Look around you.  What do you see?  Does everyone in your life look the same?  Same color?  Same political views?  Same socioeconomic level?  Same world view?  Same faith?  Think for a minute.  Think about whether you’re looking in the mirror at every turn. 

While I grew up in a beautiful town, most people looked just like me.  There was little chance to experience people of different ethnic backgrounds, cultures or world views.  And, while I had the privilege of growing up in a family that took in foster babies with different skin colors and with a mixed extended family including 5 mixed cousins of  different ethnic backgrounds, I still lived a fairly sheltered life. 

Going to college certainly opened my eyes.  One of my best friends to this day, who I met the first week of school, became my first friend with an Irish catholic dad, a mom from Ghana, and liberal political, faith and world views.  We have some of the best healthy debates on a regular basis over all that we agree and disagree on.  I have learned so much from her.  She now lives in Toronto, Canada, a city known for having one of the world’s most diverse and multicultural populations. Listening to her stories of life in Canada with her new friends from countries all over the world is so interesting!  I love hearing about how other countries handle maternity leave and how they do schooling and how much they pay for bread and milk and healthcare and in taxes.  The bottom line though, when it comes right down to the basics, is that we have so much in common with each other.  We all love our children and our families and want the best for those we care about.   But we live out those similarities and go about life in such different ways.  

Ironically, after discussing many of these similarities and differences today, I opened my MOPS MomSense magazine tonight to find an article titled “Mommies around the World.”  The article features moms from Brazil, Netherlands, Jordan, South Africa, and Singapore.  Five continents, five mommies.  One thing stood out among all the amazing differences… the inexplicable love and bond we all have with our children regardless of color, country, language, food choice, or travel method.  I was however once again mesmerized by the differences and couldn’t help but place myself in some of their shoes, thinking about how my life would be different if I lived where they do.  Some of those differences include lunch as the main meal, men not helping in the home, walking or public transportation as the main method even for grocery shopping with children in tow, no safe or clean parks to play at, small apartment living being the norm, no option for part-time or at home work for women, needing to live within guarded, gated complexes because of security reasons, and very small refrigerators requiring multiple trips to the market each week. Some of the differences are fairly small, but others are life changing.

I’m blessed with amazing family and friends.  It is easy though, to look around me and think I’m looking in the mirror.  That’s when I’m entirely thankful that I do have people in my life to remind me that the world is full of moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins and friends who all share the commonality of the love of their family and the drive for a better world, and yet, who believe vastly different things, vote for different political candidates, work toward different goals, and who’s everyday lives look extremely different than mine. We all could learn a lot from each other.  We’d all be better off with more diversity in our lives to teach us and to give us opportunities to influence. What do you see when you look around you?