I am a total Twitteraholic now and have become part of Twittermoms.  I received an email today with links to contests and product reviews.  I love me some free schwag, so I checked it out and saw a contest that interested me called the Cultural Kaleidoscope Blogging Contest.  It is run by Twittermoms and Global Wonders.

What is GlobalWonders?

a new brand of cross-cultural entertainment and educational products introducing children to the vibrant and varied cultures of their family, friends, neighbors and the world.

 

They asked Mom bloggers to create a post answering the following question:

How do you inspire your children to learn more not only about their own culture, but the customs, languages and lifestyles of others?

This is an easy one for me to answer.

Recently, I shared a favorite quote with you from Gandhi:

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Using a similar mindset, if you want your children to see other cultures and lifestyles, well, SHOW them.

Regular readers of Mommycosm know, we have a second home in Aruba.  No, we aren't rich.  We just love to travel and were fortunate enough to be able to live with my in-laws when we were starting out.  Fortunate that they had the space and that they weren't crazy, so we could actually stand living with them;)

Anyhow, an opportunity presented itself to go in with them on building a small house in Aruba and we put our money there before building our real home here in NH.  Yes, my daughter was born while we lived in their basement apartment, not ideal, but I wouldn't change that decision for the world.

The kids have spent A LOT of time in Aruba.  I think Sarah has been 5 times in her 6 years and Max maybe 3 in his 3 years.  Last winter, we were there for 7.5 weeks.  As a result, they have been exposed to different cultures and languages.  Max could speak Papiamento before learning English and still calls water “Awa” to this day.  Some of their friends there have dark skin and they speak Spanish.  Others look more like us, but speak only Dutch.  They often play with other kids who don't speak a word of English and have a blast with each other despite the language barrier.

Even though we live primarily in very white, waspy NH, my kids understand that the world is made up of people of different cultures, colors and languages.  They don't stop and focus on the differences between people.  It is just their version of "normal" and I anticipate that they will grow up to be more balanced people for having the experience.  It is mind blowing and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Are you a mom blogger?  Join me on Twittermoms and check out the contest.  Pretty cool.