Vida Ungar shares her experience of how to be a good mother and not to lose yourself

- Having come to Zagreb only 1 month ago, we didn’t know many people here, and when asking for people whose stories can inspire others, we heard your name: amazing woman and amazing mother who knows how to keep balance between the two.

- I don’t know how to bring up children but I know what I do with mine. One of the first things I did when I got pregnant was reading books about motherhood and I really didn’t like advice I read there: a child should sleep here, you should breastfeed like this, everything was like…you have to organize and reorganize your life for them, but it doesn’t sound right.

And then I read a book and there was a great idea: once you have kids, it’s a good idea to involve children into your life, not to disconnect them from your life. I don’t have to stop having my life once I become a mom, I should bring kids into my life and basically, that’s the only thing I do all the time. Of course, my life changed and kids bring many new things in my life, like I see everything new way through the eyes of my kids, but I don’t feel disconnected.

- Tell us the story of taking your 2-months daughter for kayaking.

Me and my man like sea, and once we decided that we need a vessel: some ship, a boat or something. This is how we came up with an idea to buy kayak. And when Inka was born (and she was born in June), the summer started and it was absolutely perfect. We put her in front of my legs, she had a perfect cradle there, I put the blanket over her, because of the sun and the sea and she would sleep there immediately. We traveled that summer a lot.

- What have you learnt from your kids?

My daughter is like a role model for me. She is totally free, she has a free spirit and is not spoilt with the world around her. She doesn’t feel restrictions in the way she thinks or the way she acts.

This summer we went to Kornati for about 10 days in a house; we were looking for Robinson kind of tourism. It had really beautiful nature. She was like Mowgli, like this character from the cartoons. You can see it her body that she is so free, and so open-minded to everything, so curious.  I told my friend that I would like to be like her because she really enjoys life in the best way possible, and she really has no restrictions.

For example, when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she says: ‘Oh, I want to be everything!’ And I think it’s great, the best thing ever.

    - Being so open-minded and discovering the world every minute, does your daughter still believe in Santa Claus?

She totally believes in Santa Claus, and she has a very sophisticated theory. She also believes in Peter Pan.  She doesn’t only believe in him, but she is in love with him and she will get married with him. Once, playing with her brother she said: ‘I will marry Peter Pan’ and her brother told her: ‘No, you can not marry him, he doesn’t exist.’ She was very frustrated and she was fighting with him that this is not true. At last, she said: ‘No, he exists, and he exists in the fantasy world!’

- What do you do now?

I’m happily unemployed, but of course, if I’m unemployed officially, it doesn’t mean I don’t work. I teach Portuguese, I translate books from Portuguese, and I develop and do some outdoor projects, and I’m also writing texts for a new website Nature park Medvednica that we have round here in Zagreb.  It’s very difficult for me to have a normal job because I like some many things and I like so many people. And then I would have to restrict myself to only one thing and I don’t see me like this. I try to be everything)

- What inspires you?

Apart from my kids, people inspire me a lot. People and life stories, especially the ones who don’t follow dogmatic laws and social rules. Now I’m questioning this dogmatic morality very much, and when raising children it’d be very easy to give them ready formulas: you have to behave like this, your goals should be…but it doesn’t feel right somehow. And people who inspire me…those who live with ‘the moral law inside them’ and not by some rules that were given by society, school, family or anything else.

- What is the main principle of your life?

To do things I like with people I like.