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Hi Folks, I have a real treat for you today. Have you ever met someone who inspired you with their vision and incredible ideas? Well, I have and it is Cat Wayland, editor of International Family Magazine. Enjoy!
In the following Q and A with Cat, you too will see how her simple plan can make a big impact on all of our lives once we engage in her amazing adventure called IF magazine!
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Whether we like it or not, we live in a time of transition, where the world is becoming more and more globally focused. Can you address how this affects families?
What is exciting about the global community evolving, is that families are talking about it in different ways.
As an editor and a writer I love to overhear people talk to one another. I have heard U.S. mothers and fathers more and more lately talking about the importance of their children learning a second and third language. In Europe that is a natural course of family life and education, in America this is a new phenomenon.
But of course, new things can scare a lot of people. People are innately territorial. We are not that different from our friends in the animal kingdom. I think it is important to define the safe boundaries before a great interaction can occur. Our mission statement at IF mag is that if our readers are willing to do the work in their lives to find a safe, and loving home for their families, then we will work to give them that on the internet at International Family Magazine.
Much of the emphasis with Responsible Family is focused on safety. How do you see safety with regard to "international families"?
As many of the social networking platforms have launched in this initial phase of Facebook, You Tube, My Space, there are so many voices, so much access and very little filters in place. This is exciting, wonderful, scary and yes, reckless. There are places where I as an adult don’t feel completely safe engaging on. I went on a travel social networking site once to get some thoughts about a country I wanted to highlight on the magazine, and it was like I was in an elementary schoolyard again being bullied. It was awful. And that is a mild example of a bad interaction on the wild, wild web.
On International Family Magazine, everyone is welcome to contact someone at IF mag to tell their story, and their story if non-offensive and authentic, will find a space. Same with our blog, we launched it in January and are now ready to accept many voices and are beginning by inviting friends, family, and friends of friends or completely new friends. The access to me or another staff member is there to find a space to share, to dialogue, but there is a filter in place so that some rules of engagement for dignity, no political or religious band-standing or hate speech is in place.
You have an incredible background. Can you tell us about Cat in 3 sentences?
I was orphaned in the U.S. and adopted to live abroad in the U.K. by 13 months old, so I was an international citizen with no real roots to hold me back from my first memory.
International Family Magazine as a place of storytelling and making an extended family around the world took root in my life first and then grew into an editorial community that I would help to manage.
My philosophy is that there will always be chaos, but if we give it dignity, life will be a grand adventure.
How did your interest in international families and stories begin and how did it evolve into IF magazine?
My fist son was conceived less than four months after 9/11. I knew that I had to stay in New York City for work and I wanted to feel that it would be safe. I am not one to complain unless I have been part of the solution first. I believed that starting a dialogue with other parents around the world, telling one another’s stories, might break through to some world wide diplomacy.
I knew a global magazine for families could not be about making cookies and organizing. I believed that the real stories that make us human as parents, siblings, grand-parents might have a better chance to connect us. I for one needed to talk about post partum depression, and how to merge my husband’s German American family with my gypsy roots, how to raise children that I could not give a biological history to, and on and on. As soon as I began sharing my stories with friends, the stories began to pour in.
IF magazine is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to study people around the world. The reality is that life is different but many of the lessons we learn are the same. This is amazing! What is
the most important goal for you, with regard to IF magazine?
I am smiling as you said that because that is my goal for IF magazine – “The reality is that life is different but many of the lessons we learn are the same.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. I will put my head on my pillow tonight knowing that IF magazine is out there doing a good job, that all the hard work has paid off. Thank you for this, wonderful, wonderful. Somewhere I hear fireworks and champagne corks a-popping!
Other than global diplomacy, I hope our readers make some great new friends, warm their hearts, laugh their heads off. I like to travel, I always have so I will get on a plane, train and automobile just to meet someone new. But my sister and mother might never do this. Wouldn’t it be great if my family or someone else made a friend from the safety of their living room and found that this friend in Porthcawl, Wales was so very much like them living in Rhode Island, U.S.A.
Finally, in this age of media pushing the story out to our families, what about reinvigorating the storytellers of the family? What about those nights around the fire together hearing a good story from Uncle Joe or Ti Ti Maria? This was my idea - to make all the storytellers of all the families of all the world valuable again because we published them on IF magazine and told their great story to the world. There is so much incredible treasure stacked right in our own living room. People spend so much time searching for what is in their own backyard.
One of the things that I find very interesting is that IF Magazine, with it's title poses the question "If we could change the world with a story, would we?" And I think the answer is a powerful YES!
Thanks, Cat for sharing your journey with us!
Catherine Wayland, Editor, ph 646-413-4884
IF Magazine http://www.internationalfamilymag.com
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Communication 
