The month of February began with pleasant temperatures. It seemed like spring!

Although Sjaak knew very well that it could still freeze, he decided to use these days to work in the gardens around their own house and near the house of Huib and Margreet.

Because it had not yet frozen much, the ground was easy to work. He started by digging, loosened the soil well. He spread manure and compost on it and watered it for a few days in a row.

One evening over coffee he discussed with Lisa, Huib and Margreet what plants they should put in it. Both ladies fancied a bunch of fruit bushes. In their minds they were already tasting the blackberries, currants and raspberries and shared their experiences with each other.

The men winked at each other. "Our women know what's good!" said Huib smiling at Sjaak.

Now it was Margreet's and Lisa's turn to wink at each other.

"Of course we know what's good!" thought Lisa. "But you know what seems especially wonderful to me? That you can walk outside and just snack on something from a bush. Oh, let's not forget the strawberries! You know what looks nice to me? A kind of little hill with strawberry bushes, next to those bigger bushes."

With a grin on his face, Sjaak sat down to make a sketch and showed it to them, "Something like that?"

From pure enthusiasm Margreet clapped her hands, like a child so happy: "Oh yes, that will be fantastic! And further... just some different bushes that bloom for a while, hydrangea, azalea, lilac, also winter lilacs, roses. The garden is so big, I'd really like it if all kinds of different flowers became visible, just like on my tapestry."

Sjaak had written down the names she mentioned and looked at them intently for a moment: "Do you guys know the climbing hydrangea too? Huib and I could make a pergola and hang a climbing hydrangea over it. Little birds like sparrows and chickadees love to play in there."

Margreet and Lisa loved the idea: "You could use it as a kind of partition between our garden and the estate," Lisa suggested.

Annerieke, who had only listened and watched so far, burst out laughing, "Lisa, dear, there is no separation at all! We never drew a line for the size of the area where you can live. It's just allowed to flow into each other, that's just beautiful!"

She could see that all kinds of thoughts were going through Lisa's head. Her eyes moved restlessly.

"I haven't gotten into how that works out here, but I don't really know any better than that people always have a defined piece of land. So here it's different, it's a shared area, something like that..."

Lisa felt tears spring to her eyes and swallowed her emotions a bit to still be able to speak properly, "This is so beautiful, so special. Of course it's just beautiful when it's one piece, but the idea behind it is just wonderfully beautiful! It totally fits with how we live here, but apparently I have no idea yet how that really encompasses everything, really everything."

"I was thinking something like that the other day, Lisa," Margreet chimed in, "about our baby. When she's born later, she'll be our daughter, Huib's and mine. I then suddenly realized that she is not our possession, but that she belongs to herself. But that at the same time she does belong to all of us, will be part of our family here.

When those two sweet teenage girls stayed here over the Christmas vacations, ages seemed to fall away completely. That got me thinking. Our daughter will be the youngest, that will be visible, but you, Simon and Annerieke, will just be her loved ones. It may still be called grandpa and grandma, but I feel like that too is something that's not right. I mean, a grandfather and grandmother are supposed to have certain connections with their grandchild, and those connections involve... darn it, I don't know how to explain it!"

Huib caught up with her: "There's so much tied up in it, in all these ideas about how fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers should be and should do in relation to the child. It's funny, I've been thinking about that a lot in the last few weeks, too. We talk about parenting when it comes to fathers and mothers, and for grandfathers and grandmothers about enjoying and spoiling it. Just that difference alone! You would almost think that parents should not enjoy their child and never spoil it.

You know what I hope, Margreet? I really hope, that all of us, as we sit here, can just let our little girl live with us. Just be part of our family. Letting her discover for herself what she can discover for herself, and helping her where she needs it. I just long for a natural living together, where we all try to discover what is good for her, and what suits us in that as well.

Something like this... What suits Annerieke has nothing to do with her age or with some kind of position of a grandmother towards her grandchild. What suits Annerieke is simply baking and cooking, and dealing with people. And since our daughter is also a human being, she will deal with her. And if she has the idea that cooking and baking also suits our daughter, she will stimulate her to participate. Not as a grandma, but as a human being. How does that feel for you moms?"

Annerieke chuckled, "It sounds great, it feels good, it clicks with my insides, only... you don't apply it to me yourself yet, you still call me 'mom'!"

They all shot up in laughter.

"Is it an idea to use only our names?" thought Annerieke. "To teach your daughter to let her call us Simon and Annerieke too?"

There was silence for a moment as everyone wondered what that would be like.

Margreet was the first to answer, "I think it's fine to call each other by names, even for a small child. I've sometimes been amazed at how parents keep insisting to their baby that the little one must learn to say daddy or mommy. That's just in there, and it never felt comfortable to me. Also in general, with all kinds of other words, why do we have to recite words to a small child over and over again? Every time we see the child with a doll, the word "doll" has to be emphasized. If you just talk about it, wouldn't the child understand? Wouldn't the child learn to talk? Parenting feels so unnatural, as if the adults want to push the children in a certain direction right away."

Simon looked at her seriously: "It's not 'as if', Margreet. This is just what happens. Many parents will do this unconsciously, others do it consciously to make their child an exemplary child. They don't seem to realize that in doing so they lock their child into a pattern and squeeze the life out of their child. They make their child into a puppet who does exactly what they want. The child can therefore not develop into who it is in the deepest sense. And I suspect that the infamous toddler behavior and the even more infamous adolescent behavior are caused by this. A child is going to resist, not wanting to be pushed into a pattern over and over again!

If we allow children to be themselves, to live with us, they will have the space and freedom to explore themselves and the world around them. And that, I believe, will ensure that they go through all the years of their young lives without periods of resistance. There is nothing they would have to resist!

Since I have known that you are pregnant, Margreet, these thoughts have regularly crossed my mind. I am barely a 'father', and soon I will be a 'grandfather'. In that short time I have often wondered how I should behave, as a father, and as a grandfather. How does that work? What should I do? What do I have to take into account? What is my job? What is expected of me? All those kinds of thoughts.

And now that we are talking about it, the penny drops for me too: all we have to do is living together. And that little girl will see and hear and experience how we live. She will discover how she herself wants to live. I have a feeling, that's all she needs."

Annerieke put her arms around Simon, pulled him to her and said with tears in her eyes, "Thank you dear, it is so good that you share this with us, and that we talk about this together. I think this are things that are new to all of us, different from what we're used to from our own lives and different from what we've seen around us in other families."

Huib interrupted her, "That's true what you say, but not quite. I have really experienced that Erik and you have also let me discover a lot on my own. Of course I too have felt that there were fixed patterns, especially outside our family, at school, but I have never experienced it as a prison."

"You never resisted us either," Annerieke responded. "But you did oppose school, where you were clearly out of place, where you couldn't be yourself. But with Erik you learned so much, you developed spontaneously. I enjoyed that, just watching and listening to the both of you. He taught you a lot about working with wood, but never forced anything on you. He saw it in you, that you were a wood artist, even as a small child. He himself was handy with wood and with building as you do, Simon, but the artist work, that fine work which you do have in you, he did not have. But that didn't stop him from leading you in the direction that suited you."

Huib nodded, recognizing what she said, "That's right, he directed, he led... by working together, by letting me do things he knew suited me.

I remember very well, when I was just a toddler or a preschooler, but I was already engaged in small work. I remember, I was scratching in wood with an awl, very finely, like you sketch with a pencil on paper. Erik then taught me to work with a gouge. I loved working with that little gouge, gently tapping the handle. Once I caught him with tears running down his cheeks. He said he was not sad, but that it moved him that I was busy with that gouge. He told, that he had dreamed of that and that I did that back then, as a small child. Later he introduced me to other tools, other techniques. I was just allowed to try how it worked, how it felt. I could discover with him what I liked."

"So that's just it, knowing and feeling what suits the child, and at most steering a little in that. And otherwise just live together! It all sounds very simple, but I am curious to see how it will go in practice."

Margret's face was relaxed. She was looking forward to it!

To chapter 230. Gardening

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