Patrick has five children with five mothers
Patrick van Rhijn (52) is a novelist and freelance TV editor. He lived all over the world and has five children. For his columns he draws on an endless source of recognizable and remarkable stories about fatherhood.
As a freelancer I often hop from project to project and from one client to another. That’s why I regularly meet new people. Parents too. Parents who are happy and proud to talk about their children. And who ask about each other’s family situations. That is why it often goes something like this during the first joint lunch in the company restaurant:
“And, Patrick, you children?”
“Sure,” I smile. Because I know what’s coming. “I have five.”
“What?! Five?! Well dude, you haven’t been sitting still.”
Smiling, I don’t shake it.
“And all with the same mother?”
Again I shake my head. “Five mothers.”
There is now a short silence. Until the first recovers.
“Serious? Not! You’re kidding… Right?”
“Certainly not,” I reply. “I have five kids, with five mothers.”
“Raised eyebrows, chuckles, gasps of amazement. I hear the brains cracking in their heads.’
Nothing is what it seems
Raised eyebrows, sniggering, cries of amazement. I can hear the brain cracking in their heads. What a slut / What a hero / How special / What the fuck?
“But,” I say, “nothing is what it seems.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly as I say… For example, one of the kids already has two mothers…” To add to the confusion, I now let a short silence fall. “A good friend of mine and her partner at the time had a fiery dream; having a baby together. So they were looking for a tough, handsome, smart, handsome, well-built man. They couldn’t find it, so they asked me. I have a very cool donor son.”
“Owwww!” Laughter, which sometimes even resounds with slight relief. “Okay, but that’s one. And the other four?”
“I also have a very beautiful daughter who is almost 21. I once took care of her on my own for three years. Until I lost the lawsuit over her whereabouts, where I had to put my girl – then four – on a plane to her mother in Sweden. That was what my first novel was about.”
Something like Fiercely! says one of the new colleagues as standard.
Read also: Mother of eight children: “In a large family, everyone raises each other”
Gift son
“Then I have a very nice and very pubescent thirteen-year-old daughter and an eleven-year-old son who live with me full-time. I have a very warm relationship with their mother, who lives a village away in a tiny house, so she is often with them. Then my donor son. He is seven, and then I have a four-year-old son who also lives abroad with his mother. It was not planned, but just presented itself, just when I wanted to break off my exploration with his mom.”
“Hey? / You are kidding me! / Get lost!” usually someone calls.
“Yes, I went to her to tell her that I didn’t want to continue together, but she introduced me and stated that she was pregnant. In that same conversation. And that she’s the baby no matter what would keep. Soooo… five kids. And five mothers.”
“My present son was not planned, but just showed up just as I was about to break off my exploration with his mom.”
Mega enrichment
At this point everyone is silent at the table. “Sometimes in your life it goes like that,” I say quasi-nonchalantly. “Money doesn’t do much for me, and yet I feel like a very rich person. And you?” And then everyone agrees very much that their children are a mega enrichment of their lives (even if they secretly don’t feel that way) and we eagerly throw ourselves into our croquette sandwiches with mustard.
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