‘I have no ambition, other than raising my children’

“There are women who have dreamed of children all their lives. Or a wedding and a terraced house. Not me. Raised by my mother alone, I knew no better than that you have to manage your life yourself. That you have to study and be financially independent. So I obediently finished a college education that didn’t make me happy, but it did offer the prospect of a good job, and mapped out my future in my mind in a luxury city apartment. Children were not in my picture – just like that man, by the way: I remained single until I was twenty-six.

But then I ran into Willem-Jan at a party with friends, and everything changed. My life until then consisted of a fifty-hour working week that I did on automatic pilot, and partying as much as possible to escape that routine. What I left after paying my mortgage, I used up with friends, eating out, traveling and clothes at least three times a week. A yuppies existence, in which I continued to feel a great emptiness that I could not name, and which could not be filled with all the beautiful things I experienced.

Exit position hyper

Willem-Jan had lost his wild hair. He was doing well as a consultant and never worked overtime. “Then you are not in good control of your affairs,” he always says – something I admire greatly in his position. I fell for the peace he had over him. We still enjoyed ourselves together, but no longer in my usual hyper position.

Three years later I got pregnant, very much. The peace I felt with Willem-Jan changed my outlook on life. Suddenly it seemed wonderful, such a cuddly family. Stability. Peace. My friends also got married and had children, but with one big difference: they continued their career and social life just as hard as they had before. And me: I quit my job.

‘Hello, I’m building a human’

The day I held the positive pregnancy test in my hands, in addition to my all-consuming joy, I also felt resistance. Against my hectic existence. The sacred must. Against never really having time for something, and during one trip or exclusive dinner, already busy with the next. I didn’t want it all anymore. Hi, I was building a human, and that was all that mattered.

Willem-Jan understood my feeling. He comes from a completely different family: his mother was always at home for the children, while his father worked. Financially we were warm. Moreover, if I stayed at home, we would not have any childcare costs. “Stay close to yourself,” he urged me. “If you want to stay with our daughter, I think you’re fantastic, but if you decide to go back to work later, you will too.”

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Not the only one

Our youngest is now three, and I have never thought about a career again. I see my friends a lot less. They never have time, and with such different lives you grow a bit apart. Too bad, but it is no different. Now I go to the zoo for days with mothers from school and the neighbors. I am by no means the only stay-at-home mom.

In a few months Senna will be going to primary school, so in theory I have plenty of time to spare. Still, I don’t intend to go to work. The house has to be cleaned up, the groceries done, and when my children come home from school, I want to have the energy to really be there for them. I see them enough, moms rushing to soccer practice overheated while working away some business email on their smartphones, and I have their heads already at the next day’s meeting. Fathers ditto.

‘Work = survive’

I also respect that choice, and in many families that double income is simply desperately needed. But as long as we can afford the luxury of always being there, I’ll make use of it. ‘What about your ambitions?’, Working friends sometimes ask. “I still have it,” I answer. Because my goal is to give two children a fantastic childhood and to prepare them for society. Which is also possible next to a paid job, but that has never been my ambition. For me, work was synonymous with survival.

My mother looks with sorrow at how I disregard her basic rule of upbringing. But my life can’t be compared to hers when she raised my sister and me. I may seem financially dependent, but my husband is just as dependent on me when it comes to raising our children. For me it is a simple calculation. And to my mother’s question of how it should be done if Willem-Jan and I ever separate, I invariably say that the hard-working career woman could also become incapacitated for work tomorrow. You cannot see into the future, so I prefer to make the best of it here and now with my children. ”

This article has previously appeared in Kek Mama.

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