the birth of umma etc.

We were g-chatting like any other day.

Time magazine’s recent cover story was “Are You Mom Enough?” and stirred a big buzz everywhere.  We took Time’s quiz titled “What’s your parenting style?”  amy scored a 10%, and jean scored a 20%, which meant we were “Sears skeptic” (not so attached to the “attachment parenting” style).




Parenting is like religion-- it's ultra-sensitive, borderline-taboo.  Mothers have very strong beliefs on every aspect ranging from swaddling to feeding.  Proclaiming the benefits of breastfeeding is like spreading the Good News.  Some people will believe with all their heart, and others will renounce it.  Something that seems so rational and common sense to one mother may be the exact opposite for another.  This makes talking about parenting like walking on eggshells.  We'd almost rather talk about religion.  Or politics.  Or sex.  At least people rarely get upset when you talk about sex!

Anyway, we digress...

Ever since we found out that we would be an umma (“mom” in Korean), we’ve been sharing our day-to-day from pregnancy to now. Because amy was pregnant 7 months before jean, it’s been a lot of, “amy, did this happen to you?  What did you when...?  Why is he doing this?  Is that normal?  Did you use this?  Did Logan do this when he was...?  What should I do when he does...?” etc.

Moms are so much more than "just a mom" so when it came to coming up with a name, we couldn’t get past having "umma" in the name.  amy's a full-time working mom, and jean's at home for now - it's complicated (will do an entry on that later on). We thought it would be fun to post about our adventures being an umma in our own lives, along with all of the inspirational "et ceteras" that come our way. 

Hence the birth of umma etc.

It should be noted that jean and amy do not have the exact same parenting style-- we believe that every baby is different and not all methods work with every baby (though don't you wish there was a universal handbook that worked for everyone??)   

We hope this blog is useful to other ummas, and if not, we hope its at least fun to read.  Personally, this is a way for us to remember the ups and downs of being an umma and more.  We figure we would one day have another baby, maybe another one after that...and we need to remember all these things we figure out now.  So if for nothing, it’ll become a journal for us to look back at in the years to come.


cheers,
jean + amy