8. You can only be mother from your heart

 

‘We have moved!’ That's what it says in my old diary. On the previous day it says: 'moving'. I was probably so anxious about the move that, to encourage myself, I also put in the diary when it would be over.

 

We were very happy with the new house. We had a garden with a shed, four bedrooms upstairs and an attic. Truly a house for a family with children.

 

I have no trouble recalling why I was so terribly anxious about the move.

Sam was almost five and Peter was almost two at the time. I was at the end of my third pregnancy, and Peter had decided some time before that he would no longer sleep during the day, and not at night either. Every night at two o'clock he would wake up, wanting to play. Until about five o'clock either Jan or I would sit up with him on the sofa. Usually I would put on a Disney video for him, hoping that I could doze off a bit. But I wouldn’t be able to sleep because he would be playing with his farm and the farmanimals he had very interesting conversations with them.

 

Good advice is difficult to get. I thought about having to feed the new baby at night, and how Peter's sleeping rhythm would then be the death of me, without a doubt. I asked my mother. She said: 'Just let him scream. He will go to sleep.’

‘But Mum, he works his way out of the cot. He lets himself fall over the side onto the floor.'

'Good heavens, isn't that dangerous? Dad? What do you think?’ she asked my father.

My father also thought it dangerous and promised to raise the sides of the cot.

 

Since then, Peter used to scream every night until I would take him out. I let him scream on once. I regret that to this day. He hollered for three hours. Sam came to me and we were listening to it together in my bed. 'Why doesn't he go to sleep Mum,' Sam asked and I didn't know. Finally I still had to get Peter out of bed, scarlet and sweaty. The next day, and that was only a few hours later, I called in sick at work and let Sam stayed home for the day.

 

I remember how, in my desperation, I called the parenting helpline. ‘Ask the people at the Child Health Care Centre,' said the kind pedagogue on the other end, after a half-hour conversation. He didn't know either.

The people at the clinic said that it was not healthy for a child to scream for more than half an hour. And they asked if I wanted help with parenting. I discussed it with Jan when he called from a port and he said, 'Try it. Maybe they have useful tips. You mustn't tire yourself out too much. Think about the baby.'

 

We moved during Jan’s leave, four weeks before the birth. My maternity leave had also started.

While Jan and I were hanging an enormous map of the world in Sam's room, the telephone rang. I remember the moment precisely because with my big belly I was standing on a chair, holding up the map, while Jan pricked the drawing pins. Sam handed me the phone and I stood on the chair, holding the map with my other hand, to speak to the social worker. We were up for family counselling or whatever it was called. She wanted to make an appointment.

 

About a week later, while we were still surrounded by boxes filled with incomprehensible stuff, the social worker visited us for the intake. She introduced herself as the contact person. If other help was needed, we could ask her to organise it. Then she asked us a gazillion of questions. How Peter's pregnancy had gone. How the maternity period had been. If we’d noticed anything special or unusual. Whether help had been requested before. ‘Yes,' I said, 'at the parenting helpline.’ She nodded politely, she had read that in my application. How was Sam? Everything all right at school? No worries there?

In a way, I was happy with the interview. I was so worried about Peter’s sleepingproblem, often wondering if there was anything else I could do. Whether there were things I didn't know. If I was failing somehow. The social worker seemed very interested. She promised me that the educationalist was specialised in precisely such questions and would certainly be able to help us.

 

So we had an educationalist come to visit us. The first time, she came for an introductory meeting. She had a pile of papers on her lap and said apologetically that first we had to fill in the questionnaires together. ‘But I've already done that with Mrs X from social work,' I objected. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, ‘but yes, it has to be done.’

I cannot remember the questions verbatim, but I do remember we worked on it for a good hour. It was about all sorts of things. About how Peter was as a baby, how he had developed. How Jan and I did this and that, and whether we ever quarrelled. Well, of course Jan and I had fights. ‘Oh, yes? And are the children present with that?’

Jan later said: 'Why did that woman have to know all these things?'

 

My father was visiting to help Jan put together the new cupboards, and he thought it all very plausible. It was a good thing that people were getting help in bringing up their children. ‘It contributes to a healthy society’, he said. ‘This definitely is an improvement compared to the old days. My parents had to figure it all out for themselves.’

 

Reading this back, I think that in the old days things didn’t go so badly at all. Despite the war and all that my father had to go through as a little boy, he has become a very sweet, hard-working man, who always considered his duties and responsibilities the most important guidelines in his life.

 

The second time the educator came was during dinner. She wanted to observe the family, she had explained. Sam was a good eater, in fact he liked everything, but as if by devil’s work, when the educator joined us he refused to take a bite. It was a predictable situation but at the time I couldn't deal with it at all. I wanted to show that I had a nice family, that my children are wonderful and that I am a very sensible mother. But Sam was not going to cooperate. There was a stranger at the table and he sensed very well that she wasn't there to have a good time. He wriggled on his chair, tried to push his head under the table, went shooting peas at Peter, who roared with joy. And I kept spouting pedagogic, seemingly appropriate reprimands. ‘Sit up, don't do that, eat your food, if you go on like this I'll send you to your room.’ And that person kept uttering understanding remarks: ‘Oh yes, I understand, there's a stranger at the table'. And to me: 'It doesn't matter. I can see through this.’

My scalp contracts again when I think about it.

 

Let me be clear, I have never found it a problem if my children didn’t empty their plates. As a kid, when I used to whine over my food at home, I was sent up to my room. I was not allowed to leave it until I had finished my plate. So up in my bedroom, I would throw the food out of the window. Until the neighbours across the street called my parents and told on me. Then I was not allowed to play outside for a week. My parents had been through the war and knew about hunger. I was supposed to be more grateful and had to eat up what was on my plate, even when I’d had enough. Of course, later I understood why my parents were nagging me about food, but I would never do that to my children. Why would I? I am not a war child. It's not at all healthy to eat on after you  have had enough. My children are not bins. The bin is under the kitchen sink. I have never lost this rebelliousness about food and eating.

 

After observing our family for a few weeks, the educationalist declared she wanted to discuss The Plan with me.

It turned out that there was a great deal wrong with the way we did things. We would have to be much more consistent with the children. Fixed mealtimes were very important, according to the educationalist. She gave us a day schedule to follow. I asked her what I could do to get Peter to sleep through the night, uncertain what all this had to do with Peter's sleeping. After all, that was the reason why I asked for her help. She said: ‘Let's get this sorted out first. Maybe then Peter will sleep better too.’

 

Ingeborg was born on a beautiful sunny day in March.

 

The contractions started in the middle of the night, of course, but she did not see the light of day until one o'clock in the afternoon. A beautiful pink baby with round cheeks and black hair. She was born as sister to two busy brothers who loved frolicking and pillow fights, chasing each other around the house, screaming at the top of their voices. From the very beginning, Ingeborg slept through everything. I remember my mother’s surprise. ‘We used to observe rest and regularity,’ she would say.  

 

I fed when the baby asked. I had done the same with the boys, and fortunately this was allowed in those days. But my mother thought that strange too. ‘Dear, dear, how you spoil your baby’, she often said. I asked Maria about it. She said, ‘Oh, your mother is old school. Rest, cleanliness and regularity. Very old-fashioned. Just do as you see fit. You can only be a mother from your heart, isn’t it.’

 

You can only be a mother from your heart. I will carry this statement with me all my life, hold on to it, comfort myself with it. All those years that were still to come, filled with anxiety and uncertainty, they have left their mark, as I know now. But still, ‘you can only be a mother from your heart’. If I have done it all wrong, sue me. I only ever had nothing but my heart. Those people who interfered with everything, they felt nothing, they saw a file, a case. And a stupid mother who wouldn't listen. If only I had been more independent. If only I had said: 'Enough! Get lost everyone. We are going away. We’ll go somewhere where we won't be bothered. Where we may enjoy life, and each other. Where we are allowed to be... just to be...  

 

Translation: B.Ton