World Moms Blog

It was the boob shot seen around the world.

The recent cover of Time Magazine, has been quite controversial. A mother and her 3-year-old son face the camera as he stands in front of her, on a chair, and suckles at her breast. The accompanying headline is: “Are you Mom Enough? Why attachment parenting drives some moms to extremes – and how Dr. Bill Sears became their guru.“

There are a lot of words I could use to express my feelings about this cover, but very few of them are appropriate, so I’ll stick to just one word: infuriating.

This cover manages to insult mothers, attachment parenting, Dr. Sears, and any culture where breastfeeding beyond infancy is the norm. The photograph and headline are insinuating several things:

1. Extended breastfeeding is so strange and unnatural that it requires props
2. Extended breastfeeding is an “extreme”, one of many
3. All attachment parents practice extended breastfeeding
4. Those who practice attachment parenting and/or extended breastfeeding pass judgment on others and deem them as “mom enough” or not
5. Those who practice attachment parenting view Dr. Sears as a guru Read more…

A few weeks ago, the Saturday Sidebar question here on World Moms Blog was about how we chose the name for our children. As I shared, we named our little one after his great-grandfather on my husband’s side, and one of his uncles on my side. Two great men, two great names; it was an easy decision for us.

Show me a mother who hasn’t been humbled by being a new parent, and I will show you a person in denial. Even those who refuse to admit how little they knew when they became a parent, I know, were humbled; they have merely misplaced the humility for the time being.

While very few of us love to admit being wrong, I am grateful that each time I realize I am wrong, misinformed, unaware, or clueless; I am usually learning it from my child. He is definitely the most patient and easiest-to-please teacher I’ve ever had.

How amazing is it that from the very beginning of the relationship the learning is reciprocal? Yet the things we teach our child – how to count, how to read and write, how to tie their shoes, while very useful skills, seem so inconsequential given what they teach us – humility, patience, the unending depths of unconditional love.

Each and every day we are like two babies, figuring out the world together.  Read more…

Someone very dear to me lost their child this past Thanksgiving. The aching in my heart for this mother and her family is constant and intense, and yet I know that it cannot compare to the heartache my dear friend must be feeling.

If it were anyone else, I would be surprised by the strength and grace with which my friend is handling this loss, but with her I am not surprised. She is the embodiment of spirit, awareness, strength and dignity to which I aspire. She is who I want to be when I grow up. Even in her grief her heart remains open.

When I first heard the news, I experienced the usual emotions; shock and disbelief, sadness and anger. Almost immediately after my only thoughts were: I would die if I lost my child. This could happen to me. This can never happen. What can I do to make sure this never happens? And then the unsettling answer: Nothing. Read more…

I am, by nature, a champion sleeper. And when I say champion, I really mean it.

If given the opportunity, I can enjoy some epic, luxurious, long sleep. Or at least I could. I stopped sleeping approximately at the beginning of my second trimester of pregnancy, and I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since.

While I was pregnant, I just couldn’t get comfortable at night. Lying on one side just wasn’t for me, and besides, the babe would start his nightly high-kicks routine as soon as I settled into bed. By my final weeks of pregnancy, I was sleeping about 2 solid hours a night, with 5-6 hours of tossing and turning.

And moms, if you can believe this, I kept telling myself: “I’ll get some sleep once the baby comes. Sure, it will be interrupted, but it will at least be real sleep”. Oh how foolish the first-time mom can be. In hindsight, I can remember the few mothers of small children I said this to who simply smiled and nodded in response. I mistook their kind desire to not burst my bubble as reassurance that my delusions were true.

We are now 5 ½ months into my son’s life on the outside, and while I, of course, cannot imagine my life without him, nor would I ever want to, I am still struggling to make peace with the whole sleep deprivation thing. I mean, what becomes of a champion who cannot hone their skills?

As I was discussing this with my husband, I realized that the emotions I’ve been experiencing about sleep and lack of sleep are quite similar to the emotions associated with grief, and so I present to you: The Five Stages of Sleep Deprivation. Read more…

Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?

I live in Seoul, South Korea currently, but I am from The States. My husband and I moved here for his job in May of 2011.

What language(s) do you speak?

English is my native tongue. I am also fluent in Spanish, and I am learning Korean. So far I have a grip on the basics: hello, goodbye, please, thank you, I’m sorry, excuse me, and (most importantly since it pertains to food) vegetarian. They say that Korean is the easiest of the Asian languages to learn due to its simple alphabet, Hangul. I have learned to read Hangul, which sounds more impressive than it is because I have no idea what any of it means. And, just to make things really interesting, Korean/Hangul sentences are written in syllables not words, so trying to figure out where one word ends and another begins feels impossible. It’s all very humbling.

When did you first become a mother?

I became a mother to our beautiful son in June 2011

Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you work?

I currently do not work outside of the home though that is set to change within the next few months. I am a Yoga teacher, Read more…