I’ve been thinking about why Egyptian women tend to let themselves go after having children. You know the drill, you’ve seen it so many times and it is certainly a very easy trap to fall into (I fell in head first, thinking I never would have). I don’t just mean weight gain or physical changes, I am thinking about the total mentality change. At first the changes are subtle and small then suddenly everything has changed and going back to who and what you used to be becomes a seemingly impossible uphill battle.
I keep toying with the idea that perhaps it is a cultural thing, that as young Egyptian girls we all grew up watching our moms sacrifice their time, energy, youth and everything else to bring up the family. They don’t care about how they look, how they dress and themselves in general. A woman setting aside time for herself is a rare thing. I don’t like generalizations and by no means am I trying to say that “all” women do this, but it does appear to be a trend. Before getting married and having my daughter I had a weekly pedicure, now I am lucky if I can make it once a month, it’s more like once every two months these days. It is not about the time, because I am sure I do have enough time to do everything. After all I am a stay at home mom. It is about the attitude. The reason I keep thinking it is cultural is because I see the differences in the other nationalities living in Kuwait. You have the Lebanese mommas, towing 3 and 4 kids and still managing to look good. And then you see the Egyptian mothers, lets just say they are my worst nightmare, and if I don’t do something soon, I could easily walk down that same road easily.
Why do some mothers forget to smile? It is like they have painted a permanent frown or scowl on their face, it is scary. It is also a shame and very very sad. Women, in my opinion, sometimes do end up with the short end of the stick. The burden of raising children is a great one. Or, is it? Perhaps it is how we choose to raise our children and live our lives that make it burdensome. Can we change our attitude and outlook and turn it into a fun one? Ever since I gave birth my mother has been advising me to take better care of myself, which is just great advice, but, I have to also look at the fact that growing up I rarely saw her doing that. She gave up everything easily for us, but in doing so she forgot to do stuff for herself and robbed us of the chance of setting that bar in the right place. I am in no way blaming her or even accusing her of doing anything wrong, I am just trying to pinpoint a cycle that needs to be broken.
We try to teach our children the value of sharing, caring and being compassionate towards other people’s needs, but if we do not set an example by placing our own needs as a priority how will they learn to be compassionate towards their mothers and in turn how to value their own needs and make sure they are met. We want them to learn how to say please, thank you, not to take what is not theirs and to be polite. That should start at home. If we do not demand it from them, how will they ever learn. Their expectations will become skewed if we do not clearly define the concepts of boundaries. Telling a child no when they ask for a toy they do not need, should be the same as saying no when they ask for time or attention they do not need either.
Another part of the cultural equation is how we look at women who take care of themselves as spoiled, irresponsible or airheads. There seems to be a general stereotype that a well preserved woman has no brains. It is like if a mother does not look frumpy and miserable then she must be selfish, self centered and a fool.
Men are also sort of bitten by this bug but in a totally different way. They get lost in the rat race to provide for their families and forget that they too need some fun in their lives, which usually leads to the infamous midlife crisis, when men buy Ferrari’s and chase younger women.
What should we do now? Do you agree? What is your take on this?
Yes, I am so thrilled that it is Thursday finally, not that weekends matter much to me anymore. But, Thursday is pizza night, movie night and also just a wonderful day. It is also the night I don’t turn on the alarm clock for the next day. It is also the first Thursday in November. I love Novembers and I love Thursdays! Here is some stuff you can do:
My daughter is totally obsessed with Hello Kitty. When I was younger I had a very similar obsession, I still love anything with Hello Kitty, but my favorite item used to be a pencil topper. It got lost years ago and I still miss it sometimes.
I was looking for some Hello Kitty videos for Lulu and found this and it reminded me of what my sister wrote all about our imagination games a while back.
After reading Roba’s post on why she hates winter, I just had to do this. I love winter. Here is why:
I like cold weather. It reminds me of Scotland and a wonderful childhood, running barefoot in the snow and sitting next to the heater.
I like winter clothes. I love boots. I love coats. The only thing I miss are sandals.
I love grey and angry skies. I am crazy like that.
It is less crowded. That reason comes from living in Alex for so long. In the summer it is hell, the summer tourists swallow Alex up. It is hell on the Corniche and you just learn to avoid it if you can.
I love the rain. I love running in the rain and getting soaked.
I can drive without turning on the A/C and the car doesn’t feel like a hot brick oven. In the summer opening the door to your car that has been parked in the sun for a couple of hours can give you heatstroke.
I can turn off the A/C at home.
I can take Lulu out for walks without being afraid she might get cooked in Kuwait’s hot weather. When it is really hot, her face goes red like a tomato and her car seat is usually so hot that she winces every time I buckle her in.
It’s not too hot for a hot cocoa, actually it is just perfect for it.
It means that the year is almost over and a new one is just around the corner.
I used to love getting older, really, I did. I always felt that the older I got the better life would become. I thought that I would be able to see the world, do the things I wanted to do and be the person I wanted to be. “Har har har” Life said, “The joke is on you”. I definitely don’t feel “older” but feel more “aged”.
I think the biggest change that I’ve noticed is my inability to let go and dream like I used to. I used to believe that the world was my oyster and that I was invincible and could do everything and anything I wanted to do.
Now, I am more laid back which is not a bad thing but just different. I used to worry about everything, but now I know that things will figure themselves out in the end every time.
I had an epiphany this morning. Selfish people are happy people. I am not talking about extremely selfish people, but people who put their needs first. They are happy because they are satisfied and don’t feel like they are used or abused by others. I never really gave it much thought, but I think that mothers tend to suffer from the selfless martyr syndrome. They feel that they are needed, give too much then end up complaining that their kids and the world is ungrateful for everything they do and everything they have left behind. The thing is, no one asked them to do all of these things. Somewhere along the line they think that this is the best thing to do for the family so they start doing these things and forget that they have a choice. I think it also stems from the fact that as women especially in the Middle East we have this stereotype of mothers that doesn’t help. We have been conditioned to believe that a good mother is one that cares more about her children, husband, home than she cares about herself. If you try to imagine an Egyptian mother in your head, have you done it? Not exactly the kind of mother that might grace the covers of Parenting Magazine. I used to think I would be different, I would never smell like onions or garlic, I would never let myself gain weight, I would always look cute and take care of myself. Suddenly I realized I had done all of these things, I let go one thing after the next without thinking and suddenly the pathway back is so long and hard. It’s also how suddenly you become labeled “Mother” and you seem to lose the other labels like “Woman”, “Engineer”, “Interesting” and “Fun”. It doesn’t help that children are time eaters. Yes they are, they gobble up hours like they were minutes and then they need to be burped too.
Men do this too but in a different way and because they are not primary care givers and don’t go thrugh pregnancy or breastfeeding so it is still different for them, they drive themselves crazy by working so hard to provide financially for the family that they too sometimes feel exhausted mentally and physically.
Anyhoo, some women are naturally selfish (the good kind of selfish), they understand that if they are happy, everyone else can be happy. They easily accept offers of babysitting by their friends and relatives so they can take some time off for themselves. They know how to set boundaries for themselves and their children to keep themselves happy. They buy face cream and use it regularly [buying is easy, sticking to a routine is harder]. The question is, can this behaviour be learned? I think it can, but I also think some people do this naturally or learn it from their own mothers.
I am on a new path to find my own way back to myself.
By nature, I shy away from confrontation unless I really, absolutely, positively have to. I sometimes wonder if this is because I am really good at building my own comfort zones on floating clouds in imaginary skies, or have I somehow managed to perfect this skill because I don’t like getting out of my comfort zone. It’s not that I am a coward or don’t like taking risks. At least I wasn’t always this way, but somehow the older I get, the less fighting I want to do. This is not exactly what I want to be doing right now, because I realized I still have alot of things that I would like to do. But then again, when I do want to do something I always feel that I either have to do it well or not do it at all. That is when I “want” to do something, if I just “have” to do something I usually do what I have to do.
Which is why I haven’t been posting lately. I open the editor, start typing and then delete everything and close the window. It’s becoming a pattern that I am trying to break because I know that once you get in a rut the only way to get out is by clawing your way out. It’s not for lack of ideas or interesting things to say but the inability to formulate them into a coherent and interesting peice. It’s like all of these wonderful ideas that are more like scraps of paper floating around in my head but I can’t put them all together to write something that would be readable.
So, to fix this problem I have decided to change my beauty regime. Weird right? Totally unrelated, right? Who cares? I need to take better care of my skin and that might eventually affect my brain and put it back into order.
Now, I just have to decide what face cream to use.
My father passed away exactly 10 years ago today. He was a great father and a great man. There were many times when I wished I could just talk to him when I felt that I needed help, but I have definitely missed him the most in the happier events of life.
One of my happiest and most vivid childhood memories was the annual back to school shopping trip. Browsing the aisles for the perfect pencil case, pencils and notebooks was just my sort of heaven when I was a child (it still is actually, I am always on cloud 9 just by looking at the rows of pens at any store). My mom would melt the old broken down small bits and make rainbow crayons for us. The yellow box just means fun to me. I remember at school the kid with the largest box would be the coolest especially if it had one of those built in sharpeners.
So when I read that toddler my daughter’s age should be able to start learning how to hold crayons I realized that we don’t have any at home. Up until I had her I always had coloring pencils or felt tip pens and play dough because I enjoy playing. Yesterday I picked a pack of fat crayons because they should be easier to hold. We opened the box today and she picked out a red crayon, She likes bright colo. She held it and then attempted to put it into her mouth. I picked out a purple on and started drawing swirls on a white sheet of paper, she was fascinated and then tried to put her crayon in her mouth again. After a couple of failed attempts she threw the crayon away and went to play with her other toys. I guess she’s still not ready yet, but when she is, we have crayons.
My mother says I am a piggy bank, “7assala”. She doesn’t mean that I am cheap but that I am an information piggy bank. The accusations comes from the fact that I will read all of these very useful educational books and not use most of the information in them.
I digress, I usually use the information to help others and use the tips that are directly useful for me. I do enjoy reading most books for the fun of it. I read self-help books as if they were newspapers or magazines and read encyclopedias and dictionaries just fo the joy of learning new things or words regardless of its practicality. Is that weird? I personally don’t think so. Taking into consideration that I am not a TV person so I used to have so much more time on my hands. My mother shouldn’t complain she is the one who instilled the love of reading in us, my sister is an avid reader too, she just enjoys different genres than I do. I am curious so it goes without saying that I end up looking for all kinds of weird information.
I am the kind of person who can quote caloric content of most food because I usually read the nutrition labels, I know how to work the DVD player because I read the manual and I fact check every email I get or send because I am boring like that.
“Knowledge comes by eyes always open and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power.” Ralph Waldo EmersonWithout going into alot of background information, my mom commented on my last post that she thinks I have finally broken the piggy bank. Maybe she’s right and maybe not. I like to think that every piece of new information you come across will come handy in the future. Yes even though that with the internet today, you can search for anything, anywhere, anytime from wherever you are, it is always usually much easier if you actually know what you are looking for.
Another example is cooking shows, I have a mini addiction to watching cooking shows. I find them fascinating yet I hardly ever feel inspired enough to make whatever they are making on the spot. But I learn so much, I learn what tastes nice with what, how to make your presentation of the food awesome and what different ideas. It comes in handy when I am cooking, I hardly make a recipe exactly as I should, with the exception of baking because I’ve learned the hard way that the exact measurements usually have better results, but I do use what I learn.
My parenting style too has benifitted from all the information. I listened to every mom that “gave me advice” wether I asked for it or not, read every article I could and joined the interesting parenting communities and forums. I learned that I can disagree with some, agree with some and come up with my own mish mash of a style. It is not the perfect style, but it fits me because it is evolving and it is what I can do. I tried the “cry it out method” for sleep training but failed miserably then after some reading and searching decided that I was more of “sleep association trainer”.
Even my marriage benefits from all of the information, not just the relationship between my husband, but what I can offer as a wife. I understand what he does for a living and find it interesting. I try to read up on what he does. I can help look for information for him and be useful in different ways.
The more you learn, the less naive you become and the less vulnerable you are to life’s tricks. You don’t believe rumors so easily and you look for the truth in every thing that comes along. You learn to analyze and weight things until you can feel comfortable with what you have learned. Overall, I believe that formal education is very important, yet very lacking in our country because instead of teaching children and young people how to learn they want them to memorize information. Each one of us will walk a very different path in life, the enlightened will know how to use the tools they have acquired through their education to make that path easier, to make a u-turn when they need to and to generally be happier, more accomplished and satisfied in their lives.
My belief is that the more you know, the more ammunition you have for life and it all depends on how you use it. Maybe my mother is right and that I have broken my knowledge piggy bank and am applying more of it in life these days, but I think I have always been using the stuff, it’s just really starting to pay off now.
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