HOW DOES OUR LIFE COMPARE TO OTHERS?

I suppose the question of how my life compares with others could be answered in more than one way, depending on whether I am referring to my entire life, or my life right now.

I grew up with the influence of three cultures:  my Chilean father, my American mother and the Brazilian culture where I was born and raised.   I know alot of people don't get to experience that yet, on the other hand, alot of people do.   We moved alot and I attended many different schools; I know that many military families go through that also.

At present, I am a woman in my mid fifties going through a painful divorce, and so am a single mother of three teenagers of whom I have custody.    The past couple years have been very difficult in many ways, especially financially.   I don't live near any of my large family, they all live in other states, but I don't want to move at present because my teenagers will be juniors in high school next year and I know personally how difficult it would be for them to have to move at this time, so I will stay here for them for now.   I am close to my family and we stay in touch by phone and internet (e-mail, fb, etc. .)   We also do visit each other as much as we can.   I know that there are many, many other women in my same situation.

The great thing about living here in the U.S. is that, in spite of these circumstances, I can still look to the future with hope for a better tomorrow for myself and my children.  That is one reason I returned to college, to finish what I started but didn't finish 35 yrs ago.   And, if I'm able to continue, I will graduate from college around the same time they will graduate from high school!   I can get a job to help with the financial situation, but, by law, I'm also qualified to receive child support from my husband's wages.   Not sure that alot of divorced women in other countries have that resource available to them.   And, although I have not taken advantage of them, I know that if things got bad enough, there would be some government resources available to fall back on, at least temporarily.   Most countries don't have that.

We do have so much to be thankful for here in America.    To begin with, we live in a democracy where we, the people get to vote for our country's leader and who will represent us in the halls of Congress.   So many people don't stop to appreciate all the freedoms and opportunities available to us here in the United States.

I do believe its important to learn about other cultures because I think there are so many things we can learn from other cultures that could enhance our own life.   Also, learning about other cultures helps us to understand people from cultures different than ours, and helps us to understand their behavior, etc. . .  Personally, I don't think this class changed my worldview, but it did expand it and I learned a great deal about other cultures that I was not aware of.  

Of the 10 things I understand about child development globally:

1.  I understand that culture and religion play a major role in parenting roles and how children are brought
     up.
2.  I understand most parents view their children as a precious gift and love them unconditionally and desire
     for them to have a better future than their own.
3. I understand all children have a need to feel loved and safe
4.  I understand most children are adventurous and love to learn
5.  I understand millions of children live in poverty
6.  I understand many, many children go to bed hungry
7.  I understand many children begin working at a young age to help support their family
8.  I understand many children are sexually and physically abused
9.  I understand millions of children lack proper housing, education or health care
10. I understand there are millions of orphans around the world whose future looks very bleak, as in Russia


 

SCHOOL EXPERIENCE

My mother was my primary caretaker in my childhood as she was not employed outside of the home until my Sophomore year of high school.   However, we lived in Brazil and always had housekeepers who also doubled as babysitters when my mother needed one.

I attended Brazilian schools until 4th grade.  Then we were coming to the U.S. so my other pulled all 5 of us out of school and homeschooled us primarily in English reading and grammar. When we came here I did half of 5th grade in Illinois and half in Indiana.  During this time I realized that my Brazilian schools were more advanced.  In Brazil I had learned things in 2nd and 3rd grade they were teaching in 5th grade here.

When we returned to Brazil, my mother enrolled us in a private American school that was a Christian school and primarily missionary kids attended there.  There were also some Brazilians whose parents wanted them to attend an American school.  There were a lot of Canadians there.  I attended there from 6th through 8th grade and they were some of the best years of my life.  I was always  academically gifted and made friends with others who also were and we had fun
competing for the highest grades.  We had excellent teachers and just a great atmosphere in the school. I bawled my eyes out when my parents announced we were moving back to the U.S.

I have mentioned in previous blogs about the high school I attended in Baton Rouge,  Louisiana.  it really was horrible and I can't believe I survived it.   Nevertheless, I was able to graduate with honors and go on to college.  I think my life would have turned out so different for the better if I had stayed at the American school in Brazil.

Adding to my previous posts, I understand that not every child gets to have a quality education.

WHERE WOULD I LIVE?

Well, obviously I have lived in another country, Brazil, a country which I'm proud to be asociated with.  I truly love Brazil and the Brazilian people.

However, I have lived most of my life in the United States and I also truly love American and American people.   Because I was born in Brazil to an American mother, I (and 3 of my siblings) were automatically eligible for dual citizenship.   So, when I travel, I travel with American and Brazilian passports.   And, that is the way that I feel--that I am dually Brazilian and American (although my father was Chilean, so I guess I am more Chilean/American by blood). 

However, if I were to choose another place to live, I think it would be Italy or France.   I don't know for sure, I've never been to Europe and that is a huge goal for me.    I really want to take a year (or more) sabbatical, if possible, and travel the world, hopefully with my kids who also have a desire and curiosity to visit other nations and learn about the culture, etc. . .  One of my daughters is a "foodie" and loves to cook, as do I, so one big reason we want to visit other countries is to experience and taste all the wonderful, different foods.   And that is certainly a big reason for wanting to go to Italy and France.   But Spain also ranks pretty high on my list, and I also would like to visit Portugal because of the Portuguese influence in Brazil.   Australia, England, Canada and South Africa are other countries I would like to visit as well as Ireland and Scotland.  Oh, yeah, definitely Greece and Israel too!   And, although my dad is from Chile and I have relatives there, I have never been there, so that is definitely on my list as well as Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark.    So, shall I just name all the countries? 

But, to actually live, I'm not really sure.   I think we have it pretty good here in America, maybe more than we realize sometimes.

The neighborhood in which we reside, I suppose would be classified as pretty middle-class, but I know that in comparison to some countries it would be viewed as more upscale.

Neighborhood

I previously blogged about how we moved so many times, so its a little difficult for me to talk about my neighborhood because there were so many!   However, in general, in Brazil when I was growing up in the 60s, we lived in mainly lower middle class neighborhoods.   The families were very traditional and my brothers and I always made friends quickly and easily and when we weren't at school, played out on the streets with our friends constantly.   We always felt safe and when we were about 10 and older, my mother didn't have a problem having us go down the street a couple blocks to pick up something at the store occasionally.

During one year, I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, we rented an apartment in a small building near a warehouse district.    Our building was surrounded by warehouses where farmers would bring their produce, so it was a very busy area during the week and alot of homeless families would be around on the sidewalks and would fight over food being put in the dumpsters as they tried to find something that might still be edible to feed their families.   I stood at the window of that apartment and watched that scene many times.
There were alot of Japanese that lived in that neighborhood, maybe because a large percentage of Brazilian farmers are Japanese.   Brazil has a huge population of Japanese because it was a neutral country during WWII and so alot of Japanese settled there during that time.   Anyway, we made friends even there and we loved our Japanese friends and still have alot of good memories of the time we lived there.

I loved and still love Brazil, even though I have not lived there for 40 years now.   Brazilian people are wonderful!   They are happy and kind and definitely always ready to party especially when their favorite soccer team wins!


Adding to my list of understanding about children and childhood development, I understand that children don't "see" different colors or different races when playing with other children.

Childhood

I feel that overall I had a happy childhood.   As I previously blogged, we had a large family and I felt like my brothers were my friends and "partners in crime".  Ha, ha!   My sisters came later, one is 4 years younger and my youngest sister is 12 years younger than I, so I was like her second mother because since I was the oldest girl, I took that responsibility.

Since my parents were missionaries, church and the church ministry was what our life revolved around.   So, most of our close friends were from church.    We always had alot of neighborhood friends we played with, but we moved ALOT, so that meant always leaving old friends and trying to make new ones, which was the most difficult part of my childhood in my opinion.   Up until I was 14 my parents never owned a home, they always leased, and when the lease was up, we moved.   Not really sure why.  Maybe the rent was going to increase?   I don't know.  The result was that, without exaggeration I attended around 12 schools in my 12 years of school!  That was hard and I don't think my parents thought too much about how that would affect us.   It was especially hard for me because I was very shy and quiet.    So having to go to new schools all the time was brutal.    During 6th through 8th grade I attended an American school in Brazil for missionary kids.   It was a great school.   I had close friends and we loved school and always competed to see who made the highest grades.   Yeah, I was a nerd. 

Then when I was 14, my parents decided to move "for good" to the U.S.   I cried for weeks when I found out. (I wont go into all the reasons for that decision).  The worst part was that we moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana which was such a foreign culture to us.   Anyway, I attended a public high school there in the mid seventies.  To explain a little about the history of education in Louisiana,  the schools there had just recently stopped segregation in the early 70's.   So there was still alot of racial divide there and I was not accustomed to that at all.   During my Junior year, the Ku Klux Klan infiltrated the school and incited a huge riot and kids were stabbed in the cafeteria.   It was bad.   The following week, the KKK marched and burned a cross in front of our school!    And I felt so out of place there and like I just didn't belong.   I didn't have any friends during high school at my school.   But we were very involved with the church we attended there so I did have friends from church.    My father had returned to Brazil and my mother was raising us alone for several years during that time and I don't think she was aware enough of the struggles we had as teenagers.    I was a very academically gifted student and feel like I never had the opportunity to develop my true potential.   I guess that's why I have always tried to be so in tune to my children's gifts and I am blessed that they are all very academically and musically gifted and so I have made sure they attend a magnet high school for gifted and talented.   They love it because they feel like they are in their element.   Later, after I was in college, my parents returned to Brazil with my two sisters.   My brothers had all left home by that time also.  (I attended TWU right out of high school, in the mid seventies, for two years).

My family is still very connected to Louisiana and my oldest brother lives there and now that I am older I appreciate the culture there more and most certainly the food!

My mother was an awesome mother.    She was and still is the glue that kept us all together and she had alot to deal with.   She had to raise six children in a culture that was very foreign to her with no family of her own anywhere near.  She also was very involved with the ministry and the people in the church loved her like she was their own mother.    She's that kind of person.   She was definitely the most important person in mine and my siblings' life.  My father was there but gone so much in dealing with the ministry and she kept the home fires burning and took care of us.    We loved and respected our father and he would cut up with us sometimes but he left all the responsibility of child rearing and the home to my mother.    My dad came from a very patriarchal, Latin macho upbringing and so that was his personality.

I think that growing up in two very different cultures and the constant moving is something not everyone experiences.   It wasn't all bad, it made a gypsy out of me, but sometimes I think it would be nice to have that "home I grew up in" as a touchstone.

Especially now that I am a parent, I understand that parents often make life decisions without much thought as to how that decision will affect their children's lives and future.

Self and Family

I think I have a very interesting family.   My American mother met my Chilean father in Chile when her parents were missionaries there in the early to mid '50s.   They were married and my oldest brother was born in Chile.   My second brother was born in the U.S. and then myself and my third brother and two sisters were born in Brazil where my parents were missionaries for 40 years.   So we are a very multicultural family.   We spoke English at home, Portuguese outside of the home and Spanish with our Chilean relatives, so we are tri-lingual.   Growing up we attended Brazilian and American schools   We were a close knit family and especially we four older children who were so close in age (my mother had 4 kids in 4 years!), and so had all the same friends we hung out with.  We are still very close even though we now live each in a different state here in the U.S.   My father and both sets of grandparents have passed away.    However, when we were growing up, my father brought his family to live near us in Brazil, so I had my Chilean grandparents and uncles close.    Except for times when we visited the U.S. for extended periods and I stayed with my maternal grandmother, we never lived near my maternal grandparents.   However, my grandmother wrote constantly and sent us little gifts and we always felt very close to her.   I loved her very much.

I still have aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews in Brazil, Argentina and Chile.   One of my dad's brothers married a German lady but they live in Brazil (she speaks 5 or 6 languages).   At one time they lived in Sweden, so I literally had family in 5 countries!  I'm not in touch with them as much as I would like to, but hope to change that soon.   Of course with Facebook, etc.. that is easier nowadays.

I consider my family relationships my most important relationships.   My sisters and my mother are definitely my best friends.   I keep "dreaming" of a time when we will all live near each other again and can meet for lunch or go shopping together, but for now we all live very far apart.   However, I do have my children now who are 15 1/2 yr old triplets and I feel that I have a good relationship with them.

I know families who all live within minutes of each other and get together all the time and I often wish my family could do that.   But, then I wonder, would we get on each other's nerves?   Would we get bored?   As it is, we all live in different places and get to share that "culture" with each other-San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Atlanta and Orlando!

My parents struggled alot financially especially when we children were very little because they were independent missionaries and not sponsored by an organization who sent them financial support regularly (that came later).   So, looking back, we were probably what would be considered "poor", but we children didn't know it.   We were loved and safe and we never went hungry.   We had a home and decent clothes and in many instances were better off than our Brazililan friends, so we felt rich!  My parents did their best to give us a happy childhood and we only have good memories of those times.

I understand that many parents sacrifice alot to provide for their children, even to the point of often going without food so their children will have something to eat.

Countries Quiz

Hello all:

I am new to blogging so this will be interesting.

On the countries quiz, I correctly named 99 countries.   I have always been interested in other countries and other cultures, probably because I come from a very multicultural family, so I admit the quiz was rather easy for me.

On the 10 things I understand about child development globally:

1. I understand most parents view their children as a precious gift.
2. I understand most parents love their childrent unconditionally
3. I understand all children have a need to fell loved and safe
4.  I understand most children are adventurous and love to learn
5.  I understand millions of children live in poverty
6.  I understand many, many children go to bed hungry
7.  I understand many children begin working at a young age to help support their family
8.  I understand many children are sexually and physically abused
9.  I understand millions of children lack proper housing, education or health care
10. I understand there are millions of orphan around the world