BRAZIL:  The Clown, Ice Cream Cakes and Emotional Trauma – Part II

BRAZIL: The Clown, Ice Cream Cakes and Emotional Trauma – Part II

This is the second post of a two-part series. To read part I of this post, please click here

clown cakeIt was my fourth birthday party. Since we were moving to Brazil soon, it was also a farewell party, and a big one. It was the only big birthday party I have had in my entire life. I remember it was held at some sort of club, there were a lot of people and a hired caterer (something almost unthinkable for my mother!) And then there was the clown. And he wanted to paint my face.

I was completely and irrationally terrified as only a four-year-old can be. While most of the other children were loving it all, I wanted nothing to do with the clown and his face paint (and certainly not on my face!). My party was ruined. In fact, I hid in the kitchen the entire time.

I don’t know exactly who stayed with me in the kitchen, but I don’t think it was either of my parents – at least not all of the time. Of course they were probably running around organizing things and tending to the guests. What really comforted me at that moment was the food, more specifically the dozens of intricately decorated mini-ice cream cakes. I recall later telling someone that the good side of the party was that I had stayed close to the food the entire time.

Although I hadn’t thought of it in a while, this story is not something that had been forgotten or hidden in my mind, as it has been told and retold over the years by my mother. The interesting detail that came up now was that of the ice cream cakes. When I remembered the ice cream cakes I felt like I could eat a ceiling-high pile. I felt like I had been looking for them my entire life. It was such a visceral craving it felt like nothing else could fill up my void except for those ice cream cakes. Right now writing this I want those ice cream cakes so badly it almost hurts.

It is interesting because here in Brazil ice cream cakes are rare – I believe I have only seen them for sale once in the more than 30 years I have lived here. I don’t know why this particular detail only came up so strongly now, nor what has been triggering this strong need for comfort and protection, which originally was a need to be shielded from someone scary (the clown) who wanted to do something I did not want to do (paint my face).

I don’t know if this is related, but it is also funny because I was never a big fan of makeup. Also, once when I was six and went through a brief period of interest for makeup, I got a kit of child makeup and ate several of the flavored lipsticks that came with it!

Perhaps this story will bring about significant change in my relationship with food, perhaps not, but it does bring up several issues related to my relationship with my own children.

For instance, it has reminded me that no matter how I try, it is impossible to protect them from every traumatic incident or foresee the lasting effect of seemingly small events on their lives. On the other hand, it is also a strong reminder not to belittle the things that upset them – what might seem insignificant or minor to me may be a huge deal to them and I must give them the best emotional support we can at all times.

Please share your stories about your relationship with food. Do you interfere in your children’s relationship with food? Do you actively foster a healthy relationship with food in your home?

This is the continuation of an original post to World Moms Blog published by our writer in Brazil and mother of three, EcoZiva. You can read Part I here.

The image in this post is credited to Chris Martin. 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.

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GUEST POST: NIGERIA – #BringBackOurGirls

GUEST POST: NIGERIA – #BringBackOurGirls

BringBackOurGilrsMy daughter said she was going to go to school so that she can wipe away my tears. How is she wiping my tears away in the den of the terrorists?”

-mother of one of the #ChibokGirls, abducted on April 14th, 2014, speaking on Day 188 of their abduction -October 19th, 2014

As I looked at her I realized that all this woman’s hopes and aspirations rest on her daughter. For most of the poor people in this part of the world, children are like a source of pension; they are the ones that will help you in the future. They are the ones that will take care of you in your old age, when you are unable to look after yourself. They represent life. As I looked at her I also realized that her daughter means more to her than I can ever imagine. Her daughter is her everything. A source of hope.

These parents are ready to give their lives for their children to have an education. That was what the #ChibokParents did. Amidst the insecurity in Nigeria, they still wanted their children to be educated to better their positions in life. They knew the only way to break the shackles of poverty was through education. For daring to send their children to school to have a better life, instead they have been punished.

These children grow up to not only take care of their parents but siblings as well so that a generation of people who have survived the shackles of poverty would emerge.

For some, poverty is going to school in the morning without breakfast and returning home not expecting lunch but still striving everyday to be in school so that one day you will look back and say I SURVIVED (I AM A SURVIVOR).

I remember  one of the fathers at one of our Sit Ins for the #BringbackOurGirls campaign—which started on April 30th with a protest demanding for the rescue of #ChibokGirls—saying he does not have a Television. All he has is a Radio from which he gets to hear of our activities. I wept! In this day of iPads, Tablets, iPhones and what have you, someone does not have a simple television that most of us take for granted.

So now you can begin to understand that to the #ChibokParents these girls are much more than daughters, they are future benefactors

A lot of parents, especially mothers, are forced to live a life of servitude and poverty in order for their children to be educated. The education that is taken for granted in most developed countries is not so in Nigeria and many other African countries.

I remember growing up and how my parents had to struggle to make sure we were educated. We often had to go without food when the situation grew dire but never were my school fees unpaid. I remember my father trekking long distance to buy a textbook I needed badly because the money was not enough for him to pay for a bus. All the suffering was for the children to be able to break the vicious cycle of poverty and one day to be able to take care of ourselves and also take care of our parents and siblings.

A lot of parents invest all they have in their children. For those who are poor, they do not have cars, houses or any investments. All they have are their children. Can you imagine these children being abducted, as is the case with the #ChibokGirls, abducted from school, where they wanted to get an education and make life better for themselves and their families? When these children of the poor are abducted and taken away, the future of a whole generation also is  taken away.

As I looked at the woman with tears streaming down her face, all I could see was my own mum, who had to be the head-of-household, who worked all day and night to ensure I had an education. I look back to the days when there was no food to be eaten and yet we found our way to school. I thought of what a burden it must have been for my parents to get us educated, to sacrifice all that they had.

While some of my parent’s contemporaries were busy enjoying life in the way they could with what they had, my parents tightened their belt to make sure that we, their children, had an education and of course today we are their pension. If any of us had been abducted while seeking an education, where would we be today?

As I stood watching the Chibok mother, all I could think about was my mother struggling to give her children the life she did not have and how hard she worked to provide that for us. I thought of my mother, now living in the lap of luxury because she worked so hard four sake. As I stood looking at the Chibok Mother, I realized she too must be allowed to break the shackles of poverty. She too must live in comfort, as her daughter promised her. Her tears must be wiped away. As I stood looking at her I realized that I cannot stop demanding for the rescue of the #ChibokGirls, for that Chibok mother who has given her all, hoping that one day her tears would be wiped away.

I realized that I must demand the rescue of the Chibok girls.We all must.

Demanding the safe return of the Chibok girls to me is like making a demand for the ME that was 23 years ago. As I stood I realized that no matter how hard it gets, no matter how much we are intimidated and harassed, no matter the threat of arrest from our government, I cannot afford to give up on the #ChibokGirls.

To give up on the #ChibokGirls is to give up on myself (the WHO that I have become) and to give up on the mother with tears streaming down her face, waiting for her daughter, who promised to wipe away her tears.

This is an original, Guest Post for World Moms Blog from our sister in Nigeria and mother of two, Aisha Yesufu.

Aisha Yesufu was born in Kano, Nigeria. When she turned 40, in December 2013, she decided it was time to devote her life fully to the services of others. As she describes it,

‘The first 40 years of my life I devoted to myself, so I could be financially independent and help others.  But they say: you can’t help the poor by being poor yourself, so the next 40 years, God willing, I am going to devote to others; for me, a full life will be based on what positive differences I have made in the life of another.”

And in came the unfortunate tragedy of the abduction of the #ChibokGirls. Following their abduction, on April 14th  2014, Aisha joined a group of like minded people to demand the rescue of  the 219 school girls, who still today remain in the hands of the terrorists. These girls, between the ages of 16 to 18, were abducted from their school, in their quest for knowledge. The group known as the #Bring Back Our Girls campaign has been able to push the issue of their rescue in public discussion both locally and internationally.

Aisha is the coordinator of the daily Sit In for the #BringBackOurGirls campaign group.  The group has, without fail, come out daily since the 30th of April, 2014, despite all forms of intimidations and harassment by sponsored persons.

To get involved in the conversation and learn more about the plight of the 219 Nigerian School Girls, visit: #BringBackOurGilrs

World Moms Blog

World Moms Blog is an award winning website which writes from over 30 countries on the topics of motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. Over 70 international contributors share their stories from around the globe, bonded by the common thread of motherhood and wanting a better world for their children. World Moms Blog was listed by Forbes Woman as one of the "Best 100 Websites for Women 2012 & 2013" and also called a "must read" by the NY Times Motherlode in 2013. Our Senior Editor in India, Purnima Ramakrishnan, was awarded the BlogHer International Activist Award in 2013.

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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Israel & Palestine: The War on a Tween’s Facebook Page

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Israel & Palestine: The War on a Tween’s Facebook Page

The Art Of Facebook

Like many twenty-first century parents, I have ongoing battles with my kids about “screen time.”  They think they don’t have enough of it; I think that if they stare any longer into a computer screen, they will start bleeding from the eyeballs.  My thirteen-year old son P. generally spends more time with computer games than he does with Facebook, but when the always simmering tensions between Israel and Palestine exploded this summer, his Facebook page became a much more interesting, and complicated place that–surprisingly–ended up teaching us a great deal.

Facebook screenshot

My son’s Facebook friends are pretty evenly split between his Manhattan friends and his Abu Dhabi friends, and they usually all post the same sorts of things: video clips from soccer games, Vines of stupid pet tricks, grimacing selfies, ridiculous quizzes.   You wouldn’t know, to look at his page, who was from which city, other than perhaps from their sports-team affiliations.

In June, P.’s US friends began to post about the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped and killed. Then his Abu Dhabi friends began to post about the escalating violence in Gaza and suddenly, right there on P’s Facebook page was the knotty, terrifying, devastating sadness of the Israel-Palestine relationship.

Some of P’s New York friends are Jewish and some are not; some of his Abu Dhabi friends are Arabs, but most are not. The people who populate his page hail from almost every continent, regardless of the place they now call home. But pretty consistently, it seemed, the New York friends posted on behalf of Israel and the Abu Dhabi crew posted on behalf of Palestine.   As each wave of articles washed across his page, P would first think one thing and then another: like all of us, he wanted clarity and answers. He wanted a clear apportioning of blame and swift justice; he wanted resolution.

At thirteen, my son and his friends are none of them too far removed from the realm of childhood, where everything is clear-cut, like in comic books and fairy tales. In those worlds, there are good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains, and usually the good guys win.  It’s one of the hardest things about growing up, isn’t it, the realization that life doesn’t arrange itself into such tidy categories?

This summer is the first time that P has had to think about what it means to have a religious identity.  When we lived in New York, all he saw is that some of his Jewish got eight days of Hanukah gifts while he only got one measly day of Christmas loot. This year P tried a few days of Ramadan fasting (a sort of Ramadan lite, in that he ate breakfast at the regular time but then ate nothing until after sunset) but all he seems to have learned is that being really hungry makes food taste better.  As politics heated up on his page, however, he started to think more carefully about religion, and to consider not only the difference between religions but also their similarities.

The clashing views that appeared in P’s facebook feed led him to many conversations: why was Israel created and by whom, why did Israel have such strong US support, who drew the embattled boundaries and why, what is Hamas, who lived in Israel before it was “Israel?” The questions went on and on: how could Hamas use civilians as shields, how could Israel fire into supposedly protected spaces like schools and hospitals, and how could people kill in the name of religions supposedly dedicated to love and compassion? I found myself trying to unspool sixty years—a century—of politics and greed, from World War II backwards to 19th century English imperialism, and even further.   I showed him this article, and this one, and many more.  The more I talked, the more I realized that I was trying to explain the unexplainable: how does anyone, in any war, reach a point where violence against children gets, if not justified, then somehow discounted in the service of larger goals?

As the war ground on, P’s friends on both sides stopped posting and his Facebook page returned to its standard scroll of shark attacks and kitten pictures. But P kept scanning the newspapers, looking for the latest news about cease-fires—and the cessation of cease-fires.  He asked me recently if I thought peace might be possible.  I told him I wasn’t sure, which is a pretty grim message to give a thirteen-year old.

I don’t know when, or if, a livable resolution can be found for the conflict in Israel and Gaza—as my own explanations to my son showed me, the roots of the conflict run in tangled  webs far below the surface of the present moment.   What his Facebook page taught me, however, is that even if we ourselves aren’t in physical danger, the war between Israel and Palestine isn’t just their problem, it’s ours, as well.

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Deborah Quinn in the United Arab Emirates of “Mannahattamamma.”

Photo Credit to: MKH Marketing

Mannahattamamma (UAE)

After twenty-plus years in Manhattan, Deborah Quinn and her family moved to Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates), where she spends a great deal of time driving her sons back and forth to soccer practice. She writes about travel, politics, feminism, education, and the absurdities of living in a place where temperatures regularly go above 110F.
Deborah can also be found on her blog, Mannahattamamma.

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AUSTRALIA: Who Will Protect Them?

AUSTRALIA: Who Will Protect Them?

As parents I’ve always believed that all of us want our children to achieve their full potential and to do amazing things with their lives, we also never want for them to be fearful of anything, real or imagined.

But what happens when a child’s fear is not imagined and is in fact very real. When the one thing they’re most fearful of is the person who they should be able to trust the most?

A story in the news this week in Adelaide has parents—actually not just parents but every living, breathing individual—up in arms over the treatment of a four-year-old little girl in 2012, who died as a result of the cruel treatment dished out by her mother and her boyfriend.

As the story is told, they put this little girl on a 50kg motorbike and over a period of three days made her ride it around the backyard while they videotaped it for their own enjoyment. Despite her terror and numerous crashes, they kept picking her up and putting her back on.

A final crash into a tree at almost 40km/h caused serious injury and despite complaining of her injuries when they put her to bed they did nothing. The following day she slipped into unconsciousness and they waited a further eight hours before seeking help, turning instead to Google for answers about what to do when someone is unconscious. She died as a result of them not seeking medical assistance.

There are many more facts, there’s much more to the story and there’s also a history of social welfare intervention—but nobody actually stepped in and took this child away from her mother, nobody in fact did anything to save her despite their knowledge that things weren’t quite right.

This week, the mother and her boyfriend were both sentenced, with the mother receiving an eight-year prison sentence with a non-parole period of just under five years. That’s a measly year in prison for every year her child was alive.

It’s a pitiful and sad sentence but sadly I think it’s also indicative of the ‘hands off’ society that we’re now living in.

I understand that in this day and age we don’t want to get involved, we mind our own business and we look after our own. But I also think it’s a sad state of affairs when, as individuals, we shy away from getting involved when an innocent and trusting little girl is left in the clutches of such disturbed people.

I also think it’s a travesty of mammoth proportions that with all our laws and child protection agencies that nobody saved this little girl.

I know bad things happen to small children and it makes my stomach churn each and every time I hear about one of them. Little Chloe Valentine was just one of many, who as a society we all failed to protect. (Please be aware that I have not linked to any of the footage or the story as I find it too upsetting to watch or read about)

No I didn’t know her personally but as a parent who cherishes her own children and grandchildren it makes me sick to even hear about it. I will stand up and get involved when something is going on around me which I know to be wrong. These children are our future and just because they don’t have a voice doesn’t mean we can’t do something about it.

As a result of this case, Adelaide will see a total overhaul of child protection laws with an inquest into the failure of social welfare to intervene. For little Chloe, it’s a case of too-little-too-late, but one can only hope that we can all learn from this and prevent this kind of thing ever happening again.

I know that sometimes we should stay out of things which aren’t our business but in this case would you have gotten involved?

This is an original World Moms Blog post by Fiona from Inspiration to Dream of Adelaide, South Australia.

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

Fiona Biedermann (Australia)

Fiona at Inspiration to Dream is a married mother of three amazing and talented MM’s (mere males, as she lovingly calls them) aged 13, 16 and 22, and she became a nana in 2011! She believes she’s more daunted by becoming a nana than she was about becoming a mother! This Aussie mother figures she will also be a relatively young nana and she’s not sure that she’s really ready for it yet, but then she asks, are we ever really ready for it? Motherhood or Nanahood. (Not really sure that’s a word, but she says it works for her.) Fiona likes to think of herself as honest and forthright and is generally not afraid to speak her mind, which she says sometimes gets her into trouble, but hey, it makes life interesting. She’s hoping to share with you her trials of being a working mother to three adventurous boys, the wife of a Mr Fix-it who is definitely a man’s man and not one of the ‘sensitive new age guy’ generation, as well as, providing her thoughts and views on making her way in the world. Since discovering that she’s the first blogger joining the team from Australia, she also plans to provide a little insight into the ‘Aussie’ life, as well. Additionally, Fiona can be found on her personal blog at Inspiration to Dream.

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TEXAS, USA: The New Normal

TEXAS, USA: The New Normal

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Growing up in Illinois, when I was in elementary school, it was commonplace for our school to have several emergency drills in case there was a tornado. We knew to hide under our desks and cover our heads with our hands and wait until the drill was over. The thought behind the drill was that we would be ready if a disaster ever struck. We followed up with fire drills as well. We prepared for what we knew could happen but hoped would never happen to us… (more…)

Meredith (USA)

Meredith finds it difficult to tell anyone where she is from exactly! She grew up in several states, but mainly Illinois. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana which is also where she met her husband. She taught kindergarten for seven years before she adopted her son from Guatemala and then gave birth to her daughter two years leter. She moved to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband and two children in July 2009 for her husband's work. She and her family moved back to the U.S.this summer(August 2012) and are adjusting to life back in the U.S. You can read more about her life in Lagos and her adjustment to being back on her blog: We Found Happiness.

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EGYPT: Zeina’s Story Could Be Any Child’s

EGYPT: Zeina’s Story Could Be Any Child’s

Prevent child abuseZeina was a 5-year-old girl living with her family in Port Said, a city on the Suez Canal in Egypt. She was the youngest of three children.

One fateful day, Zeina was playing in front of the door of her apartment. The porter was going to the roof of the building and by chance, the lift stopped at the floor where Zeina was playing. He found her playing alone with no one watching her, so he took the girl with him to the roof. On the roof was another guy, a friend of the porter, waiting for him. There was something on their minds that Zeina didn’t and couldn’t possibly know.

Their intention was to violate the innocence of that beautiful and chubby child. They wanted to rape her, but they couldn’t as she started to scream. They then quickly realized that her mother had found out that she was missing and all the buildings’ inhabitants had started looking for her in the street. To hide what they had done, the two guys decided to get rid of Zeina, so they threw her from the seventh floor to the back of the building.

The cold-hearted criminals then came downstairs pretending not to know anything about her and went to look for Zeina with the family. The family eventually found the little girl bleeding in the back area of the building and took her to the hospital but she died. The police investigated, found Zeina’s killers and arrested them. They were accused of killing her.

The family—as did everyone following Zeina’s story—expected the criminals to be condemned to death but instead they were condemned to only 15 years in jail. It was shocking for all of us but the problem is that the two accused guys were a few months under age 18 and there is a law that prevents condemning any young man below 18 to death no matter what his crime is.

The criminals were laughing, smiling and showing the victory sign inside their cell, while Zeina’s poor mother was screaming and crying very hard. The judge apologized to Zeina’s family as he could do nothing about it, it’s the law. Even the father of one of the killers said “My son deserves to be condemned to death 5 times for his crime”.

The story of Zeina summarizes the story of hundreds, thousands or maybe millions of children who are sexually abused every day all over the world.

And sadly, Zeina’s story is not the only one. A few months later another little girl named Hoda was raped mercilessly, choked to death and beaten with a stone to her head. Hoda was just 4.5 years-old playing in front of her house in her village in Meniah, a city in Upper Egypt. Hoda was raped and killed by her neighbor. Her dead body was found totally naked and bleeding in a house under construction.

A few days before Hoda was raped and killed, Eman a 13 years old girl was killed as well. The criminal choked her to death after failing to rape her and to be sure she died he stabbed her with a knife several times and then threw her body in the canal. Her family found her the following day, floating on the surface of the water. The guy accused of her murder is her father’s cousin, a member of the family. Hoda and Eman’s murderers may be condemned to death as they are over 18 years old.

Every few weeks we wake up with another story of a new Zeina in the newspapers, a young child or a teenage girl who is raped and killed mercilessly by a teenager or an adult. Not only has the child been put through horrors no one should know, but the whole family continues to suffer the pain of loss and the guilt of not being able to protect their child.

Zeina’s mother on TV,  apologized to her young daughter for not being there to protect her and save her when she was screaming and calling for help. I couldn’t control my tears when I watched that. Sometimes there is also shame on the family’s part that their daughter has been raped. This is especially true in rural areas. Eman’s family was relieved when they realized  that the criminal failed to rape her. It was obvious in their words when they announced that on the TV with great pride and honor.

Sexual abuse against children is something that any family could fall victim to because we seem unable to protect children from it`. There seems to be no end in sight for the heartbreak that families have to cope with when their innocent child is violated or hurt.

ًFor me, what is shocking about these crimes is that when the criminal is under 18 years old he is considered a child and the Egyptian child law (according to The Convention on the Rights of the Child, CRC) can’t condemn any of them to more than 15 years in jail no matter what their crime is.

This law protects the criminal child but what about the victim child? Aren’t we aggrieving them? Don’t they and their families deserve more justice and more sympathy? How can a law protect the rights of the criminal and ignore the rights of the victim?

Have there been any similar crimes in your country? What were your feelings about how the victim’s family viewed the situation? 

This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Nihad from Alexandria, Egypt. Nihad blogs at Aurora Beams Life Coaching.

Photo credit: Bruce Tuten

Nihad

Nihad is an Egyptian woman, who was born and has lived her whole life in Alexandria, Egypt. She says, “People who visited this city know how charming and beautiful this city is. Although I love every city in Egypt, Alexandria is the one I love the most.” She is a software engineer and has worked in the field for more than twenty years. But recently she quit her job, got a coaching certificate and she is now a self employed life and career coach. She says, “I believe that women in this era face big challenges and they are taking huge responsibilities. That's why I have chosen my niche -- women looking for happiness and satisfaction. I help and support them in making whatever change (career change, life change, behavior change, belief change…) they want to bring more satisfaction and happiness in their lives.” Nihad is a mother of two lovely boys, 15 and 9 years old. She states, “They are the most precious gifts I have ever had. I madly love them, and I consider them the main source of happiness in my life.” Our inspiring mother in Egypt can also be found at Aurora Beams Life Coaching.

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