How a family lives together varies by country and culture, but the standard family with husband, wife and children is no longer the norm. Living with several partners, adult children, grandchildren, adopted or foster children, eight cats or three dogs: In this series, people talk about their family. This week: Evelien de Jong (49) lives in a housing group with seven roommates, has a long-term relationship and a child.
She and her boyfriend have an eight-year-old daughter, but on paper she is a single mother. Evelien de Jong lives with seven roommates near the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. “It’s a left-wing, vegetarian living group with four men and four women. I’ve lived there for twenty years and I still like it very much. We share a bathroom and a kitchen and eat together. Once every eight weeks you do it weekly. shopping for eight people.”
Her boyfriend lives in another housing complex close to ARTIS. The building was partly born out of necessity, because it is not easy to find a home, but the couple deliberately choose not to live together.
It has worked for years, also with the daughter: “Father’s and mother’s days are divided equally. We each have vespers 2.5 days a week and at the weekend the three of us are together. We have holidays together.”
At festivals and exhibitions, I looked around: is it him? I became possessed.
It’s nice to keep the finances separate
Latting with a child has advantages, says De Jong. “Well, the benefits, not the burdens. I’ve wanted to have children all my life, but I don’t see myself as a family leader. It’s 24 hours a day, and you don’t get paid for it. I think it’s the most underrated job out there. I like to separate finances. I work as an independent entrepreneur and like to live on a small footing. My boyfriend and I never argue about the household or the expenses: we both manage it ourselves.”
Sleeping alone every now and then is also great, according to De Jong. Aside from the practical benefits, she likes a break from parenthood every now and then. “When my daughter sleeps with my boyfriend, I’m really free and I can do whatever I want without having to arrange a babysitter or watch the clock. Friday morning at 8:00 a.m. to a hot pilates class, to a museum or a meeting with friends: I recommend it to everyone.”
Panic about wanting children
De Jong works as a children’s wish coach and lives a free life. From the age of 36, she panicked about her own desire to have children. “I loved excitement, adventure and celebrating freedom, and until then I thought: love comes naturally. For ten years I was the mistress of a bad bartender, but I never met the father of my children. At festivals and at exhibitions I looked around : is it him? I was possessed.”
I thought: either I cycle alone to the sperm bank, or someone cycles with me.
She visited a psychologist. “Psychological assistance for unfulfilled desire for children and relationships” was on the referral. The psychologist determined that I suffered from commitment anxiety. However freely I lived, in the end I wanted what many people want: a child as the crown of love.
Desire for children apart from romance
Slowly, De Jong cut off her desire to have children from the romance. “I started dating homosexuals and registered with the sperm bank; I wanted to have a child in conscious co-parenting. This made me more relaxed: I no longer saw potential boyfriends as possible fathers because of their sperm. It was a conscious decision that I wanted a child whether I was in a relationship or not.”
When De Jong started fertility treatments at the hospital with the help of a donor, she ran into her current boyfriend in North Brabant. “If I hadn’t worked so hard on myself, I would have overlooked him. He wasn’t the type I liked, but we really liked each other.”
To the sperm bank
He originally wanted no children at all, but De Jong likes him enough to build a relationship with. “I thought: either I cycle alone to the sperm bank or someone cycles with me. After a while I asked him about my inseminations. He supported my choice and one day he said: ‘If you get pregnant, you will, I might adopt baby in nine months.”
Since she didn’t treat him as “father potential”, the relationship progressed well this time. After several failed inseminations, De Jong turned to IVF.
“We were a year later and I asked him if he wanted to participate. I was now 39 and he said yes, he wanted to have a biological child with me. ‘If things go wrong between us, we can get together too ‘, he said, and that was the commitment I needed. We were going for a child together, even though we weren’t living together and didn’t intend to.”
Slats with a child
De Jong injected maximum hormones, but only one egg was harvested. A small ray of hope that resulted in a pregnancy. “Thanks to that one egg, my greatest wish came true: I had a child.”
For now, De Jong, her boyfriend and their daughter continue to skate. “Living together in one of our housing groups is not an option. I do not rule out that we will ever live together with our child, but at the moment we are all happy with our family situation.”
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Margot heeft slechts twee vingers, en dat blijkt toch lastig met een pasgeborene. Ze vertelt haar verhaal op Ouders van Nu.