 In this installment, I would like to address that often difficult period around puberty. I will also give an example of applying mindfulness to a particular incident.
In our Buddhist tradition, the major conditioning of a human being is thought to take place during the early years of development. The post-pubescent years through the early twenties is when these foundations are tested. Read more » |
 In the last segment in this series, I introduced how to raise an enlightened child, beginning with some basic Buddhist approaches to parenting. In this article, I will focus specifically on the period of development (Skandha) between infancy and about eight to nine years of age.
Before I begin, I would like to reiterate the Buddhist intention in raising a child (in addition to basic nutrition and health of course!). Read more » |
 We recently celebrated Purim, a holiday that commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from near annihilation in ancient Persia. According to the story, King Ahashverosh of Persia selects a Jew named Esther to be his new queen. Soon after, the king appoints a new chief advisor named Haman. Haman is enraged when a Jew named Mordehai (who is Esther’s uncle) won’t bow down to him. Read more » |
 If there is one question that I am often asked as a Buddhist minister it is, "How can I raise an enlightened child?" As the Buddhist tradition continues to rapidly grow and influence our culture, I believe that it is a most legitimate question. Let me respond here as both the parent of a wondrous nineteen-year-old son, the spouse of an early childhood expert (my beloved wife of 25 years) and as a practitioner (nearly 40 years) and teacher of Buddhism (over twenty years). Read more » |
 Preserving kinship ties is considered to be a very important part of Islam. This generally refers to maintaining good relationships with both your close and extended relatives and upholding the rights Islam gives to them. There is a prophetic tradition in Islam that says, "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him maintain the bonds of kinship. Read more » |
 My first Christmas with my Ethiopian children came 10 months after they were officially adopted into our family. During the year we settled in, we learned that one of our daughters was still heavily grieving the loss of her mother two years earlier. One of the most difficult struggles for Ella was that she was starting to forget her mother’s face. Read more » |
 Around 10 years ago, I stopped celebrating Christmas with my family. I opted not to travel from New York to Florida and spent three days cleaning my apartment. I was sad to not partake in the ritual, but consumerism and my sister-in-law’s large family hijacked my Christmas Eve; I felt no desire to be part of it.
Cubans don’t really celebrate Christmas Day (well, in Cuba they definitely don’t). Read more » |
 Recently, my family and I took a trip to Israel. While I had several goals for the trip, including having a fantastic time, it was critically important to me that my kids saw the diversity of Jewish life in Tel Aviv. The city is the Baskin-Robbins of Jewish identity with a dazzling array of flavors to behold. Eastern European, African, Middle Eastern, Latin American, Asian, and indigenous Israelis, both religious and secular, seamlessly interact with one another. Read more » |
 November is National Adoption Month and this past Sunday was Orphan Sunday. We dedicated our children at our church in Durham, North Carolina with about 10 other children who had been adopted in the past year within our congregation. Typically in our inter-denominational Christian church, babies are “dedicated” as a way for parents to commit to raising their children with an understanding that they are children of God and to declare a promise to teach them about Jesus. Read more » |
 As a child, I attended a number of funerals in which this verse from Corinthians was read, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory,” usually at the end of the service, when the bereaved family most needed it. At the time, I found this Bible verse very reassuring, but like most children I wanted to know more—the why, not to mention the how, what, when and where of the victory so eloquently asserted. Read more » |
 I suspect those who celebrate Christmas will be familiar with the way I felt a day or so after last Eid. Having received numerous toys, the kids took a cursory look at each and then left them to one side, forgotten. A few days after, I got a lecture from both my mother and my mother-in-law who had tag-teamed to advise me that I was spoiling my children, in particular my daughter, by buying them too many toys and gifts. Read more » |
 At the core of Buddhist practice is the notion that we can release ourselves from the three mental poisons--anger, attachment and ignorance.
Each of these has a multitude of practices within the myriad forms of Buddhism, aimed at reducing their harmful effects.
With the problem of attachment, we have to learn to let go.
Never has the concept of attachment and the idea of letting go come more sharply into focus than when thinking about our children. Read more » |
 Next week we are heading to the Ukraine to adopt our seventh child. I have tried to block out time from my day to study Russian, but just haven’t been able to make any progress with it. It isn’t that I don’t want to--I really enjoy learning new languages, but have been very busy.
Before we adopted our baby, Matea, from Guatemala, I spent hours studying Spanish. Read more » |
 Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, is the time for healthy adult Muslims’ to spend the day abstaining from food and water and the nights in hours of worship and contemplation. Although Muslim children do not usually fast, this does not mean that Ramadan, the holiest of months in the Islamic calendar, is not important for them.
In Ramadan, a family and community’s routines are completely changed. Read more » |
 One of the most contentious issues any non-Israeli Jew must face is how to think and speak about Israel. For almost 2000 years, Jews lived in forced exile, dreaming about but unable to reclaim the Promised Land. Israel became a focal point of Jewish theology and the idea of return from exile was interwoven into our liturgy. The formation of a Jewish state in 1948, therefore, was a watershed moment for the Jewish people. Read more » |
 One of the first things you do when your child is born is feed them—put them to your breast—nature’s own perfect formula. Good nutrition is the most basic element, along with love, that your child needs in order to flourish.
When my daughter Amrita was an infant, I had to be very careful with what I ate or her stomach would get upset. Read more » |
 We'll begin with Clover who is four, nearly five. We can guarantee that whatever the situation, she will ask the questions that are the most direct and awkward for adults, but logical and pertinent for her (and probably us too, when we admit it).
But first l must introduce you to our family. I am Emma. I have been married to my husband Jackfor ten years, and we have two daughters—Amber, eight, and Clover, four. Read more » |
 I recently reminded myself of a dilemma I have regarding raising my children Jewish. I was standing over the barbeque, smelling the alluring scent of chicken and steak wafting through the air, and wondering why I couldn’t have a bite. After all, I grew up eating plenty of meat, the meat I was cooking was good enough for my wife and kids, and I was plenty hungry. Read more » |
 In the past, when I have written about Islam’s perspective on child discipline, I described it as one where gentleness is preferred according to the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the examples set during his own life.
I feel that taking the time to explain, exercising patience and making an effort to try to see things from your child’s point of view are the strategies that are most conducive to producing good behaviour and a calm child. Read more » |
 Greetings InCultureParent readers. My name is Josh Ratner, and I will be taking a monthly stab at describing what it is like to raise my three, beautiful children, Dimitri (age 7), Eli (age 4), and Gabriella (age 9 months), along with my wife Elena (who is a physician), as Jews. I hope I will be able to offer some interesting insights. I come at this topic both as a current rabbinical student and as someone living in suburbia with all the secular challenges and enticements that entails. Read more » |
 I had an interesting conversation with my sister-in-law recently about an old friend of hers who had moved to the States and become a Christian, despite being raised in a practicing Muslim household. It made me think about what aspect of her former faith led her to believe that Islam was not for her.
I have come across a small number of former Muslims who have converted to a different religion or become atheist. Read more » |
 So, I caved! I gave my 12-year-old Ethiopian daughter a cell phone this year. As she was heading into middle school, I realized that she needed it to stay connected to us “in case of emergencies.” Well, as you can imagine, the phone has become an invisible lifeline between my sweet Grace and her friends. Lately, when she walks in the back door after school, she forgets to say hello to me or doesn’t hear me because she is texting. Read more » |
 Our mothers and grandmothers often do not know how their actions touch us. I was reminded of this truth when I read what my daughter, Shira, wrote about her memories of her grandmother's visit to our home two years ago on the Declaration of the Bab. This is a Baha’i holy day that commemorates the Bab’s revelation to his first disciple that he was the one who would prepare the way for the coming of the Promised One, Baha’u’llah. Read more » |
 Sex education is a bit of a minefield for me as a Muslim mother, as I am sure it is for most parents, whether Muslim or not. How much to tell? At what age? Who should do the telling?
I have been adamant that I will be honest with my children and expect them to have the courage to be honest. By never lying, I hope my children would be able to trust me and believe what I say to them and to understand that there is never anything to fear from when they are honest with me (oh the things they have gotten away with just by honestly owning up!)
My determination to be an honest mum has been challenged now that my oldest daughter is at an age when she is curious about the “birds and the bee’s” and in particular where baby’s come from. Read more » |
 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13: 13)
My children tell me the story of when they were in the orphanage in Ethiopia and how they had lost hope that a family would adopt them. We adopted three children who were siblings. Most of the adoptions they had seen were of one child at a time. Read more » |
 Come April, I dream of roses. Not about planting them or about cultivating them. The roses I dream of grow only in my imagination and begin to bloom there about the third week of April, during the Baha’i festival of Ridvan, when I call to mind the intoxicating scent of the sweet flower of my childhood that once grew in my grandmother’s garden—the Peace rose. Read more » |
 We are about to embark on another adoption journey. This time we call it an accidental adoption but it really is more like supernatural conception and childbirth. We thought we were done. We have three children from Ethiopia, two born to us in America and another from Guatemala. We never ever thought we would be adopting again. Similar to going into the doctor and being surprised by a positive pregnancy test, I can imagine this feels the same. Read more » |
 Now that my daughter Amrita is two, the focus of my parenting has shifted from questions on navigating our way through the daily routines of life, to more philosophical ones. She has started to ask "what?" and "why?" There are many questions to which I have straightforward answers, but I find myself increasingly thinking about how I will answer the more esoteric ones. Read more » |
 I have a small poster on my fridge, now old and slightly yellowed, which my children love. It's called the "Children's Rights and Responsibilities" and lists all of the basic things to which every child is entitled. They love seeing it and having it read to them—it makes them feel that as children they matter in their own right, and knowing that it is the duty of adults to provide these things is empowering to them. Read more » |
 Throughout much of Asia, spring is the time to observe the Buddha's birthday in Mahayana Buddhism. For Japan in particular, the ancient "8th day of the 4th month" has been updated to match the Western calendar, and thus every year on April 8th is the holiday of Hanamatsuri: the Festival of Flowers. The name derives from the story of the Buddha's birth, when the gods of India scattered flowers from the sky in joy. Read more » |
 After the birth of my first child, there was a thought that kept crossing my mind regarding the status of mothers in Islam. Growing up I had heard of hadith (Prophetic sayings) such as, "Your paradise lies under the feet of your mother," and not given much thought to them. Once I became a mother myself, I started to wonder what this meant. I was no one special, why would paradise lie under my feet?
Then I thought back to the sickness, discomfort and exhaustion I suffered during my pregnancy. Read more » |
 A brief nineteen days of austerity in a year filled with festive holy day celebrations, the Baha'i fast is assigned a spiritual significance that can be puzzling to those from religious traditions, cultures and societies in which fasting is not widely practiced.
Every hour of the nineteen days of this sunrise-to-sunset fast, the Baha'i scriptures tell us, is endowed with "a special virtue, inscrutable to all except [God]. Read more » |
 Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble. The Lord will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes. (Psalm 41:1-2)
As Christians we are taught to honor the "least of these." The reality is that only a small percentage of Christians are extending themselves for the orphan. Read more » |
 It was the summer of 1998 and I was lounging in the passenger seat of my friend's car. Spots of sunlight touched us as we made our way through the winding road of trees. I looked up at the bright green, waving leaves and was suddenly struck by the most vivid vision I had ever experienced. Smiling green eyes looked down at me from a round little face, framed by very straight strawberry blond hair. Read more » |
 One of my favorite holidays in Japan and Buddhism occurs not once, but twice a year around the spring and fall equinox: O-higan. The holiday literally translates as "the other shore." In Buddhism, this is a frequent metaphor for parting this shore of ignorance, hatred and greed to the other shore of nirvana, peace and so on. The holiday arose in Japan because the spring and fall equinoxes are both pleasant times of the year, and people can devote more free time to things like Buddhism. Read more » |
 "What's a camel doing in the closet—in the winter, in Maine?" The camel, I told the children in my daughter's class, had come all the way from the Middle East, where our religion began. She was too big to fit into a chimney, so she came right in through the front door, and the coat closet right beside that door seemed the most obvious place for her to leave the presents. Read more » |
 This week marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year. To celebrate, my husband and I took our daughter to a dinner organized as a fundraiser by a local Chinese teacher who is planning to take her students to Taiwan in the spring.
We had met this teacher last year, when she organized, again with her students, a different Chinese New Year party, one primarily aimed at families like ours who have adopted children from China and other Asian countries. Read more » |
 I had a very odd dream on the eve of Thanksgiving in 2004. A woman who looked like Kate Hudson handed me a very trendy Moses basket with a perfectly blond, blue-eyed baby boy inside. She looked me in the eyes and said, “Here is your new baby, Liam.†I looked at her incredulous and responded, “This is not my baby! My baby is going to have dark hair and her name will be Matéa. Read more » |
 Guilt seems to be an integral part of modern motherhood. It sometimes seems that no matter what you do, you are not good enough as a mother. Stay at home mothers sometimes feel they miss out on things they want to do and are accused of living through their children, going into overkill mode with every birthday party and milestone, turning their children into spoilt, selfish little monsters. Read more » |
 The first time you hold your precious little one, it is hard to imagine that one day this tiny being will be able to speak and share their thoughts with you. I would stare at Amrita for hours, wondering what she would come to care about and what she would be like. For about the first month of my daughter's life, she seemed to spend most of her time off in another realm. Read more » |
 My daughter has recently reached four years old, and has blossomed mentally and physically. What surprises me at this age is how her mind has matured and how she picks up on things that I might overlook. Recently, she started to imitate the Buddha seated in meditation as a joke. I don't know exactly where she picked this up, but in the bathtub she'll cross her little legs, put her hands in the proper mudra (gesture) and sit very straight, just like you see in statues of the Buddha. Read more » |
 In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow…
Christmas has passed, but I can’t get these lines from Christina Rossetti’s poem out of my mind. The poem, which celebrates the spiritual renewal symbolized by the birth of Jesus in the middle of winter, was put to music by modern composer Gutav Holst early in the last century and is now a well-known Christmas carol that was featured on many of the radio programs I listened to during the holiday season. Read more » |
 I felt a connection to a woman who had lived across the continent in Ethiopia. We had never met and will never meet in person. She was the birth mother of my three Ethiopian kids. I know it is strange to admit this connection but I can honestly say that I felt a call from her heart to "mother" her children via adoption. Bayoush was around 32 years old and had passed away due to AIDS a few years prior in 2005. Read more » |
 I am not close with members of my family of origin, nor do I live near any of its members. Since my husband is not Jewish, any efforts to raise our four-year-old daughter with a sense of her Jewish maternal heritage rest, naturally, with me. Given some recent difficulties with family members, I have had to take stock and ask myself how much time and effort I am interested in devoting to exposing my daughter to Judaism. Read more » |
 Thanks to a small number of Muslims and large chunks of the mainstream media, Islam has gained a reputation for severity and harshness. When it comes to the way we raise our children this can often be true, but usually due to our cultural backgrounds more than our faith.
My parents and grandparents grew up in Pakistan where it was the norm to be smacked by your parents, extended relations and anyone else that happened to be around and in a bad mood. Read more » |
 I don't believe in the Beatles.
"I just believe in me."
John Lennon had it right. Little did he know when he penned the lyrics to "God" in 1970 that he was echoing the very same sentiments that Guru Nanak, the founder and first Guru of the Sikh religion, professed nearly 500 years prior.
"There is neither Hindu nor Muslim. So whose path shall I follow? God is neither Hindu nor Muslim, and the path which I follow is God's. Read more » |
 New Year's is a huge festivity in Japan, larger than any other holiday observed there. After my first experience in 2008, I couldn't help thinking that it was Christmas and Thanksgiving in the U.S. all rolled into one three-day festivity. Japanese New Year, or shogatsu, inherits much of Chinese tradition, but is fixed to the Western solar calendar, and has evolved into a holiday that is uniquely Japanese. Read more » |
 Christmas is a favourite time of year for most people, parties, gifts, special foods and family traditions--what is not to like? But for most Muslims, this time of year always brings with it a host of issues to consider: should we participate? Should we join in the office parties and games of Secret Santa? Or should we avoid the celebration totally, writing it off as not part of our faith?
For those with children, the decisions we have to make require even more consideration. Read more » |
 It is the season of stars--the star that led the magi to the Christ child; the Star of David, central symbol of the Jewish people, which shines so brightly on the world during the celebration of Hanukkah; and the nine-pointed Baha'i star that rises a little later in the winter season, in February, during Ayyam-i-Ha, the five days of hospitality and gift-giving that precede the Baha'i fast. Read more » |
 We belong to an international Christian church that is very diverse. We are blessed to have people from all different nations available to help us with cultural differences in raising our children. Our Ethiopian friends worship with us as do Hispanic, Asian and people from 50 different countries. I believe the expression “it takes a village†really applies to us. Read more » |
 While watching Bill Maher's show on TV one night I had occasion to think about the Judaic culture I have inherited. Famous and infamous for his anti-religion stance (he thinks all religions are ridiculous, not just some), Maher was particularly confounded on the night I was watching about people who choose to change their religion as adults. What he said (and I paraphrase) is: I sort of get what it means to be born into a religion, but the idea of a fully rational adult choosing to believe in a lot of hocus pocus boggles the mind. Read more » |
 When I think of my daughter some day spreading her wings and heading off into the world on her own, I feel a mix of pangs of personal loss combined with an incredible excitement for the experiences that lay before her. Where will she go? Whom will she meet? What will she experience? Who will she become? I hope that my husband and I will have been able to instill her with a sense of confidence, trust and joy for herself and life, and to give her the tools my parents imparted on me, tools for navigating through life’s pleasures and challenges--trusting and learning along the way, and how to project for, and manifest one’s goals in life. Read more » |
 For most Americans or residents in the West, December is synonymous with certain holidays like Christmas or Hanukkah. I can fondly remember Christmas morning at my grandmother's house, opening presents, seeing beloved relatives and having a large feast before trundling home sleepy and well fed. Everything seemed more festive, brighter and larger as a child. Read more » |
 With the approach of Eid-ul-Adha this year, it felt like a good time to reflect on some of the family traditions that we had begun as a family and some of the ones that my husband and I had brought with us from our own childhoods.
Eid-ul-Adha is one of two Eids that Muslims celebrate around the world. The first is Eid-ul-Fitr which celebrates the fact that we have fasted for a month during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Read more » |
 I am facing one of the biggest challenges I have ever met: how to raise good Muslims. I have always found progress very easy in my academic and working life and have enjoyed the feeling of sailing through these spheres most of the time. This leads a person to the feeling, especially when you are young, that you are oh-so-clever.
Having children puts that whole mindset into perspective. Read more » |
 I can remember as a small child thinking that every family was just like my own; I had no base of experience to think otherwise. As I grew I discovered what a rich and diverse world we live in. Every parent must look at their life and choose the experiences that they want to repeat with their children. What kind of home world does one want to create? What traditions and beliefs do they want to share and instill? For some, it will be something very close to their own upbringing, and for others it will be entirely different. Read more » |
 Buddhism began for me as it did for many converts in the West: I saw an inspiring TV show about Asian philosophy at the age of 16, read some books and began meditating. But by college I felt myself wavering and leaving Buddhism for something more stimulating only to get bored again and move on once more. It wasn't until I met my wife, a Japanese girl studying English in college that things gradually changed. Read more » |
 The Baha'i Faith was born in the spring, in 1863, in a garden in Baghdad. During Ridvan, the festival that commemorates that beginning, Baha'is around the world celebrate the declaration of Baha'u'llah, whose claim to be the Promised One foretold by all the religions of the past was astonishing to some, incredible to others and to a few, the answer to long search and much prayer. Read more » |
 I have one of those families that turn heads. I usually don’t notice. I am too busy shooshing everyone because we are also very loud. But every now and then I notice people have no clue what to make of us and look at us quite perplexed. I am the mother of 6 kids. We are a family of 8.
My husband was raised in NYC and is Jewish by culture. Read more » |
 Both my husband and myself are used to living our lives as members of minorities; being aliens in a land not of our birth nor of our culture phases neither of us. In fact it feels quite natural. Perhaps it allows us to be fitting parents to our daughter, who, like each of us, was born into a culture quite different than the one in which she resides. Read more » |
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