‘We had nice cars, holidays… and nothing but stress’

Image: Getty Images

“Twins – it took me weeks after the ultrasound to get used to that idea. Of course it is wonderful, two children at the same time and especially if they also turn out to be healthy, but it also meant a greater impact on our lives than if we had had one baby. I probably hadn’t even fully realized that when the twins were born.

In the months that followed, besides being happy with my two boys, I was also dog-tired, constantly ill due to a lack of resistance and was plagued with guilt. The boys were healthy, but also tiny and very fragile and when they went to daycare after four months because I went back to work, my heart broke every day.

Career

I had a good job as a marketing manager. I thought my career was important and crèches, they were there for mothers like me. Mothers with a life, mothers with a career. So why did I drive away crying so often? Everything started to bother me: the lack of sleep, the guilt, the fact that Pim didn’t seem to find it difficult. Then it had to be me, right?

Change

At that time, my work was not going well. It was restless due to a change in management and I was expected to step up a few notches. Nothing came of the 32 hours I was supposed to work, which soon became more than forty.

It was a ‘men’s culture’; if I had to leave because the shelter was about to close, people clearly liked it. No understanding, nothing, even though I opened the laptop again as soon as the twins were asleep and only closed it when it was already after two in the night.

“We could have just divorced, we lost each other that much”

Of course that couldn’t go well for long. It all looked very successful from the outside: a big house, nice cars, fancy vacations. But on a day to day basis it didn’t feel successful at all. We were just stressed. And quarrels that arose from that stress.

I was unhappy and exhausted, Pim did his best in his own way to contribute at home, but yes, working fifty hours a week was difficult. His dad’s day usually fell into the water. I felt misunderstood, Pim felt powerless. We could have just divorced, we lost each other that much.

Burnout

The twins were one year old when I called in sick. A burnout; it didn’t take the company doctor long to make the diagnosis. “Eventually do you want to go back to your job?” she asked, and that simple question set a great deal in motion for me. I cried for an hour and then said, “That’s the last thing I want.”

Speaking that out felt like a liberation, but also like failure. It took me a long time to accept that I wanted to be home, with my boys, that my career could be put on hold. The funny thing was that I had feared other people’s reactions, but my own judgment was so much worse than what friends and family said.

“Luckily,” said my best friend. “Finally,” my mother said. They had already seen that things were not going well. The only people who reacted negatively or downright mean were former colleagues.

Lovely dawdling

I’ve been home for a little over a year now. There are really days when I feel boring and useless, but the good days predominate. Loitering with the boys, walking in pajamas for a long time, taking an hour to walk around the park with two balance bikes. Baking cookies, making paintings.

“Had you told me before that this would be my daytime activity, would I really have thought you were crazy”

If you had told me before you were born that this would be my day job, I would have thought you were crazy. But for now it works. The boys are happy, I’m happy and Pim and I’s relationship has gotten so much better. There is peace. And we will see what the future brings.

When the boys go to school I want to get back to work, but not with as much stress as in my previous position. I have learned what is important. Happiness over money, and over ‘status’. Staying at home has changed me, in a good way.”

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