Let Them Touch Babies

the bean...

Above: My parents look on as some Turkish women take Harrison out of their arms and treat him like their own, common practice in Istanbul.

I was thinking the other day about how much Turks publicly loved every child and showed it by hugging and touching and pinching and playing and feeding them. Pete and I talked about how much we would miss that and boy we do.

When forgetting that baby touching doesn't exist here, I just rationalize that Americans are crazy about themselves and have trouble connecting with each other, and maybe have a little too much knowledge about germs and the like, and I really miss the Turkish women and young girls who would just snatch my children from me to play with them everywhere we went.

I know that parents complain about "strange" people touching their babies, and I have to always remind myself to tell my animal loving (and therefore baby-loving) 1.5 yr old son to "not touch the baby's face" when he waddles over (okay - he is definitely running by now, but I don't want advance him yet) and is interested in the secret bundle beneath the blankets in the "carrier."

Even with the verbal reminder from me, showing the parent that I understand the unspoken rule, I often get awkward slash nervous voices coming from them saying things like, "Oh isn't that cute...look another baby." When I know in their minds all they are thinking is, "Get away from my baby with your wood chip-mud filled baby so we can go home clean. Why did I bring my child out of his room?"

Is this germ thing for real? Anyone who has let people touch their babies (specifically faces even), has your baby gotten any life-threatening disease from this? I have never heard of such a thing, but maybe it is because I avoid the liable-scared doctors that the American Health care system creates.

I have had 2 chances to do research in this field and in both cases I have had no trouble with people manhandling my children since birth (washed hands or not -- I hear the "ewww gross" coming through your skull and I kindly turn my nose to it). No one got sick or had negative repercussions from my sharing.

The Turks had such a deep love for children, I think since they recognized that having a family is valuable and precious. I think that in the US, a country where it is common to treat money like it comes from trees, we think that therefore things that are deemed "expensive" (children) are really not that valuable since everyone has them.

But they are so valuable. And why should we keep these precious, valuable things to ourselves?

I often think about my own mom who brought us everywhere, all 7 of us. I always thought it was because she loved us, but I think I am now understanding in my old age, that she loved everyone else and believed that children are what you share with those you love.

I think I believe the same thing. Of course, don't we all believe most things our mothers do?

Children are meant to be shared. They are only little for so long and we don't all get to enjoy them when they are young. Let those who can't enjoy their own enjoy yours.

I want to be more communal here. Individualism is only good for so many things.

Holidaze

So living in Turkey allowed us the pleasure of ignoring every holiday we ever experienced as children.

It was actually wonderful.

I always liked holidays and family time, but not hearing about or having to prepare for the next holiday and the next holiday and the next holiday, and not having to ask everybody, "What are you doing for St. Patty's?" or "What are you doing for Valentine's Day?" just made life simpler.

I am still in that mode. That mode where I am not sure which holiday is next until my mother takes out the scotch tape and starts applying her laminated cut-outs on the beautiful glass front door she's got.

I say to mysef, "Ah - it must be Easter. Harrison has a pink bunny with scotch tape on it sticking out of his mouth."

The same thing happened with Halloween (pumpkins) and Thanksgiving (pilgrims) and Christmas (candy canes) and Valentine's Day (hearts) and St. Patrick's Day (shamrocks).

I am not sure I will every keep up with the decorating pace.

Sometimes I think that the only reason the American Dream relies on owning a home is so there is enough room to store all the decorations for the American holidays.

I do like good design. I do like beautiful things, but do we need all these holidays? Could we stick with just 2 or 3 a year?

Like I would keep Halloween and Christmas for sure. If I could have a third, it would have to be Thanksgiving. I think it's because who needs a holiday in the summer? Do we need something else to celebrate besides the beautiful weather?

After the winter clouds move away (where do they go?), I need no reason to celebrate.

The sun is enough.

American Mom Out of America

Annie O.

on her travels

You can take the mom out of America, but can you take the America out of the mom? The interview for today is, the always striving for the best, Annie Ozarac.

I had the privilege of working with Annie in Istanbul and really enjoyed collaborating both as workers and as mothers. She was well versed in kids' needs and had to really kick it in gear since she had double to kids to tend to for her first go at it.

Annie is one of the lucky ones who got to have twins. Two for the price of one.

Here are some of her thoughts about being a Mom overseas:

What is being an American mom like when living in a culture that has different ideals from America?

This is a hard one to answer because I am surrounded with people, regardless of culture, who have the same ideals as me. I don’t feel all that different living here. In fact, I feel more different when I go home since the expat life is such a “thing” and all of the English speakers I hang around are also expats and just “get it.” On my trips back to Seattle this fall, I felt a bit like Sting in his song “I am Alien.”

This difference really hit home when I was at the grocery store and I was fumbling around with the debit card, and the cashier stopped, looked at me and said, “You aren’t from around here, are you dear?” My reply, “Well, I used to be.”

What is it like when other mother's (and grandmother's) ideas differ from yours?

The only thing I hear differently is the whole “fear of cold” thing here in Turkey. There is a belief that a cross breeze will make you sick, and since I am from the NW, and love a good, cold cross breeze, I hear about this every now and then. I just ignore it though. Sometimes I say to strangers who make comments, that I am American and we like it cold and are used to it. They look puzzled, but they leave me alone.

Why did you choose to be a working mother? How do you feel it benefits you? Do you regret your choice at all? Would you ever stay at home?

I chose to be a working mom because I love my job. I am also lucky to have a five-minute walking commute to work (editor's note: best commute ever), and a great nanny who took care of our boys until this year when they started pre-school, which is a three-minute walk the other way from our home. I get the best of both worlds because I am able to be a professional and a mom. Being a mother, and especially a mother of twins, is a hard job for a variety of reasons, but one thing that I feel is the hardest is maintaining a sense of self. I easily get wrapped up in being a mom that I forget about my own identity. When I am at work, I can re-claim that sense of self, which I think makes me a better mom. Having kids also makes me better at my job, as when I come home, I have no choice but not to think about work, so I can also escape and decompress from work.

What is your favorite thing about watching your boys grow up?

I adore watching their personalities develop. I think they are hysterical. They are genetically identical, but so different in the ways they interact with their world.

How do you manage teaching your boys English in a Turkish speaking environment? Are you ever afraid that they will not be able to communicate with you in English?

This is actually the easiest part of being a mom for me. Raising bi-lingual children has been really, really easy. I speak English, Koray speaks Turkish, and Ali and Omer are fluent in both. It is that simple. As far as their English communication skills go, no worries there. It is like the inquisition on a daily basis.

What is it like having twins?

Having twins is like navigating through a swarm of butterflies and locusts.

Raising twins is like being Sisyphus, and liking it.

Besides being a mom, what else would you like to be known as? How else do you identify yourself?

A strong, reliable person who works hard and always follows through, who loves to cook and really, really wants to learn how to make a quilt.

What is your favorite part of being a mom?

Snuggles and smooches and watching them grow.

What snack do you like feeding your boys most and why?

Smoothies. We make smoothies after school and when the weather is agreeable, we sip them out on the patio. Ali, Omer and I look forward to this ritual, and they start talking about it as soon as I pick them up from pre-school. (editor again: Annie had the BEST idea ever when we were in Turkey - add some Spinach to those smoothies! The kids go crazy for it.)

What is your favorite toy for your boys (even though they might not play with it)?

There are two things. One is the original See-n-Say that I won in a bidding war on e-bay. I was so vehement about winning the bid because it was my favorite toy. The boys like it, but are not as into it as I was. Also, stuffed animals. We have a full blown exotic zoo of stuffed animals, but they only like three of them. (Me again: totally my world)

What is the best thing about being an overseas mom?

The travel opportunities. We get the chance to go to some cool places every year, one of them being North America. Our time back home is always precious.

Is there anything you miss from the US that you wish you had in Turkey or that you HAD to bring to Turkey because they didn't have it there?

Peanut butter, children’s medicine--you can get everything here, but I like the brands from home better--Gap/Old Navy socks and jammies (I swear by these) and Frenchy’s, an amazing thrift shop in Nova Scotia.

Thanks Annie for your thoughtful words. I am sure mothers who are not traveling the world will feel comforted to know that mothers have the same existence no matter where they live - to care for their young. Enjoy!

Defined

Spontaneity is something I lacked the two years I lived in Turkey. Service buses were a way of life.

Wait a second...that is meaningless to you, and to explain it would just take too many words.

Maybe this is better...our lives were planned and it wasn't our choice?

Let me try again... Imagine sharing rides all the time with about 75 people in your neighborhood and doing so at specific times to specified, predetermined locations. This is not only something we were subjected to, living as a foreigner on the campus of a school 45 minutes from center city Istanbul, but a significant portion of the not so wealthy population in Istanbul also used service buses as a way of life.

It led to an extremely communal life, with some benefits, but ultimately a life that lacks any sort of spontaneity.

We never left campus unless it was by service bus (or the occasional taxi to get to the airport or the hospital to give birth), and other people only entered campus to work or attend the school that was there.

If you haven't followed the logistics up to this point, this means that our colleagues were our friends, and our colleague's kids were our kids' friends. It felt sort of incestuous at times, and we had to shape ourselves according to whoever came to live on campus any given year.

So, on the Saturdays when we didn't feel like trekking into the city for 8 hours with our 2 year old on a bus, with 20 other people who we worked with 40 hours a week and lived with the other 128, we were on campus - wandering around like nomads without a land to wander in and with nowhere to be. We had no definition.

I felt spontaneous today.

As a working American mother, I gave my kisses after walking in the door, threw on coats and shoes and whisked the boys to a magical place - the public park.

The park is the center of spontaneity. There is a chance to go to the one with the fireman's pole and the mini-zoo one day and the castle-like structure the next. There is a chance people we have never seen before might talk to us or play with us. There is a chance we will hear Spanish being spoken, and I can convince myself that I really would speak fluently if I was friends with a Spanish speaker. There is a chance friends who live somewhere else and work somewhere else might be there too. There is a chance (albeit slim) my husband might meet us there because he wants to spend time with the family, not because he wanted to escape the four walls of our home and the park was his only option.

When faced with many choices, choosing the park feels so virtuous.