9. The Educationalist

My sisters were on maternity visit. My eldest sister is called Lucia and my second sister Johanna. Lucia is an accountant, our math wizard. She has two children, a boy and a girl. Lucia works mainly from home. She does the accounting of all kinds of small businesses. Her husband is a tax consultant. She met her stick-in -the-mud while she was studying ‘calculating’, as Johanna and I always teasingly call it. But Bert is okay. Just a bit precise. And not very flexible.

 

Johanna is a bit of a wild one. After her final exams at highschool level, she obediently went to university. But she only really wanted to be a visual artist, so she gave up her studies and enrolled in an art academy. Dad was very disappointed, but he kept his cool. When I asked mum about it, she sighed. ‘Oh well,' she said. ‘It’ll pass.’ Without explaining what it was exactly that would pass. I suspect that dad complained to her a lot: ‘These children have so many opportunities . And what do they do? They throw it away! Is that what we struggled for?’ Or something similar.

 

 After all the cries of adoration, while Jan was handing round tea and traditional biscuits, Johanna asked: 'Marta, how is Peter sleeping now? Do you simply sit up all night now? Haha. Feeding the baby, watching tv with Peter, feeding the baby. Or do you now watch TV with Peter Jan?’ Jan chuckled dutifully. 'We do our watches,' the sailor replied vaguely.

 

'Oh. But is that woman helpful at all? What's her name again?'

 

'Her name is Mariëlle and she thinks we should be stricter with the boys, then Peter will sleep better,' I said this as if I was reading out a manual.

 

‘Oh, well. As they used to say, rest and regularity, didn’t they?’ Johanna looked at me mockingly.

 

Lucia, our well-organised sister, missed the pun. 'Yes, well, certainly, very important,' she said. And Johanna laughed in her face.

 

As Lucia embarked on a story about her children, how well they were doing at school and that they were both in the first hockey team, 'the little ones-team, of course?’, I felt an overwhelming sense of resentment rising against that educationalist-woman. There was an appointment scheduled for the upcoming week, the first one after our maternity leave. I didn't feel like keeping it. That person in my home, telling me what to do with my own children, while the actual problem I had called her in for, already seemed to be solving itself.

 

In the last week before Ingeborg's birth, Peter didn’t want to go to bed at all. We let that slide a bit because we didn't feel like fussing. The baby was due any day. In the evenings, Jan and I let Peter wander around the living room, until he fell a sleep on the sofa. Simply for the sake of peace and quiet. Eventually Peter made the couch his bed. He had found a blanket somewhere and by eleven o'clock he laid down on the couch and went to sleep. We thought we were being clever, Jan carrying Peter upstairs to his bed later that night, but that turned out to be not a good idea. Half an hour later Peter would be screaming in his cot, his little hands clasped furiously around the bars. So now we just let him lie on the couch downstairs. And he slept! It was a blessing.

 

Why did this happen in this way? I don’t know. We could not see inside Peter's head. He could not explain to us what happened in his bed at night. He wanted to sleep on the sofa and that was the end of it. I saw no reason not to allow it. He slept. The whole night. Exactly at the time when Ingeborg was born, we no longer had to worry about Peter's sleep for a while. I considered it great timing.

 

 The educationalist had a different opinion. Children should sleep in a bed. Moreover, children had to learn to obey. ‘What if he decides he wants to sleep in your bed! Are you two going to sleep in his cot then?’

 

I felt the blood rise in my neck, calmly explaining to her that I actually wanted to stop the coaching. Mariëlle looked at me with raised eyebrows. That decision was mine to make, of course, she said, but she was worried and she would put that in her report. Suddenly I felt threatened by this woman. Suddenly I realised what I had done. I had opened my home to a complete stranger, and as a result we were at the mercy of someone’s convictions who doesn't necessarily understand my life or care about us. Maybe she comes from a very strict Christian family and considers us wicked and frivolous. Why is what she says the truth? Jan probably saw that I had reached the end of my tether because he quickly said: 'Fine, do we get to read the report too?

 

Yes, of course we would get it, in fact we would even have to sign it.

 

 The report came two weeks later. The maternity nurse had long since left and Jan and I were engrossed in our new daughter and the boys. I had completely forgotten about Mariëlle. My father was visiting us. My mother was away for the day with friends and dad was having dinner with us. Jan came in with the big envelope with the organisation's logo on it. Shall we open it tomorrow?" he asked. But I was too curious and tore it open.

 

Mariëlle wrote in her report that we were a loving family. The parents clearly show affection for their children. From this we were to understand that there are parents who have no affection for their children. Something I had never thought about. But, wrote the social worker, we also held a rather libertine view of parenting. The second son calls the shots and mother doesn’t consider that a problem, she wrote in the report. She also thought our home was often untidy and that we had our meals at irregular hours, which was not beneficial to raising two rowdy boys. At that moment I resolved never again to let anyone into my home, to advise me about my own children.

 

'This is outrageous!' I exclaimed.

 

‘Why,' said Jan, 'she has to write down something, otherwise she can't justify her hours. She's just throwing her weight about.’

 

‘Yes, but Jan. How old was she? Twenty-six? What can she be thinking, such a young chick like that!’

 

My father looked thoughtful. ‘Well, those girls get a solid education, you know. It may seem a bit over the top. You are responsible parents. But many people really do need a little help in bringing up their children. Children are now very well looked after by Consultation agencies and school doctors. There used to be a boy in my class with a terribly crooked back and X-legs. All right, it was just after the war, but still. If someone had payed attention in time, prescribing vitamins, things might have turned out very differently for that boy. Not all parents are as caring as you... or, or, ... as well educated. That also counts, doesn’t it?

 

 I had to think about this for a long time. I felt aggrieved by the educationalist. As if I wasn't doing it right. And I did. I knew that for sure. I didn't like strictly regulated households at all. That's how it used to be at my home, when I was young. The table was set three times a day, every day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Only on Sundays we skipped lunch. Then everyone could get something to eat for themselves. Often there would be a pot of soup for lunch. Or dad would make a small Indonesian ‘rice table’, with sambal that was much too spicy. Then the whole house would be filled with the fumes and we'd all be coughing. Sunday was church in the morning, sherry at noon and the enormous amount of washing up after dad’s cooking, late in the afternoon. And then the table was set again at half past six promptly. At a quarter to seven we had dinner, no matter if we were still full from the abundant ricemeal. Then my sisters and I again did the washing up. At eight there was coffee, with the news. Every day. Later my mother discovered decaffeinated coffee; then we had that in the evenings.

 

 Is it so crazy that we do things differently, Jan and I? What is so important about this regularity? Do children need it? I didn't do anything at school despite the strict regularity of my parents. How was that in the past? Weren't teenagers lazy in Dad's time? Will I have irresponsible children if I don't set the table three times a day? I was young, a new mother. The uncertainty that was suddenly forced upon me made me angry. I decided to call Mariëlle.

 

It didn't go very well, that conversation. I was too offended. I blamed her for betraying my trust by writing about us like that. She defended herself. She didn't mean to make me angry. She was there to help. It sounded a lot like what Jan and dad had said. She was doing her job like she was supposed to. If she saw things that worried her, she had to write it down. Otherwise she could be accused later of having overlooked things. Later? What do you mean, later? I was not yet assertive enough to ask. That would grow over the years. Now I just imagined that I understood her reasoning. I had to understand her situation. I gave in. I asked if I could sign off on it and then add my own report, if they would be archived together. She promised that it would.

 

The report that I wrote is still neatly stored in the enormous 'Peter' file that I have filled over the years.

 

 On 2 March this year I called in the help of bureau x because I was looking for educational advice. One of my children sleeps so little and is awake for so long at night that my husband and I were worried. Our second son Peter is a special child. He is only two years old but he already talks in full sentences. And he has so much to tell us throughout the day! He is very different from Sam, our eldest. Sam is very thoughtful and doesn't talk much. But Peter is very active all day and talks nineteen to the dozen. He is clearly very intelligent, just like his brother. As parents, we are not worried about him.

 

The reason we asked for help from an educationalist was his sleeping rhythm. About six months ago Peter started waking up at night, wanting to get out of bed. We were up all night with him. He did not sleep during the day either and we were worried about this. I phoned the parenting hotline and was advised to call in an educationalist.

 

Since then, Peter's sleeping is much better and we no longer need any help.

 

 Now that I read this report again, I again feel the same need I had at the time to defend myself. Peter was special. Jan and I knew that. We didn’t mind. A special child will go far! Those were the very words the proud grandparents used. I did not want to defend myself for my child, or for my faith in my children, as I would have said before. Now I say: for my unconditional love for them. And still I did exactly that. I defended myself.

 

Translation: B.Ton