This Messy Mobile Life: How a Mola Can Help Globally Mobile Families Create a Life by Design

Do your family dinners happen in more than one language? Do you celebrate Christmas and Eid? Do you and your family feel at home in more than one country? If so, then you may be a MOLA Family and yes, this multicultural, multilingual, mobile life can get a little ‘messy.’

In South America, a mola is a shirt made from intricately stitched layers of patterns and cloth. Worn with pride, it represents who you are – inside and out. Mariam Ottimofiore presents a mola as the perfect metaphor for globally mobile families living between cultures, countries, languages, nationalities, identities and homes, who find their story hard to articulate. She has created the MOLA tool to help global families design and show their stories to the world. This is your ‘life by design.’

Pakistan-born Mariam is a writer, researcher and expatriate family specialist who grew up and lived in nine countries. Her husband is German/Italian and together they have raised their children in Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Raw, honest, inspiring and uplifting, This Messy Mobile Life comprises personal reflection, expert advice and survey research to help you take your global family from mess to mola.