstruct and examine our true life story.

The power… is not an optimistic book. In fact, from her decades as a therapist, the author believes most people’s lives have been tainted by some sort of childhood abuse. Of course her definition of abuse is ample, yet the examples she brings are quite distressing.

I guess what resonated most with me were her writings on “childish mothers”. More specifically, how many mothers – despite providing adequate physical care for their children and apparently being present – are often emotionally absent and overly self-involved, which results in the child carrying out the mother’s role in many situations. Then, when this child becomes a mother (or a father) the unresolved child within them will make them act childish and emotionally unavailable with their own child(ren) and so on.

Although her ideas were not exactly new, as I said, for some reason many things finally clicked. When adults we all know are parents are flawed and we might even understand and forgive these flaws, yet in practice these flaws may still be hard to deal with. Although we may rationally believe that our mother/father did the best they could to raise us, with the tools and knowledge they had at that moment in their lives – the hurt child in us might still dominate our emotions in practice.

In my case, many things I carried around as being my “fault” were really my mother’s responsibility, and that was surprisingly hard to admit and accept.

On the other hand, Gutman encourages us to step into the adult we are now and make our own choices by understanding and accepting the truth about our past. And hopefully engaging in a better relationship with ourselves and with our own children, which is what I am trying to do now!

And you? How have you dealt with issues related to your own parents? How has resolving (or not) these issues helped you in your relationship with your children?

This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our writer in Brazil and mother of three, EcoZiva.

The image used in this post is credited to photographer martinak15. It holds a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.

Ecoziva (Brazil)

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.

More Posts

BRAZIL:  Patience, Acceptance and the Symbolic Mother

BRAZIL: Patience, Acceptance and the Symbolic Mother

patienceMy maternity leave is now coming to an end, but throughout it a typical week day has meant about 12-14 hours alone with the kids.

I usually wake up at 5:20 a.m. and my husband leaves with our eldest around six. I spend my mornings with our 2 ½ year old girl and our six month old baby boy. Our son returns from school approximately 1:30 p.m. Sometimes my husband returns early, but he usually gets home between 6 and 8 p.m. depending on traffic, his schedule, etc.

I love my kids dearly. Yet any mother knows that such a routine is not easy. On the typical day, by 6 p.m. my patience starts to wane. By nature I have a calm personality, but if there is screaming on my side, 90% of the time it will be after 6 p.m.

I once heard that 6 p.m. is one of the most difficult times of the day. On an individual level it is the time when stress peaks and on a collective level it is the time when most crime, car accidents and other such things happen. I don’t know if there is data backing that, but in a way it does make sense.

In my case, it is around 6 p.m. that the less-than-noble feelings will start to take over my mind, such as resentment, self-pity and repetitive worrying about pending work (although I have been legally on leave and have not been teaching, I did choose to maintain some activities from home). Other days I wish I could just stop working and truly be a full-time mother.

One thing that has helped is practicing acceptance and gratitude: A student sent me her research project two weeks ago and I haven’t even managed to open the file. Sorry, I am doing the best I can. My daughter has been screaming for 15 minutes in a temper tantrum. How great that she is healthy and her lungs are working! The kitchen sink is piled with dishes and the whole house is a mess. Things will get better as the kids grow older.

Of course it is easier said than done and one thing I try to do every day is to pray that my patience lasts past the kids’ bedtime.

I recently thought about how in the past it was a custom here in Brazil – a mostly catholic country – for the radios to play the Ave Maria in Latin at 6 p.m. In the small town I lived in when I was little, the Catholic church’s bells also tolled at six.

I haven’t been much of a radio listener for the past few years so I went on the web to check if the custom was still present. I learned it is a practice that has been carried out here in Brazil for the last 54 years. It comes from an old Portuguese tradition that in turn derives from the Angelus [*] – a Christian devotion recited at 6 a.m., midday and 6 p.m., which refers to Mary and the Annunciation. In simple terms, it is a time of prayer and meditation.

While reading about the 6 p.m. devotion and thinking about the emotional condition of mothers who spend the whole day alone with their children, I realized that it was the kind of practice that makes sense in the context of motherhood. After all, regardless of religion or debates on the specifics of Mary’s story, in a greater context she can be seen as a symbol of an inspiring and caring mother.

With that in mind, this week I am experimenting with short “Mary meditations” around 6 p.m. to see if it helps extend and deepen my patience and acceptance.

And you? What strategies do you use to help you face the challenges of the day-to-day motherhood routine?

[*] If there are any Catholics out there reading this and I am explaining this wrong please correct me! I was sort of raised Catholic in a Catholic country but I’m not actually Catholic, so I don’t have in-depth knowledge of the Angelus.

This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our devoted writer and mother of three in Brazil, EcoZiva.

The photo used in this post was taken by the author.

Ecoziva (Brazil)

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.

More Posts