Turkish Federation in Canada 🇹🇷🇨🇦

I was in a nice restaurant in Paris and my 9 month old baby girl started crying. An older woman, the owner, power walked up to me with her arms stretched out, speaking French, and grabbed my baby and held her against her cheek. So sweet, in broken english, she demanded I sit down and enjoy my meal and that she would take care of her new little princess. They both looked so happy after a few minutes of pacing, and I swear the chef prepared a comically large, full chicken and mashed potatoes for my bay girl of which she had half of all over her face within minutes. This was not the only time on my trip that an older woman stopped what she was doing to help us. I walked into a bar, midday, asking to use their bathroom changing table. They laughed and said that was not a thing in Paris. They moved everything off of the bar and insisted I change her diaper right there. Gross right? Nobody in the bar was phased!! They looked happy to be helpful! It was embarrassing to accept help at first until I realized that it was truly their pleasure and their culture. (Now that a couple of my kids are looking more like adults than babies, I get it. You miss having those babies around.) I LOVE helping women with their babies. I do not claim to know any more than them, but sometimes it just takes someone who is “not mama” to distract them. And for the parents, this empathy means the absolute world. I rarely experience family friendly moments like this, even in the South. Asheville restaurants have turned away my very well dressed family, and even said comments like “we’re not that family friendly. You should try the pizza place down the street.” We went to Kiawah Island every summer for years, but after multiple experiences of being turned away after them seeing we have a toddler with us, I am done. It’s really sad because it’s not just the restaurants fault, it’s our culture that is allowing this to happen. If people were excited to see children in public, their restaurants would follow their lead. I would love to get back to traditional southern culture, where children and babies are welcomed members of society. Where it is not just OK to bring them out of the home, it is encouraged. I would love to get back to a culture of community.

🪖 % Willing to Fight for Their Country 🇹🇷 Turkey — 88% 🇦🇱 Albania — 69% 🇸🇪 Sweden — 66% 🇫🇮 Finland — 64% 🇲🇪 Montenegro — 63% 🇬🇷 Greece — 63% 🇳🇴 Norway — 61% 🇱🇹 Lithuania — 52% 🇵🇱 Poland — 49% 🇸🇮 Slovenia — 49% 🇪🇪 Estonia — 45% 🇨🇦 Canada — 39% 🇱🇻 Latvia — 37% 🇺🇸 USA — 37% 🇭🇺 Hungary — 33% 🇨🇿 Czechia — 33% 🇳🇱 Netherlands — 30% 🇩🇪 Germany — 27% 🇮🇹 Italy — 25% 🇸🇰 Slovakia — 25% Source: 2025 survey by Riga Stradins University & Center for Geopolitical Studies Riga (nationally representative; via FPRI). Over 31,000 respondents across 20 NATO allies surveyed