Moms Around The World .

Earth's Mothers

(Extracts from the Oprah Winfrey Show).

Can you imagine raising your children in a place where milk costs about $8 a gallon? Or living in a place where your kids play outside in total darkness because the sun only shines 45 minutes a day? From Africa to Alaska, we're meeting moms from around the world!

The first stop on our trip around the globe is Kotzebue, Alaska, a small village 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle. For mom, Mary Swisher, an Inupiak Eskimo, life in Alaska can be challenging.For two months a year, Mary, her husband and two daughters, live in darkness because of a phenomenon called polar night. "We'll get only about 45 minutes of sunlight. The sun will actually rise about 10:45 and then it will set about 11:15," Mary says. "And then it's total [darkness] again."Surrounded by water, the only way to get to Kotzebue is by boat, plane or snowmobile. Like most families there, Mary lives in a small home to save on energy and fuel, which is brought on a barge in the summer before the Bering Sea freezes in the winter.Alaska's brutal winters last six months, with wind chills sometimes dropping to 100 degrees below zero. "If you threw out water outside in the sky, it would come down as powder. That's how cold it gets," Mary says.Because of transportation costs, food in Kotzebue is expensive. A gallon of milk can cost up to $8—four ears of corn costs $12!"The groceries are so expensive because the only way that you could get to Kotzebue is by flying in or by boat in the summer, so a lot of our groceries and our milk, they're flown in daily," Mary says.Mary says to keep warm and healthy, her family eats meat every day. The main source of protein for most Eskimos comes from their own backyards. "My husband hunts. He goes caribou hunting as well as moose hunting," Mary says. Two or three caribou will last Mary's family through the winter. The family also eats a lot of muktuk, a dish made from bowhead whale blubber and meat.Despite the high cost of living and brutal winters, Mary still feels Kotzebue is the best place to raise a family. "The culture here is very awesome. Being a little kid here, they like to celebrate life. I love this close-knit community," Mary says. "I'm proud to be an Eskimo, and so is my family.

According to the Seventh Annual Mother's Index, Norway is one of the top spots for moms!With free healthcare for children seven and under—and paid maternity leave that lasts a year—this Scandanavian paradise makes sure family comes first."It's a very family oriented society and the family is very important to the government," says Trine Grung, a mother of two, who calls Oslo, Norway, home.Along with extended maternity leave—which can be divided between a husband and wife—moms and dads each get 10 days off with pay to take care of their kids if they get sick! Plus, during the first few years, families can get about $100 a month from the government to help pay nanny costs.If your day care provider falls through? No problem! Trine says it's okay to take the kids to work for a day or two.Trine says obesity is becoming a bigger problem in Norway, so she tries to make sure her two children, Frida and Kasper, have as healthy a lifestyle as possible."When they come home from school, they're outside playing soccer, going in the woods. I want them to be active. I don't want them to sit down just being paralyzed in front of the TV," Trine says.So what is her impression of American moms? "The impression we get from TVs and what we read in the papers, I think they should be more strict…the health issue and the eating and everything," Trine says. "I'm very strict with my kids. Like there's no peanut butter ever in the house…There's a lot of love behind a no."Despite being health conscious, however, Trine says the best advice she gives her kids is about their emotional well-being. "To believe in themselves…like my little girl, for example, … if she comes home and said somebody said something bad about her hair I said, 'Do you like your hair?'" Trine says. "That's the most important thing. To believe and be strong in yourself."

Talk about lifestyles of the rich and famous! We traveled way down south to meet Andrea Santa Rosa in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.Married to well-known Brazilian actor Marcio Garcia, Andrea basks in the good life with their two children, Pedro and Nina. "I have a nanny. I have a cook. I have a housekeeper," Andrea says. "I think that Brazil is so [much] easier than America because the women [in America] don't have time for them[selves]. Just for the children. And for the house."In Rio de Janeiro, Andrea says looks matter. "It's very important to be beautiful. I love to work out. I like to buy some clothes," she says.But in a country with one of the world's highest crime rates, Andrea's top priority is keeping her family safe. "The violence here is terrible. I have security because I'm afraid sometimes. I have a bulletproof car."Like every mother, Andrea hopes that she is raising her children right. "When they grow up, I'd like them to be a good person and to do everything in the right way," Andrea says.

When Dina, a mom in Cairo, Egypt, began looking for a pre-school for her son, Aly—who was born with Down syndrome—she learned about the striking lack of opportunities for people with disabilities in her country. She says administrators at schools would ask, "Why do you want to send him here? Maybe you should send him to an institution."Though she had no business or education training, Dina opened the Baby Academy Preschool for Children, which provides top-of-the-line facilities. "I wanted a place that would treat every child as an individual, that would help him to achieve his maximum potential," she says.Now Dina has three schools, 1,000 graduates, and plans for further expansion!

Motherhood takes on a different meaning in Sudan's Abushok Refugee Camp. The camp, situated in the volatile Darfur region of the east African nation, is home to 54,000 displaced refugees. While visiting the camp, CNN reporter Jeff Koinange met Makha, a 25-year-old mother.Makha and her husband were living with their six children on a grain farm when their village came under attack by "Janjaweed," the ruthless mounted militias who have executed many of the atrocities in the ongoing genocide in Sudan. Janjaweed militiamen killed Makha's husband and two of her children, and raped her. She escaped and, with her surviving four children, fled 60 miles on foot.When Jeff spoke with her, Makha had been in the camp for seven months. She was building a six-foot mud wall in a desperate attempt to protect her children. "Perhaps if the Janjaweed come here, they'll see that wall and pick an easier target," Jeff explains.Despite everything the refugees of Darfur have been through, another mother at the camp named Fatima says she still has hopes and dreams for her children. "For me, life has no meaning. I just want my children to be able to live normal lives like children anywhere," she says. "Not as refugees."

In India, the legal age for marriage is 18, but more than half of the country's women are married and starting families by their 15th birthdays. On average, women make up only 6 percent of India's workforce—but that is changing.Over the past decade, hundreds of U.S. companies have outsourced jobs to India. Over 300,000 Indians are employed as customer service phone operators. One of these workers is 29-year-old mother Bharti, who works from 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.—literally through the middle of the night. Bharti rarely spends more than 15 minutes at a time with her husband or son. She says she hasn't spent a night with her husband in two months."My ultimate dream is to have our own flat, and Ishu [her son] have his own room, and I'm not working at all," Bharti says. "I would love to teach dance. That's what I want—a simple, very small life."These jobs imported from the West are changing Indian culture, especially how families are structured, "Their lives are in reverse. They adopt these American, Western lives at night and come back and try to live their Indian lives during the day," she says. "The mothers are still obligated, even though they're working all night long, to come and cook first thing in the morning, pick up the kids during the day. Their duties have multiplied.

In Thailand, 65 percent of women work and the average household income is only $6,000 a year. Muhlee, a mom in Bangkok, Thailand, works six days a week as a masseuse—making just enough money to pay for the one-room apartment she shares with her 18-year-old daughter and husband. In addition to her busy work schedule, Muhlee says her husband also expects her to do all of the housework.Because they do not have the room or the money, Muhlee's 9-year-old son does not live with his parents in Bangkok. Instead, he lives in the country with Muhlee's parents. She rarely gets to see him, but they talk every day."She would do anything for her kids," says Muhlee's translator."Muhlee is actually very lucky because she talks to her son every day," Lisa says. "She's one of millions of women around the world who are from the countryside, but have to leave their homes in search of work. Some of these mothers in China, in Mexico, in Thailand see their kids maybe once a month. Some see their kids maybe two times a year.

In Uganda, Lisa Ling introduces us to one woman who is almost single-handedly raising her country. Bakoko Zoe, a former government minister, has personally adopted 40 orphans whose parents died of AIDS. "Virtually that's all I do with my income," Bakoko says.As she raises these 40 children, Bakoko simultaneously lobbies to change laws that give men unlimited power over women. And she starts changing those laws at home…with her 20 sons. "In the future, when we have our wives, we must learn how to give them the freedom and how to empower them to look for their own survival," one of her sons says."Even if I am poor, even if I don't have what others have, I have fine young men who will transform our society,"