Dear Jeffry

I wrote this, in Dutch, two and a half years ago, after Jeffry's suicide.

Dear Jeffry,

I still think that you can come back any moment. And I still do, two and a half years later, it's still impossible that you won't come back. I still think that you will realise you made a mistake, you didn't realise so many persons loved you, loved you unconditionally, just because you are you. At the same time I know, because you were you, that you didn't make a mistake. But for me it was, a mistake.

The thing that made you such a great human being also was your biggest pitfall, your inmense compassion for other human beings. You understood everything, nothing human was strange or weird for you. You listened, you talked, you always made time, you were very attentive, you were perfect the way you are. But you didn't see yourself with the same compassion you saw others. You wanted to be perfect and while you were perfect in our eyes, you were not, in your own eyes.

While you were approaching perfection, because you are so terribly beautiful, smart and pretty and you had your masculine and feminine sides so beautifully balanced and so much more reasons, you weren't good enough for yourself. It was not enough to give you the inner peace you were searching for. And it certainly was not enough to release you from the inmense sadness that you carried with you. That we all knew about but in the end, you kept it for yourself, this inmense sadness. While every single one of us wishes you would have shared it with us, hoping that we could release you from it. While we all fell in love with you because you were you.

And when we went home after spending the day with you, to our children, our partners and pets and when we were sucked into the stream of lives in which our life resolved itself, you went home alone and tried to find peace with everything that your sensitive being had seen and felt, images, feelings and words from the past and present. Something like that.

I wish I had known you were so terribly depressed. You could always have called me, skyped me, whatever. Our door was always open, you could have been part of our family, unconditionally. And when I read all the reactions on Facebook after your death, I know I am not the only one who wished you would have knocked on my door. I am not the only one who wished you had asked for help, being in your darkest moments. I am not the only one who wished I could really have helped you.

I wished I could have been there for you. I wished you had allowed me to be there, exactly on those elusive moments that are so terribly and unreasonably difficult in life. I would have been there with love and dedication. Just like you were always there for others and took care of everyone, with love, understanding, devotion and dedication.

I know you are still here, in another form. That you feel all the love that we all feel for you. I know that once you have passed to the other side, our connection will have another, different form. Two and a half years later: yes it's like that but I still miss you dearly.

For now, I'll send you all my love. I wish you a peacefull passage to your new place. Please don't feel alone on your travel because you are in the thoughts of many, who all wish you the very best.

And secretly, I still hope you will come back. And two and a half years later, I still do. The thought that I will never be able to talk with you is still impossible.

With Love dear Jeffry,

Jouke

Homeschooling and the art of living

We homeschool. Homeschooling doesn't exist in the Netherlands. Officially we have permission not to register our children at a school. So now we live.

I'm often asked if I teach my children at home and how. I don't. I don't play school at home. For the outside world I call it unschooling although I would prefer a positive word instead of saying what we don't do. Life long learning maybe. You could also call it living.

Because the school system is imprinted in our lives, we seem to have forgotten that life is more than going to school or to work to earn money. We seem to think that if we don't do one of those, we are wasting our time. But life can be different. You can just live it. And that's not a waste of time. Living is a beautiful thing, discovering the world as it comes every day. Not always easy but beautiful if you take time to see. Young children seem to master the art. But loose it when they are forced into the system. The system of schooling. Learning what others think you should learn because of what you have to become. Instead of doing what you do because you are.

We sometimes seem to have forgotten how it is to just live. And worse, to value living. Now every day we are trying to find out how to live. How we want to live. And if it is possible at the place we are living right now and if not, how we can make it possible. And yes we know, you have to earn some money to live in this society, one way or the other.

My younger children who have hardly gone to school are pretty good at living. They eat, play, read comic books, make drawings, play on their computers, walk the dogs. Go to their sports. They sleep. They fight. They complain. They make jokes, they do the grocery shopping with me. One of them wants to become an illusionist. The other one, no idea, he just is. What I learn from them is that living is not a waste of time. You can live in the moment, while also knowing some things have to get done. When it's time to do those things, you just do them.

Then we have our horseback archer. Every thing he does seems to be related to that or other martial arts. He discovers the world through it. He thinks about it, he talks endlessly about it, he searches the internet for all the information he can find about it. And then he trains others, he takes care of horses, cleans stables and paddocks, walks the dogs and plays games at his cell phone. He has been in the school system but since it seemed so far apart from his life, it didn't become part of him. He is thinking about his future and how the things he does during the day will influence his future. Not under pressure, just thinking and preparing because he likes to do the things he does.

The oldest is different. A deep thinker who was beaten by the system. I never expected it because he was so strong willed and powerful before he went to school. He never did anything he did not want. But the school system was too much to fight against, he seems to have thought. I still feel bad that I did not listen more carefully to him, back then. It took me some time to grow strong enough to really listen to him. Because the system in the Netherlands is very difficult to escape from and even worse once you've got in. Before you know it you end up in court and have child protection services invading your family life.

We took him out in steps, first to a democratic school. Pretty quickly he found out that the school was not so democratic after all and that democracy is not such a fair system because the powerful can use democracy to remain powerful. Also, or even more, when the democracy is called a sociocracy.

Now he is out of it all. But he is also at an age that he wants to achieve something. And I think he does not value enough what he already achieved, what he learned, how he developed. I am not sure if the system is too far imprinted in him that he keeps thinking in measurable results or that it's his age and character that make him really critical about how he spends his days.

The other day we had a conversation about achieving goals and being afraid to waste time because you want to become someone. While in fact, you are already someone. And even if you sit on your bed for an unlimited amount of time, it's not a waste. You live. And apparently you need time to just sit down.

What I also loved about our conversation is that the oldest two found out that both their passions have a technical part and a creative part. We are talking about producing music and shooting arrows from a horseback. In both it's your creativity that makes the difference but you need to master the techniques to be able to let your creativity shine. And in both there are days that your creativity is nowhere to be found. Those days you can focus on improving your techniques, they agreed. But, also agreement, it is hard sometimes because it's not always fun.

While the horseback archer is relaxed about it, the music producer is his own worst critique. He looks at the ultimate achievement he wants to reach and is afraid that if the steps to come there are too hard to take, he will fail. I don't think he can fail, because everything he does is part of living, even if it seems like walking a dead end road or sitting on your bed for days in a row or watch youtube videos endlessly as he sometimes does.

I am always astonished by the amount of knowledge he has from all those videos and the way he processes everything he learns this way. He is able to level everything up to a higher abstraction. He makes connections that are mind blowing, while he thinks it's completely normal to make those connections.

The art of living is not easy to learn once you have been fractured by the system. A system that makes you believe that all that's important is getting your diploma and get a job and earn money. Which in fact has so little to do with life itself. Life is so much more and a human being is so much more than a diploma and a job. And honestly, the art of living is sometimes difficult too when the system did not get you. Because where there is light, there is darkness. Darkness is part of the life you are living as well. And darkness is not always easy to accept.

So there are moments you can only cry because making a special cobra bracelet from a piece of paracord does not work the way you want it to work. And your little brother seems to make them without any effort. You are bored to death because you just are bored and everything and everybody seems stupid. But by doing what you want to do and sometimes what you don't want but what seems to be part of life, like walking the dogs or going to sleep at night, you live. And I think that living is what really matters. That's why we home"school". We live.

Warrior heart

My son has a warrior heart. One of my sons, or actually at least two of them.

But let's talk about the oldest one who's practicing horseback archery and fencing. The younger one is still in preparation :) .

Because of him I have been observing the horseback archery world for the last one and a half year.

I've heard comments about his horseriding. I've seen people who see archery as techniques and horseriding as a technical skill. Of course one needs a stable basis in techniques and skills. But for my child the real challenge and growth lies in his heart and mind. The real advances he makes are in his heart and mind. For him horseriding is so much more than the skills you need.

His challenge since he has been horseriding has been the question: "Can I force my will upon another living being? With many questions following this basic one: "When my horse wants to stay in the paddock, can I force him to come with me and work with me? And if so, why do I have the right to force him? Am I allowed to. And what measures do I want to use? How do I make a horse feel when I hit him? Why would I hit him? Do I have the right to? "

These are all very relevant questions I think and come especially to the surface in times of stress like for example during a competition. Where you often ride an unknown horse who is often used to a different treatment than what you are used to. When you decide you can't enforce your will upon the horse in a way that is much harsher than the way you treat the horses at home, your competition is over and all your technical skills are useless.

You could see archery as an endlessly discussed series of techniques. Main technique you are using, how fast one can shoot, as accurate as possible, how many arrows, type of bow, handle, weight and so on. Siem is a walking encyclopedia in this. He seems to know who uses which bow and recognizes bows by just looking at them. No idea how he does that.

And you need techniques to become a good archer and not destroy your body. But in the end it all comes from your heart and the rythm that comes from within. It cannot be taught with words. Of course words can give you a direction in your own search but in the end you will have to listen to your heart. Luckily Siem has always understood this and is very strong in staying on his own path. I admire that in him a lot (it gives clashes sometimes as well in other things in life but that's part of the deal).

When he started archery years ago, with a recurve bow and sight and that sort of things, he just didn't match with what they were trying to teach him. And I knew from the first moment on, when I brought him to his first regular archery training and saw the bows they were using, that I had to search another path for him, with him. We found that path in horseback archery and we found someone who is very gifted in guiding him on this path. So that Siem could stay true to his heart.

I've been watching three international horseback archery competitions now and I have noticed it's extremely difficult to compare levels and skills and define the winner of the competition in a way that all horseback archers feel heard and seen. The thought crossed my mind that all technical rules and ways of measuring and comparing scores and every other rule like the obligation to qualify for a competition decided upon by a few make the sport drift further away from its core, from the warrior heart. Of course it isn't as black and white as I am writing it down now but as a mother of at least two warrior hearts it is my worry that this will happen.

At this moment I have decided that as a mother I can only help my children to strengthen their warrior hearts and to be and become balanced human beings. I can let my voice be heard but in the past I have met many who didn't understand what I was saying at all and decided to feel attacked by what I was saying so I am a bit carefull with that. It's an eternal search to find a balance in protecting them from the ones that don't understand their path and say things that do not especially strengthen my children and learning them to live in a world that does not always fit their needs. More often not.

And with that we are back at the most beautiful and challenging part of motherhood for me, to strengthen them to walk their own path through life and stay true to themselves. Their warrior hearts are beautiful and I want those hearts to grow in freedom. I want to protect them from forces that threaten their freedom and authenticity, their inner motivation to grow. It's an eternal search for when do I intervene, and when do I let go. What can they handle and when do they need my intervention. Where does being true to myself touch their being true to themselves. Do I intervene to make myself feel better or does it really serve them. Does it come from my heart or from my ego? An eternal search I guess.

Horseback archery is a beautiful and very effective magnifying glass. I am grateful for the ones that showed me their warrior hearts and helped me in my search for my own truth. Story will be continued, the path of life will be walked upon.

Jasper

Tomorrow 17 years ago I became mother for the first time. Mother of a still born child.

Jasper had died the day before, on thursday 1 February 2001. We had seen him die on the ultrasound and heard his heart beat fade away. I or actually we had a massive bleeding on the placenta, one of the possible consequences of HELLP syndrome. I was only 26/5 weeks pregnant and at that time policy was to not do anything harmful for a mother under 28 weeks of pregnancy. A cesarian without blood platelets and with high reflexes ending in epileptic convulsions can be pretty harmfull. I told the obstetrician who made the ultrasound that it was ok. Deep in my heart I knew it was supposed to happen. Of course it wasn't really ok and afterwards I often thought, how could I be so cruel to say it was ok that my child was dying. Or was it just a reflection of that deep inner wisdom that I touched at that moment?

My whole belief system was shaken up by the death of my child. Until that moment I always secretly thought, this won't happen to me. Not only a child dying I mean, but with everything less desired that could happen to me. It had happened to me. My child died because my body failed, my body let my precious child die.

Please if you ever meet a parent of a still born child who is mourning (you can do/tell me these things now, I can handle them but I couldn't handle them at that time):
* don't start to scream when you are holding the child that he is cold and that the mother should warm the child. You can warm up a dead child but it won't start to live again. If warming up would be the solution, the mother would have done it for sure. Really.
* don't tell the mother she is still young and can have another baby. That doesn't take the pain away in any way.
* don't tell the mother you know about another child who was born under 28 weeks of pregnancy who is doing perfectly fine. You cannot compare children, HELLP syndrome also sickens the child a lot. And it hurts. It just hurts. Now you can tell me, and we can talk about it. I know that some children live and others don't. But those first months after Jasper's birth, I could not hear these words.
* don't tell the parents not to give the same name to their next child (of course we didn't but if we would have, it would have been our choice) or to compare the next child with Jasper. First, I never saw Jasper take a breath on earth and second, Tijmens birth was still a long time ahead of us. I wasn't planning of comparing him with a still born child. Tijmen was far from still born :)
* don't tell how long someone can mourn or think that the different stages of mourning described in books are a linear process. You can do perfectly fine for weeks and then suddenly it hits hard, my child died because my body failed. It still hits hard sometimes.
* don't tell me (at least me, it might be different for someone else) it was not my body that failed. It was my body who made a mistake with the umbical cord, with the placenta, with blood pressure. It were my kidneys and my liver who completely failed, it simply was like that.

Please remember Jasper for who he was. A tiny little baby who died at the (in some ways) safest or at least warmest place on earth. Please know that I am more than grateful to have four super lively children. I would not have believed that 17 years ago.

To Jasper. 

Gezin in de knel

Eerder schreef ik een blog over onze kinderen die op school in de knel zaten. Twee scholen verder hebben we besloten om nu eindelijk te gaan doen wat we eigenlijk altijd al wilde gaan doen maar niet durfden, thuisonderwijs geven. En dat niet durven, dat had zo zijn redenen, blijkt nu wel. Met onze kinderen gaat het goed (hoewel ze onze spanning in meer en mindere mate zeker mee krijgen). Vol levenslust ontwikkelen ze zich nu.

Voor ons zijn het momenteel zeer zware tijden. Thuisonderwijs is in Nederland sterk door de wet ingeperkt en de beeldvorming ten opzichte van thuisonderwijs is vrij negatief. De heer S. Dekker heeft een brief gestuurd naar alle leerplichtambtenaren met het verzoek vrijstellingen zoveel mogelijk te beperken, mensen zoveel mogelijk juridisch te vervolgen en moedigt het doen van zorgmeldingen bij Veilig Thuis (vroeger AMK) aan. Hij heeft immers het Passend Onderwijs uitgevonden en daar hoort thuisonderwijs (wat je op zich een passende vorm van onderwijs zou kunnen vinden voor sommige gezinnen en sommige kinderen) niet bij.

En in al die tegenstroom waarin wij ons bevinden, hebben wij nu besloten dat het voor de ontwikkeling van onze kinderen noodzakelijk is om thuisonderwijs te geven. Tel uit je winst. Dat betekent slapeloze nachten, Dat betekent een voortdurende onderstroom van spanning en stress, terwijl we ook het gezin draaiende houden, de kinderen een mooie dagvulling geven met veel sociale contacten en activiteiten buitenshuis. Terwijl we ook taarten bakken om een verjaardag te gaan vieren en stiekem achter mama's rug om cadeautjes in elkaar knutselen. We oefenen met lezen, mooi aan elkaar schrijven, Nederlands praten, tekenen, kleuren en papier vouwen en we weten nu alles over de nieuwe ionenmotor, een ontwikkeling van de toekomst.

Terwijl er zoveel kinderen in Nederland daadwerkelijk in de knel zitten, heeft de politiek en de uitvoerders daarvan zijn pijlen op ons, thuisonderwijzers gericht. Wij raken gewend aan taalgebruik als zorgmelding, proces verbaal, naar de rechter, in hoger beroep.

En eigenlijk snap ik er helemaal niets van. Deze hele discussie gaat namelijk niet over de kinderen en hun ontwikkeling. Deze discussie gaat over ego's, wetgeving en de interpretatie en uitvoering van die wetgeving. Er circuleren beleidsdocumenten over de aanpak van thuisonderwijs waarin je geen enkele keer het woord "kind" leest. Handhaving, juridische procedures, zorgtrajecten, dat zijn de woorden die je terugziet. En gaat het dan om heel veel kinderen? Nee eigenlijk helemaal niet. De kinderen die thuiszitters worden genoemd, dat zijn er veel. Dat zijn kinderen die eigenlijk naar school willen (of de ouders willen dat) maar niet kunnen, zo'n 16.000 in totaal. Dat zijn de kinderen waar de overheid eigenlijk hulp aan aan zou moeten bieden. Een daadwerkelijk passende plek. De kinderen die thuisonderwijs krijgen, dat zijn er tussen de 200 en 2000, precieze aantal onbekend. Deze kinderen zitten al op een passende plek maar mogen daar niet zijn.  

Inmiddels hebben onze jongste drie kinderen vrijstelling van de leerplicht, door een zeer begripvolle GGD arts en LPA. Die bleken gelukkig ook nog te bestaan. Toch laat ik deze blog staan, wetende dat er nog veel gezinnen in ongeveer dezelfde problemen verkeren als wij deden of dachten te doen. 

Ben ik gek?

Eind vorig schooljaar kwamen wij tot de conclusie dat school niet de plek is waar onze kinderen zich kunnen ontwikkelen. Dat zij er bij gebaat zijn om vanuit de thuissituatie de wereld te gaan verkennen en te gaan floreren. 

Nu mag je dat in Nederland als ouders niet zelf beslissen, daar word je niet deskundig genoeg voor geacht. Dus moet een onafhankelijk deskundige jouw kind onderzoeken. Zo ook bij onze middelste twee. 

Aan Siem vroeg ik wat hij van deze onderzoekster zou willen weten. Siems vraag was: "Ben ik gek?" Die vraag kwam vanuit zijn tenen en was diep gemeend. Zo lang heeft hij geprobeerd zich aan te passen aan het systeem, aan verschillende systemen, om steeds weer tot de conclusie te komen dat het niet paste. Een van de conclusies van de onderzoekster is: "Siem is niet gek".

Op dit moment wachten wij nog steeds op het officiële bericht dat onze kinderen inderdaad het beste thuis zich kunnen ontwikkelen. Ook dit brengt ontzettend veel spanning met zich mee, voor ieder op zijn eigen niveau.

 En dat allemaal omdat wij als ouders in Nederland niet zelf de conclusie mogen trekken dat onze kinderen niet passen in het schoolsysteem. 

Dit is een facebook pagina https://www.facebook.com/Ljusethuset/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE&fref=nf van een mevrouw die naar Zweden vertrok. Zij vertelt in een filmpje op haar pagina aan onder andere Siem dat hij inderdaad niet gek is. 

Wat erg eigenlijk dat wij dit onze kinderen aan moeten doen..........dat een kind als Siem zich al vanaf jonge leeftijd moet afvragen of hij gek is omdat hij het niet trekt op school. Omdat hij graag thuis wil zijn en vanuit zijn eigen zeer sterke intrinsieke motivatie wil leven, de wereld wil verkennen. 

En dat wij als ouders ons zo lang in het systeem hebben laten mee voeren zodat ons kind zo beschadigd is geraakt dat hij zich af moet vragen of hij gek is. Nee hoor, Siem is helemaal niet gek. En zijn broertjes zijn dat evenmin.

A real boy! Toespraak bij start OII Nederland augustus 2016

When we were told, in October 2009, that we were allowed to adopt Qiujun from China and his medical file saying “pseudo hermafroditism” (words still used in China at that time) we sought all kind of information on the internet. I contacted Juliette who was voorzitter for DSDNederland at that time but we also contacted American parents groups. We found a lot of information about Chinese adopted children with an intersex condition and we knew that we had to be open about our childs gender. As you might know, one of the first things other people ask when you tell them you are having a child is, is it a boy or a girl. That question remained unanswered.

In China we received the most beautiful child on earth, with a huge developmental delay but full of life. The first years, it was a long road to let him understand the basics of language, which he did not have (he did not speak Chinese) and let him experience all kind of things in our culture children experience. One day he discovered trees and after a year he realised he could smell things. Of course he always smelled things but he was not aware of that sensory fact of life.

One of the biggest culture shocks in our lives was our first visit with him to the urologist. He started to study him right away, without any sense of privacy or delicacy of being naked before an unknown person. The other urologist entered and told us that our child was a real boy and would only need one operation and then he would be able to pee in the pond with his friends. Since my other two children would never pee in ponds with their friends and I did not know there existed a definition of a real boy, we were kind of shocked. We told them no operations on our kid and they more or less fell of their chairs. They told us we would only find the frustrated stories on the internet, from frustrated people. The good ones about operations that were a success, we would not hear.

After this shocking experience we were glad to be able to contact other parents in the United States and of course Arlene Baratz a medical advisor specialist in intersex conditions. She told me our kid would always be different, no matter what operations he would undergo. She told me we were beautiful parents and strong enough to raise our child our own way. She more or less advised us not to listen to the urologists. So she confirmed the feeling we already had, that it was our child to decide whatever would happen to his body at an age he would understand deeply what the doctors tell him. We also contacted a lawyer in the United States, if we could be forced to let them operate our child. This states how powerless we felt in the urologist presence.

In the United States there is a yearly meeting for parents with children with an intersex condition and persons with an intersex condition. We decided to go there once Qiujun would be old enough and understand English. They were our only contact with others in the same position as we were and we felt sorry to live so far away from them.

Luckely, in Dutch adoption groups we found other parents with children with an intersex condition and we formed a group with yearly informal meetings. With two other families, one of them is here as well, we met more often and our children are getting to know each other better every time. We find it very important for our young children to grow up with other children with more or less the same condition as they have. We feel blessed to have found new friends, who understand the things we sometimes have to face with our beautiful children.

In August 2015 we were allowed to adopt another beautiful child from China with an intersex condition. He completed our family. The story in the hospital repeated itself. We met the same urologist, who told my husband our kid is a real boy and needed only one operation to be able to function as a boy.

Our netwerk in the Netherlands started to grow, we came to know Miriam and Saskia and together with K and Marjolein, who is not here today, we became aware that there were also Dutch families with children born with them, who would like to have more contact with other parents. So we decided to make another facebook group and without knowing she did, Miriam created the name, the Roosjes. This spring, Marjolein, K and I took a leap of faith and organised a meeting for children, family members of and people with and intersex condition. We had a great meeting, without any medical pressure, just a place to talk about issues we are facing while our children were playing together and getting to know each other.

With this organisation we hope in a kind of way to formalise the possibility to organise these meetings. Meetings where we can just be ourselves, in a safe surrounding talking with others, learning from each other and maybe one of the most important things, enjoying eachothers company. We do not have to travel to the United States to meet others anymore, although maybe one day we will, just for the fun of it.  

There is one thing that connects us in the first place but so many things that make us enjoy each others company as human beings. Because that’s what we all are, human beings ….