Apparel Design & Fashion Business School
Tamara L. O’Shaghnessy
Mrs. USA’s Life Lessons
Mila Pershyna is on a mission to help Michigan kids — and one day kids all across the country, she hopes — learn the kind of skills to help them be confident and self-sufficient as they grow.
The Oakland County mom of 5-year-old Andrew and 11-yearold Daniel is making teaching life skills — skin care, car maintenance including how to change those pesky flat tires, sewing, etiquette, budgeting and career exploration — part of her platform as she reigns as Mrs. USA 2022.
“I want to give kids the opportunity to learn basic skills and to be who they want to be in life,” Pershyna says.
Just as she did growing up in her native Belarus, Pershyna wants kids to get their hands dirty while learning, something she says is missing from so many kids’ lives these days as the focus is more on core curriculum and getting into the right college.
She offers free workshops and opportunities through her nonprofit, MP Global Foundation, and is offering after-school classes locally in Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham. In May 2023, the foundation again will host its annual Free Kids Fashion Summit, something Pershyna is especially passionate about as a fashion designer herself.
She’ll take her vision of touting the importance of life skills to the world stage next summer as she vies for Mrs. Worldwide.
Pershyna didn’t grow up a pageant girl. Instead, even though she’s surrounded by pageant friends who urged her to try it, she thought it simply wasn’t her thing. When she jokingly told her husband about all the pageant talk, he said, “why not?”
While raising her boys, she says she’s been focused on her fashion designs along with promoting local businesses and helping refugees arriving in Michigan to settle in and find a job. She’s also now exploring becoming a lawyer to better advocate for people’s rights.
So, with her boys getting older, just before the pandemic, she finally decided to try doing a pageant, competing for the title of Mrs. Bloomfield Hills. While she didn’t win, she says she learned a lot and found plenty of encouragement to keep going. Pageants, she says, are great self-confidence builders and she now recommends them to everyone.
Pershyna recently took a break from her busy schedule, which includes appearances and volunteer work as part of her Mrs. USA duties, to chat about being a mom.
“Becoming a mom completely changes the world, it is no longer you. It’s you and many other people in your family. I love it and wouldn’t change anything,” she says.
She has always made her husband and boys her priority. But somewhere along the way in the past year, she says she realized moms need to take care of themselves first in order to care for their families. “Moms forget about themselves,” she says.
She now often takes just 15 minutes of alone time after getting home from work to physically and mentally recharge. Pershyna says it is helping her family become more self-sufficient by learning to take care of their everyday non-emergency needs themselves, needs, such as making the afterschool snack, she once would have fulfilled on demand.
“Be patient,” she says. “I’m still learning. I know how hard it is to be patient all of the time. If you cannot be patient, just remove yourself from the situation. Be honest with your kids about your feelings. Take a few breaths. You need to be patient and guide them.”
Kids appreciate a parent’s honesty, she adds.
“The way we behave with our children, it will return back to us. What you give to the world, it will come back to you.”
SECRET OBSESSION:
Meditation. “Anytime, any minute I have, I like to fly away and leave this world for a minute or so.”
MOST HATED CHORE: Doing dishes.
ROLE MODEL:
“My mom. My mom is my hero, she is the one taking care of everything and everyone all of the time. And I see her in me.”
SOMETHING YOU WON’T LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT:
“A bottle of water is always with me and I never leave the house without earrings. I just have to have accessories on.”
FAVORITE THING TO DO ON A FRIDAY NIGHT:
Spending time with family, either playing games or doing something outside, which they all love.
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