A Mother's Tale

The garden needs work, but it's raining cats and dogs. At least that doesn't have to be done today. How ordinary my house feels. My room, the colour of the window frames, the garden, the dripping bushes, the grass with the daisies. Just mine, my home. Sometimes I sense my parental home in this house. It feels like home in the old days, when as a lazy teenager I would lie dreaming in the window sill and the sun would draw shadows on the terrace. The smell, the warmth. Longing for those carefree times.   For the moment I have the place to myself. Jan has gone to the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency) with Peter. Ingeborg has not yet returned from school. She has probably gone home with her best friend after school. Just another hour. Then everyone will probably drop in again. Then I have to start thinking about dinner. What can I tell you in an hour? Jan is home on leave and then he takes over certain tasks. Which is lovely. Peter has to get a state benefit. He is almost ninet...

  Gym was an issue again. Peter had been punished because he had forgotten his gymkit. That was my fault of course. Are there any seven year olds who are able to remember such a thing by themselves? I have no idea. Mine certainly didn't. Apparently, it had happened before. I didn't know that either. Well, I didn't realise. There was a note in his bag. It must have been there for a long time. I hadn't looked in his bag and Peter didn't tell me such things. I felt guilty. There were at least three mouldy sandwiches stuck to the bottom of his rucksack, along with something that looked like a piece of fruit, some sticky old biscuits and that note, which, incidentally, could no longer be read. Peter had stayed home from school for a few days. Almost every week he stayed home for a day or two. The stomachache was back. My mother had undergone a minor operation in hospital the week before and couldn’t babysit. My father told me to try and be more strict, ...

When did this start? This need to measure people, lay them along the yardstick/ and describe them in reports? The more I read about it, the more the ominous and desperate feeling creeps up on me that it is too late to put a stop to it. About two hundred years ago, a train started moving that is driven by people. And those people are governed by the illusions of the day, by fashion, culture, the wishes and demands of the government. All of this results from a society that thinks more and more of its own interests, people who believe that everything is malleable. And all of this combined with an insatiable hunger for comfort and making money.   Psychiatry was invented as a science at the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the time, people were racking their brains what to do about lunatics rolling about on the floor screaming, chained to the walls of the asylum. The idea gradually took root that things had to change. It was found that not all lunatics in the institutions wer...

On my father's advice I asked Mrs Rascals if she knew anyone who could examine Peter. If these people know each other, the school will be more inclined to take their advice, my father thought. Mrs Rascals thought it very wise that we took this step. A good friend of hers was an orthopedagogue. Mrs X had her own practice close to the school. There was a one-month waiting list. ‘A waiting list?' exclaimed Jan. ‘How many children need to see an orthopedagogue?’ That last remark sounded rather contemptuous.   The examination consisted of two visits and cost 350 euros. The euro had only just been introduced, and Jan calculated that it would cost 700 guilders and was flabbergasted.   I asked our insurance company. The consultant explained to me that this was a frequent question, but that such an assessment would be at our own expense. Schools themselves were capable of examining children, the lady on the phone explained. ‘But if we as parents don't agree with their findin...

  Teacher Debby from Group 3 rested her chin in her hand and looked at me intensely. I caught myself explaining a lot, again. Teacher Debby had just delivered a long diatribe. Peter would not remain seated in his bench. He constantly stood up and bothered other children. He never finished his daily task and when teacher Debby then assigned it as homework, it often didn’t get done. I tried to explain that maybe it was a bit too easy for Peter. Perhaps if he was given somewhat more difficult work, Peter would feel more challenged. Teacher Debby explained that underachievement was indeed a characteristic of giftedness, but that she did not feel that Peter was unusually intelligent. Nor did it explain why Peter kept getting up, walking around and making other children angry. ‘Do you think it’s all right if I sign Peter up for RT? Later on he may be too far behind to catch up.’ ‘To far behind? He could already read in group 2!’ ‘Yes, but at the moment he is onl...

  There’s a large photograph above Peter's bed. His room has undergone several metamorphoses over the years, but that photo has always remained. I often look at it. Sometimes, when I was doing the rooms, I would sit down on one of the small chairs and stare at the picture, remembering that wonderful holiday. Nowadays, Peter often sits there himself, gaming behind his desk, his gaze fixed on the screen. I know he doesn't like it much when I'm there. He's afraid I'll nag. That he shouldn’t be gaming so often. That it's not healthy. That he could become addicted. But now Sam is abroad and I know he misses him. So I let him.   We went to Denmark. The boys were four and seven and Ingeborg just two. We had rented an old farmhouse with a huge garden surrounding it. The house was not by the road but at the end of a dirt track. We enjoyed a wonderful freedom there. Behind the house, there was a farm track through the cornfields to a typical Danish b...

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 thro...