Febr 16th, 2023
Being an immigrant mom, I definitely express my love for my daughter differently from Canadian moms I know. While Canadian moms are more fun-loving and easygoing, I was always more on a stricter side. I concentrated on providing my daughter with the knowledge and life skills that I deemed essential to her future success. And so, I constantly invested in her education. Firstly, I sent her to French Immersion programme, so that she has the advantage of knowing the language. The first two years were really hard. Like many parents, I didn’t know French, so I couldn’t help her. After a while, I decided to sign up for a French course, I got basic proficiency in grammar and vocabulary, so I could give my daughter a hand in homework. Knowing that many kids in Canadian schools have trouble in math, I wanted to be proactive and sent her for mental math at UCMAS Centre in Mississauga. In high school she went to math lessons at Polcomat at the Polish Centre and later additional math lessons at Academy for Math and English. Also, knowing how important physical activity was, I sent her for Tae Kwon Do, which she did for 5 years. After she decided to quit, she went through two semesters of gymnastics. I helped her with English, history and sciences in primary school. All in all, I was a hands-on mother.
While all of my efforts to educate my daughter were well-meant, only some were appreciated. My daughter hated math and she has much more talent for humanities than sciences. Hence, we often had disagreements about what was important and why. Rather than studying math, she preferred to read, write and try to understand human nature while I wanted a more rounded education for her. Naturally, she would much rather have spent time with her friends in the park. She sometimes complained of too many activities and I think that maybe she was exhausted and overstimulated. On the flip side, she enjoyed her Scouts’ activities that I signed her up for in eighth grade very much. She enjoyed the hiking camp she went on with her friends last summer where the girls were hiking in the woods for two weeks without any conveniences of civilization. She is still actively engaged with training young GirlScouts and draws a lot of pleasure from teaching young girls survival skills. I truly believe that all knowledge we ever acquire is going to come in handy at some point in our lives.
How do you express love for your children?
