What if you come from rural Mexico where your mother gave birth to you with a midwife and breastfeeding was so obvious and commonplace you never even thought about it…and you find yourself in a culture where births are in high-tech hospitals and babies are whisked away from you to be washed, eye-dropped, and wrapped like a Christmas gift…
What if you grew up in Japan where you and your parents shared the same bed and later the same room, as did everyone else you knew…and you find yourself in a country where the newspapers are full of articles about the dangers of sharing a bed, or you find yourself in a baby group where parents talk in shrill tones about why their baby STILL cries itself to sleep in another room...
What if you grew up in the U.S. where children are assumed to be special individuals with unique gifts just waiting to be discovered…and you find yourself in a place where children are expected to downplay their talents, and if at all, to practice them in the background and NOT shine within the group...
What if you grew up in a Middle Eastern Neighborhood where modesty and family loyalty were defining values…and you find yourself raising teenagers in a place where teen sex, alcohol, drugs and gang violence is commonplace...
What's new in May ...
The term "gadfly" (Ancient Greek: μύωψ, myops) was used by Plato in the Apology to describe Socrates' relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. [View source]
Wikipedia: social gadfly
Gadfly parenting paper reads, blogs and websites. Not necessarily for those who look around them and think all is well with the world.
The term "gadfly" (Ancient Greek: μύωψ, myops) was used by Plato in the Apology to describe Socrates' relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. [View source]
Wikipedia: social gadfly
AND for those times when even reading is too much… the Motherlands videos list...
Motherlands Forum posts
personal space issues In response to a Mothering.com post about a young child who seemed to have 'personal space issues', ...Fri Mar 30, 2012
No, "multitasking" has a specific meaning. It was touted in the 1980s and 1990s as computer models of efficiency began... Fri Mar 23, 2012
Thanks for replying. I know that whenever i play with her and do something, she .... Sat Mar 17, 2012
Late crawling babies
by Lisa Nolan
"I get asked this question more than a few times! What to do about late crawlers? ... It is good to encourage at least ten minutes of tummy time several sessions a day by placing your infant on her tummy." go to Confessions of a Montessori Mom
Jasper Juul offers Danish wisdom on parenting, very popular in Europe. Heard much praise for his book Your Competent Child: Toward New Basic Values for the Family
American pill-poppers
by Jennifer Planeta
"... One observation: Americans are a bunch of pill poppers. Because Artur was the maintenance manager at this resort, he was often called into the guests' units to fix or adjust various things. As a result, he often saw the luggage contents that the travelers unpacked during their stay. Without fail, the Americans always had numerous pill bottles.
Regardless if these bottles contained meditations, vitamins, supplements or a motley of all three, the Americans seemed to be the only ones who consistently traveled with so many pills. No other culture appeared to travel with or need as many pills as the Americans. (Pretty interesting considering the power and wealth of the pharmaceutical companies in the United States. Not to mention their grip on the American medical system.)" see multilingual living
Beyblades
by Mark Allen Peterson
"I was talking to her about my Pokemon chapter, and she warned me "Pokemon is old news in Egypt. The big thing now is Beyblades." ...
She called one of her sons over and spoke to him. Five minutes later my cupped hands were overflowing with decorated plastic tops in different colors. They had a series of "attack" and "defense" rings that could be attached, as well as a metal "weight ring" that gave them some heft. The packaging (which he let me keep) was in French , suggesting that local stores were importing them from there rather than the US (as in the case of Pokemon)." see ConnectedinCairo.com
Coming home
by Paul Bennet
"It hit me really hard about a year ago when I walked out of Changi Airport in Singapore: that particular combination of cloying orchids, dried fish, durian, drains and that peculiar acrid-yet-sweet smell of wet tarmac after the monsoon rain, all carried on a humid tropical breeze right up my nostrils to that most primal and limbic part of our brain: the olfactory system. The part of the body that is said to hold memory.
This memory was overwhelming. I was home." see Metropolis Mag
How to Raise an Unhappy Child
by Christine Carter
"Though I'm anything but permissive, even by Chua's standards, I am one of those "Western" parents that absolutely does prioritize children's long-term happiness over their achievements and performances. Ironically, I adapted these values from a confluence of Eastern philosophy -- particularly Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching and Buddhist teachings -- and Western science, which provides ample evidence that success follows happiness, and not the other way around." see Raising Happiness
6 Things every Globetrotter Parent should know 
by the Globetrotter Parent
1. Baby care norms differ radically from one continent and even country to the next one. My favourite example: In Canada and the States, the health industry tells us not to share a bed with our infant, because it can lead to smothering, SIDS, baby falling off the bed, etc. Yet, here in Madagascar, most moms sleep with their baby. They don't do cribs here. And I don't ever hear or read about any babies dying of SIDS or getting smothered here. Funny that.
2. Contrary to what many "granola" mamas seems to think, Europeans are not necessarily more into "natural family living" than North Americans. Europe is not a monolith. When you hear granola moms going on about how much more enlightened Europeans are, they're usually talking about Scandinavians.
3. Your child will not become confused or speech-delayed because you speak to him in another language. I've already written about this but let me reiterate: there is no evidence whatsoever that bilingual children have a higher rate of speech/language delay or any other speech or language disorder than monolingual children.
4. Bilingualism is not an automatic fact resulting from a parent who speaks another language. It takes work. ...In fact, your child will need about 24 hours per week of exposure to your language in order to speak it like a native.
5. There are NO required vaccines for international travel
6. A global child starts with the parents who have a global mindset. go to the globetrotter parent
Creative Play way down
by Alix Spiegel
Unfortunately, play has changed dramatically during the past half-century, and according to many psychological researchers, the play that kids engage in today does not help them build executive function skills. Kids spend more time in front of televisions and video games. When they aren't in front of a screen, they often spend their time in leagues and lessons -- activities parents invest in because they believe that they will help their children to excel and achieve.
And while it's true that leagues and lessons are helpful to children in many ways, researcher Deborah Leong says they have one unfortunate drawback. Leong is professor emerita of psychology and director of the Tools of the Mind Project at Metropolitan State College of Denver. She says when kids are in leagues and lessons, they are usually being regulated by adults. That means they are not able to practice regulating themselves. see more at npr.org
It isn't better in France after all
by Sandra Aamodt
"In "Bringing Up Bebe," Ms. Druckerman, a journalist, is envious of Parisian parents whose children don't throw tantrums in public or fight on playgrounds. She ascribes this good behavior to stern French methods like forcing children to follow schedules and wait for attention. But in the school system, this strict approach translates to a rigid curriculum with an emphasis on memorization. French children also are tracked into different academic paths by age 12, a practice that reinforces the influence of parental socioeconomic status on educational and career outcomes, reducing social mobility.
Fortunately for American parents, psychologists find that children can learn self-control without externally imposed pressure. Behavior is powerfully shaped not only by parents or teachers but also by children themselves. The key is to harness the child's own drives for play, social interaction and other rewards. Enjoyable activities elicit dopamine release to enhance learning, while reducing the secretion of stress hormones, which can impede learning and increase anxiety, sometimes for years." go to the New York Times
Understanding Hookup Culture
A preview of Stanford University Prof. Paula England's lecture on the social meaning of 'hooking up' - shorn of all the drama and headline hysterics it sounds slightly less soul damaging - at least to parents' ears.
Nurturing and brain changes
"Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that when young children get plenty of nurturing from their mothers, those children end up with a bigger hippocampus in the brain by the time they reach school age. the hippocampus is an important structure related to learning, memory and stress response. [..] As part of the initial study, the children were closely observed and videotaped interacting with a parent, almost always a mother, as the parent was completing a required task, and the child was asked to wait to open an attractive gift. How much or how little the parent was able to support and nurture the child in this stressful circumstance -- which was designed to approximate the stresses of daily parenting -- was evaluated by raters who knew nothing about the child's health or the parent's temperament.
"It's very objective," says Luby, professor of child psychiatry. "Whether a parent was considered a nurturer was not based on that parent's own self-assessment. Rather, it was based on their behavior and the extent to which they nurtured their child under these challenging conditions." go to medicalxpress.com
How Japanese elementary schools differ from Western schools
"Children learn early on (beginning in preschool) to maintain cooperative relationships with their peers; to follow the set school routines; and to value punctuality (from their first year in elementary school). Classroom management emphasizes student responsibility and stewardship through emphasis on daily chores such as cleaning of desks and scrubbing of classroom floors. Students are encouraged to develop strong loyalties to their social groups, e.g. to their class, their sports-day teams, their after-school circles, e.g. baseball and soccer teams. Leadership as well as subordinate roles, as well as group organization skills are learnt through assigned roles for lunchtime (kyushoku touban), class monitor or class chairperson and other such duties.
The teaching culture in Japan differs greatly from that of schools in the west. Teachers are particularly concerned about developing the holistic child and regard it as their task to focus on matters such as personal hygiene, nutrition, sleep that are not ordinarily thought of as part of the teacher's duties in the west. Students are also taught proper manners, how to speak politely and how to address adults as well as how to relate to their peers in the appropriate manner. They also learn public speaking skills through the routine class meetings as well as many school events during the school year." see Education in Japan
American-made breastfeeding ad for Vietnam
I found the pastel colors and American style significant in this ad. I mean, do most Vietnamese really have such a 'nursery' for their children? What is the ad selling in addition to encouraging breastfeeding? It would be interesting to know on what kind of television channels this ad was run.