‘I like to create my own work’

in

‘I have worked in paid employment, especially during the corona period, I realized how vulnerable I was as a self-employed person in education. My assignments were cancelled, so there was no income and as a single mother with two children that is confronting. I was employed by a care institution for a while, but the freedom of independent entrepreneurship still appealed to me more. I like to create my own work. I am quite pro-active: as a self-employed person I feel I can work much better than if I were employed.

“I mainly work as a guest teacher of visual arts in primary education. I teach the first lesson of a longer-running project on art and the teacher then continues with it. The disadvantage is that as a guest teacher I don’t get to know the children well: I never know what stories they carry with them. At the same time, being a guest lecturer gives me the opportunity to develop teaching materials about art and culture, and I can provide training to give this a stronger place within a curriculum.

I also teach yoga to adults. The combination with my other activities is nice: being busy, but not by heart. Feeling things, not from aesthetics, but with the body. I had to give up a lot because I have been taking care of the children alone for thirteen years.”

out

‘In 2010 my private life was turned upside down and I divorced the father of my children, two boys who are now 18 and 22 years old. I no longer had a home, so we lived with my parents for a year. I also lost my workshop, but was lucky enough to be able to teach at a school two to three days a week on a structural basis. The care of the children fell entirely on me and I never received child support. During that time I learned to be very conscious about money.

“When the children were younger, it was very important to me to be able to go on holiday during the summer holidays. I saved for that. Usually we went camping somewhere in the Netherlands by car, sometimes we were able to go abroad.

“I’ve always taught my kids not to want everything others have, but I didn’t want them to be the only one in the class who didn’t go on vacation after the summer.

“Both boys think it’s fine to still live at home, but I also think it’s a healthy development if they start spreading their wings. I will miss the commotion in the house, but in the current situation I will continue to play the mother role. And I am more than that.”