Archive for December, 2008

Hint #3:  I’m in Quito, where are you?

Blogging from Quito, Ecuador

Hint #2

We’ll try food from all over the world

No, it won’t be a blog on natural recipes, but you’ll eventually find a couple of them.

We'll have lots of fun with the new blog

This blog will disapear…

and become a new one, with a new name and new focus, of course of interest to the natural parent like you. Don’t worry: the pages, blog posts and comments will be kept safe so continue visiting and commenting, but most important: do subscribe to the newsletter so you don’t miss any updates.

Wanna guess the new focus of the blog?

Hint 1: I’m a geographer

I have invited my friend Carrie Lauth, from Natural Moms Talk Radio to join me in a Cross Blog Conversation.

I have lots of things I’d like to ask Carrie as I know she’s a Super-Single-Natural-Unscholing-Work-at-Home-Mom of 4…great inspiration for anyone, right?

I’m sure me and my readers will have fun cross blogging with Carrie. Please feel free to leave your comments here or at Carrie’s blog. This is her first question:

How do you think raising a child in Ecuador differs from raising a child in the States?

My response:

Me and baby in Japan on a trip to the park

As I’ve not lived in the US I really don’t know…lol! However, I can tell you how raising a child in Ecuador is like, and since my son was born in Japan and we lived there during his first year of life, I can also tell you how it was to live with a baby over there.  I happen to network a lot with US moms and when I lived abroad most of my mom-friends were from the US, Canda and Europe. When I read or talk with those moms, like when I read your blog, I have the impression that the US or *that* other country or place should be a great place to raise kids.

I believe that it’s not the place but the people you relate to and the way you build your “customized environment”. For example, a traffic light could a landmark for one person, but a waste of energy for other, a learning resource for other, an opportunity to slow down for another, and a reason to get nervous for others. We homeschoolers tend to take a lot of advantage from the environment, no matter where we live.

Me and toddler in Ecuador on a trip to the beach

I’m quite sure that if I’d be living in the US or in Japan right now I’d probably would be unschooling and working from home. But don’t get me wrong. I do believe that living in an inspiring environment is great for new parents, especially when nurturing traditions as breastfeeding and babywearing can be taught to the next generations. But believe me, I’ve gotten more babywearing/ breastfeeding advice and support from people in the US than from Ecuadorians, and this is a country where you still see a lot of traditional BW, and public BF is considered acceptable.

So I think that the difference is probably that in the US you have organizations, books, information for everything including homeschooling, babywearing, breastfeeding and other parenting related practices. Maybe you are able to trust more the “research” and over here we have to trust more our instincts when taking parenting related choices.

Do you think that living in another country or city would affect you so much that you would do major changes to your parenting or lifestyle?

Christmas is comming and commercials for the best gift, the best toy or the best credit card for the holidays are all over the place. But how do you feel when this ads are targetting your 10 years old child, or even your toddler or baby?

Let’s learn how to keep our comming holidays centered on what matters most to us and to keep our kids from being targeted by publicity.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has published an online Guide to Commercial- Free Holidays that I so recommend to download. It’s free!

These are some of the topics covered:

- Carving Out Time and Space for Commercial-Free Family Traditions, by Susan Linn, EdD.- Director and cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood at Judge Baker Children’s Center.

- Putting Others’ Needs Above Our Wants. By Enola Aird, JD. - An activist mother, director of The Motherhood Project, and author of Watch Out for Children: A Mothers’ Statement to Advertisers

- Buy Green, Buy Fair, Buy Local, Buy Used, and Buy Less. By Allen Kanner, PhD - Clinical psychologist and founding member of CCFC. He’s a father, a columnist for Tikkun Magazine, and coeditor of Psychology and Consumer Culture, and of Ecopsychology.

- TV-Free Holidays. By Karen Lewis - Mother, activist, and Project Associate for the Tobacco Prevention Project, National School Boards Association

- Gifts That Show You Care. By Nancy Carlsson- Paige, EdD. - Professor of Education at Lesley University. Mother and a grandmother. Author of Taking Back Childhood: Helping Your Kids Thrive in a Fast-Paced, Media-Saturated, Violence- Filled World

- Christmas Coupons at the Kassers. By Tim Kasser, PhD - Associate Professor of Psychology at Knox College. Father and author of The High Price of Materialism

- Giving Gifts That Encourage Creative Play. By Diane Levin, PhD - Professor of Education at Wheelock College and co-founder of CCFC. Mother, co-author of So Sexy So Soon and co-founder of TRUCE

- Give the Gift of Time. By Joe Kelly-The Dad Man- Father, speaker, writer, blogger, activist and consultant. He is the author of Dads and
Daughters: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter When She’s Growing Up So Fast

- The Choices We Make with Our Money Can Change the World. By Nathan Dungan - Founder of Share Save Spend and author of Personal Finance: A Lifetime of Responsibility, a textbook for high
school students

So go ahead and donwload by clicking on the picture below

Guide To Commercial Free Holidays