Episode Transcript
Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother.
She is really my superhero.
That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities,
perspectives and emotions about this world.
In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the people of the world together.
And when we hear the voices of women, when we listen to real lives of women from other
countries, we connect our cultures without differences or stereotypes.
And we get inspired by their stories to live a better life.
That's what this podcast is all about.
My guest today is Fotima Shohzoda Mohammedova.
Fotima is a Tajik girl, married and the mother of a little boy.
She's a graduate of social work and has a master's degree in sociology.
Moreover, she studied inclusive education in India.
Currently she lives in Jordan and works for an American company named Kudos as a sociologist
on a volunteer basis, providing psychosocial support for different categories of people.
She has published more than 10 articles on different topics, including migration, divorce,
women's rights and other topics in the United States, Russia, Tajikistan and Canada.
Fotima, how are you today?
Hi, Aziz.
Thank you.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm feeling grateful to be alive, lucky to have you here and very curious about you as
a person and you as a scientist and academician, a researcher.
When it comes to the articles you have written, the psychosocial support that you give to
people, what are some of the things that really motivate you and inspire you to try to change
in this world to help people with?
Thank you so much.
So the first motivation for me is like diversity because for me it doesn't matter like a person
with rich background, rich education.
For me, the humanity, first of all, is very important.
And I'm really worried about the world in general, not like only my community or country.
So and as I already mentioned that I publish already some articles on different topics.
They were really motivated, like I was motivated to publish them because I was working with
different cases while my case started with about different people's life, I understood
that people really need help because people have different situations, different crisis.
And for instance, while working in Russia in crisis center for women, I also researched
some different cases related how women suffer, how they suffer with their children when they
are alone because they are divorced and a lot of cases.
So these all cases were my motivation that I started to make research, to study different
subjects and especially related to women.
Thank you.
That's so interesting.
And I'm even more curious about another topic.
You're a mother now, you have a little kid and you have all this education and experience
with sociology, with social work, et cetera.
I believe a very important topic will be raising children or being a mom and in a way that
is healthy emotionally and psychologically for the children.
What are some of the lessons you have learned that help you in raising your baby and what
do you plan to do?
How will you parent him and what do you think are some mistakes some parents make that are
not healthy for the mental health of their children?
Thank you so much.
Really, really appreciate for this question because I was about to talk about it because
as I already mentioned that I'm in volunteer basis.
I'm also working with an organization called Vardim and we are providing social, psychological
support and we have different cases related to this.
But I wanted to say that it's very important because we have different cases and people
really have issues with raising babies, with planning family and all of these cases and
issues, I understood that they related to our self-consciousness.
Why?
Because according to psychologist in psychology, first of all, person should be separated from
their parents in order to start a family and to give birth, they need to be separated.
There is a theory called separation from parents, which is necessary and after that we can raise
healthy babies.
So when I was even pregnant before delivering a baby, I started to research more about how
to raise a healthy child, how to make a wonderful atmosphere and I came into conclusion that
it's very important to choose your partner.
For instance, before starting a family, me and my husband, we knew each other for seven
years which is very important because now we have a really healthy, friendly atmosphere
in our house because we know each other very well and it is very important before starting
a family.
People should know each other very well, also should be educated, should know their self
very well and after that they can plan a baby and in order to raise an healthy baby, it's
very important to give a choice for a little baby to raise him as a personality, to take
him as a group person, to have a very good relationship with him, not very aggressively
to tell the baby what to do or something but to ask him what he wants, it's really important
and nowadays I am reading very nice books about this, how to raise a child and they
always say that in order we want our children to raise healthy, we need to play with them.
To play with them, for instance, if we want to learn them, we need to learn through games,
different games, psychological games and after that they can be healthy because children,
they are very small and their perspective about the world is through games and only
through games they can be raised healthy.
And also some mistakes like we were raised by our parents with different perspectives
which are of course totally different from the society from the 21st century.
Of course, we need to value our culture, our traditions but also we need to take into consideration
that we should not repeatedly raise our children as we were raised because we need to research
how we were raised to find pros and cons and only after that we can repeatedly do the same
as our parents did while raising us because they were of course like some pros and cons
and times were different and all the time babies, their brain, their behavior, it's
totally different like from time to time and we need to take into consideration all these
things.
Thank you and you spoke about separation from parents and you spoke about raising children
in a different way not in an authoritarian kind of manner.
Well, some women when they have their first child, maybe they're living with their parents
or their mother calls them and gives them advice on how to discipline their child or
anything like that, how can they have the confidence and be more independent when it
comes to influences of people who are very important in their lives but maybe they don't
give them good advice or they don't know really how to raise a child in the 2023 or beyond.
How do you think they should do, should they do like you marry someone from a totally different
country and travel thousands of kilometers away so that they can totally decide what
to do or how can they do it, especially the old way of thinking parents, even if you tell
them look this is not good, I would like you to let me raise my child in my way, they might
get aggressive or hostile or angry so can you speak a bit more about that?
Thank you so much.
So in this question, I would like to say about it that it's really hard, like sometimes of
course like our parents, they want the best for us, they worry about us but this is what
I was talking about like separation, this is what separation is about that if you are
separated from your parents, they will not be your mom, like of course they can be your
role model but if you are not fully separated, you will always compare, for instance you
will compare your husband with your father and who are different, totally different people,
they will never be like the same or like it's logical that like they are totally different
people but people like some girls, some women, they compare and they find that their husband
is totally like a different person, he does not look like their father for instance or
men, they think that they are marrying a girl, she will behave as their mother behaved and
this is all about separation but separation, if people they don't have it and they start
a family, then they face these issues, they are not confident on raising a child and starting
a family at all because that's why they will always search for different advices, they
will take different advices, for instance I take advices of course but for instance
I take advices from the special person like who is educated, who has a degree in this
field for instance my husband's sister, she is a pediatrician and I always ask her advices
because I am sure that she all her life, she started medicine on this like and she is educated
of course, she knows better than me and that's why like we need to be very careful and like
during, like when I delivered the baby, I started to research and I always see that
people say like some even articles I found that people like before they advised after
breastfeeding also give a water to your baby which is totally not acceptable, right?
So these are the things like we need to take into consideration and this is all about education
like education is very important in all field of our life, in all part of our life.
If we are educated, we will raise good and healthy babies, if we research how to start
a family, how to take really good advice, we need to also research from whom we need
to like we should have a good examples that's why like here we come to education that education
is very important in our life and all part of our life like should be, we need to research
like all the parts and like we should be very careful with taking advices, I think so.
I agree with you 100% and I will ask about another thing and you deal with a lot of cases.
As it comes to psychology is different from chronological age where some people could
be 25 and they have the psychological maturity of a 12 years old or a 15 years old, if someone
realizes they have that or maybe they suffer from bipolar disorder or narcissism or anything
like that, should they wait until they get to handle all that before they start a family
or can they use the experience of becoming a mother or a father in order to develop their
psychological maturity or how would you do it because one of the issues too is that some
people might start a family while inside they're still children and they really create an atmosphere
that is psychologically uncomfortable for the whole couple, for the children, for everybody
because they didn't mature yet before they started.
So is your advice to wait?
If people have more serious psychological issues and mental health and maybe suffer
from depression, should they not have a family until they spend years fixing it or what is
your opinion on this?
Thank you so much.
I also think that this is also very important to mention that ideally when two people start
a family, they should be growing up.
What I mean by this that they should not have stress, depression, other issues, other issues
with their parents, with their childhood, with their childhood traumas, why?
Because if we have different traumas from childhood and which are still open and we
haven't cued them yet, we haven't even noticed them that they will of course affect our family.
Like here we say about here comes self-consciousness, here comes self-confidence and if we don't
have self-confidence, self-consciousness, so we can say about other issues that for
instance I don't want my husband to go somewhere because I am not growing.
I am not working.
I don't want someone also to work.
This is the problem.
And when we talk about these problems, like before starting a family, we need to cue all
our traumas which we already had from our childhood.
And if a person is not mature, as you already said that it doesn't matter that how like
he is 50 or 30 inside, like inside we normally have, according to psychology, we normally
have child inside child, which is very totally fine, but we should not over it like there
should be balance between a child inside and a mature person.
But in order to take a balance, to make a wonderful balance, every person I think before
starting a family and in general, even if it's not related to family, we need to go
to a psychologist and to cue our traumas because traumas are not only about our parents, they
are bad or something, no, it's about society as well.
For instance, during the childhood, for instance, in the kindergarten, I had some issues and
someone told me that I am very fat or vice versa.
And then I started believing and it affected my self-esteem.
And then I was down because of it.
And we need to work with this because it's cool also, we get some traumas during our
school studies and society always puts inside our brain, their values, how to make their
frames.
They are frames, it's very nice, but sometimes, for example, a person can get out of the frame
and people want us all, society requires to be the same, which is bringing for some people
because of these standards becoming very aggressive, stressed and et cetera.
So yes, that's why I think that it's important to be mature, first of all, and after that
to start a family.
It's really important because then you will not be depressed or have issues with your
husband or with other family members.
I agree 100% and you spoke about society, how it can have even a trauma that can affect
the people.
Well, in your case and in many cases, we live in a world that is more open, people from
different countries and different cultures get married, they have children.
Well, in such atmospheres, how do you think is the best way to raise a child?
Is it to raise him to be part of two cultures?
Is it to be raised to be part of the culture where they live?
Sometimes some cultures, if someone is mixed, they don't accept them.
So some children will not be totally fitting into any of the two cultures at all.
What is your opinion on this situation of being from two countries or two cultures and
how best to raise a child so that they feel they belong somewhere, even if one of the
cultures or both don't see them as 100% pure from that place?
Okay, thank you so much.
Absolutely yes, it's very important.
And I think that this is what I'm mentioning that being a Michoud is very important, like
not to be selfish, for instance, in order to raise a child.
And if both parents are selfish, one will take the child to his culture and the other
to his, and then he will not be sure 100% the child to which culture he belongs.
So in terms of this, we already decided that our child, for instance, will take my culture,
my husband's culture and mix it.
And if I take Jordan, actually, we have almost the same culture with my husband, because
respect the values of Islam, they are the same and not so high difference between us.
For instance, if I take all the cultures which are Western, I can say that yes, it will be
more difficult to raise a child in the Western culture.
I mean, if, for instance, the religion is different, but in our case, it's a Muslim
culture, Muslim religion, and we don't feel like the very big difference.
But we, for instance, some holidays which we have in our country, for example, in my
husband's country, they are not, but they are celebrating, he and his family with me,
my holidays, and I'm celebrating with them.
So this is a kind of a balance, which is very nice.
And it's all about respecting each other, which should be discussed before, I think.
Thank you.
Absolutely wise and reasonable.
And to finish this, we live in a time where especially teenage girls are growing up with
social media, with TikTok, where many studies show that they have lost a lot of self-esteem
and self-confidence because they see photoshopped girls with perfect lives and looks, and they
see people who seem to be super rich and they compare it to themselves and they feel insignificant
and they become even more shy and deal with depression.
What is your advice for them and your opinion about how to make, because we live in a world
where we cannot really stop social media, how to use it in a way that is positive for
their psychology rather than destructive?
Oh, wow, that's a wonderful question, actually, yes.
These are all your questions.
They are up to the point, actually, yes.
Thank you for that.
For social media, and this is what I was telling that if from our childhood we have a wonderful
self-esteem, it's balanced, then no one can destroy it.
There will be ups and downs, but it will not totally destroy and bring us to the stress.
But if we take, for instance, people, girls or boys with low self-esteem from childhood,
it will affect them more than people, like teenagers who had wonderful self-esteem before.
That's why raising an healthy child is very important.
But if we take how to use, actually, I really like Instagram and I don't use TikTok a lot,
but Instagram, it's very nice, actually, because I learned a lot from Instagram.
A lot of studies are there, a lot of very educated people, they have Instagram, they
are showing, but this is very important to follow only that people who are educated and
from whom you can learn something new.
I can bring an example of me that before I also was following some stars which were super
rich and super cool according to, I mean, of course, they were very rich because they
are stars, different stars, but they are showing their luxury life, which can affect psychologically
us that, yes, you are down and you need to be more motivated.
But of course, it takes time to be a star in this and that.
So I just decided for me that I will not follow people who show only the luxury life.
For instance, I can be motivated by people who can show their hardworking, how they became
very rich, but not like, for instance, some people, they have talent from their birth,
they are singing and of course they are stars.
But me, for instance, I don't have this talent, so I don't see this person can motivate me.
Even if they can motivate me, I don't have this talent of singing.
So that's why I was searching for me, for instance, to follow that people from whom
I can learn something new.
And they are psychologists, they are sociologists, they are people who started their business
from zero and now they grew up and they show how to make a good business, how to start
entrepreneurship, et cetera.
So I'm learning from them and I really advise teenagers to do the same and to know more.
Social media, it's not all the time real because I know personally some people who are in lives
of total different people, but they are showing in social media, total different things.
They are exaggerating a lot of times, but it's all about education.
If teenagers are educated, they will research, they will understand, they will realize and
analyze that it's not all the time real.
That's why they need to make filter.
But also, I think that it's important for their parents to educate them first before,
for instance, buying them phone and they need to be educated how to use it with a good knowledge,
how to filter things which are not healthy, how they can affect.
And also it's very important, I think at school, they should be taught about social media that
not all the things you see there, it's true and it can also affect your self-esteem.
And then some people, they even commit suicide because of not being up to this high level
standards and it's one part of this, it's cool, which can affect positively, I mean
to educate students and parents also, they can help teenagers.
And also I wanted to say here that till 21 years, we will not be fully matured.
Like some decisions which we make, they are not according to psychologists, mature decisions.
After 22, when we made a decision, it means that it's already mature decision and it's
a decision, but here it can be affected, like our decisions can be affected by other factors.
Thank you.
You are welcome, thank you Fotima for this experience, for sharing your knowledge, for
sharing all these insights.
I encourage you to keep going, helping people, changing lives and I wish you success.
I wish your family all the positive growth that you desire and thank you again for participating.
Thank you so much.
I am so happy to share my thoughts and I think these thoughts are really important because
they can help someone to change their lives and I had like experience of changing into
positive some lives of people and I would like to be helpful.
Thank you so much for giving me this wonderful opportunity and wishing the project to be
more like popular and grow and thank you so much for taking into consideration girls thoughts
and opinions which is very important.
Thank you so much.
You are welcome.
