How I know Mariette:

Mariette and I met just before my husband, our two daughters and I moved to Malaysia in 2003. She had already been there for 2 years, and had just given birth to her third child. Mariette guided me through expat life in Penang, and our daughters Wien and Nadine, born one day apart, hit it off from the day they met. Through the years we had joint birthday celebrations, school functions, and many swim and dinner parties. Our two families moved to San Jose, California around the same time in 2006, strengthening our friendship (even when I lost sight of her 3 year old son who walked out of their house while I was supposed to watch him). In 2014 Mariette and her family moved to Atlanta which made it harder to maintain our friendship, but we touch base every now and then and even made a trip to celebrate our 50th birthdays together.

Mariette’s youth and college years

Mariette was born and raised in Zeeland, the Netherlands. She has a 6 years older brother, who because of the age difference was never at the same school. (In contrast, her own kids who are closer in age have always been at the same school.)

Looking back at her youth Mariette loves that her mom was always home with tea and cookies when she came home from school. Once she hit her teenage years she didn’t like high school and came up with all kinds of reasons why she should leave school. Her parents didn’t give in and told her she had to finish high school, which she now very much appreciates.

Mariette was planning on studying English in Amsterdam because her brother lived there. Three months before she was supposed to start she went to a hospital to sing with her church choir, and realized that was the environment she wanted to work in. Her mom arranged for her to enroll in the nursing program (HBO-V) in Goes. In spite of lots of critique from people around her who didn’t understand this step, she thrived there and absolutely loved it.

After getting her Bachelor’s Degree and becoming a nurse, Mariette continued her studies part-time as she realized that doctors don’t tend to listen to nurses very well even though they know their patients better. At 22 she wanted to work and study, and enrolled in Nursing Sciences at Maastricht University. Every other week on Saturday she took the train from Eindhoven (where her now-husband lived) to Maastricht which was filled with part-time students like herself. She took subjects like statistics, science theory, philosophy, theory of nursing, and qualitative vs quantitive research. Mariette loved the problem-oriented education she received.

Mariette’s work life

While studying for her Master’s degree, Mariette initially worked in a halfway home for young adults who had been in a psychiatric hospital, learning to be on their own. She  often found herself wondering: what’s the difference between the people she served and herself? Was it nature? Nurture? Certain life events? Challenging in this line of work was that she always had to stay vigilant and check facts: people didn’t always necessarily tell the truth.

After a year Mariette switched to home health care and children’s health care. Sometimes she felt weird consulting on children’s health care because being so young without children, she didn’t always have the practical knowledge the parents were looking for. 

After two years Mariette went solely into home health care. She fondly looks back on driving through the Dutch countryside in her little red car. As hard as it was for her to care for cancer patients and other terminal illnesses, she also has beautiful memories of eating soup with families because it was important for them to take care of the nurse. She loved the human connections part of the job. In retrospect she thinks maybe she should have become a social worker. 

Right at the time Mariette got her Master’s degree, there was a trend of merging home health care and home family care organizations. At the same time, the available contact time per client was drastically reduced. Mariette ended up in an office, working on a stroke project. The goal was to create a chain of care programs. Brain hemorrhage and cerebral infarction have the same symptoms but need to get diagnosed quickly to be able to treat it well; this makes the recovery time a lot shorter. It was an ambitious project with 2 or 3 hospitals, general practitioners in the entire region as well as insurance companies involved. This made for lots of politics, which Mariette found super interesting. After 2 years she had her first son and started working less, closer to home. The project went on without her. 

Mariette as a mom: moves to Penang, San Jose and Atlanta

Once Mariette became a mom, working became secundary. She enjoyed caring for her son way more than she expected. She worked a new part-time job for a few months until she went on maternity leave for the birth of her daughter. At that point, her husband got the (unexpected) offer to go to Malaysia. They left 3 1/2 months after their daughter’s birth. In Malaysia Mariette fully went in mother mode, much to her own surprise as in her twenties, she thought she didn’t want kids. Many of her Dutch friends pitied her for having given up her job and being a full-time mom, but she loved it. Mariette made it her mission to teach her kids the Dutch language and Dutch traditions. Initially she strongly felt her children should go to school in the Netherlands, but that feeling faded after a while.

Mariette had her youngest song in Malaysia, which was culturally challenging. She didn’t want to know the gender of her child before birth; she had to fight for that. Through the expat community she had found a gynecologist whom she knew would respect her choices. To her surprise, nurses recommended chocolate milk while breastfeeding (a no-go in the Netherlands). While in the hospital, a candle light dinner was in her care package, which was a huge deal for the staff so she couldn’t waive it. She ended up having lunch by herself because her husband had just started a new job within his company and couldn’t make time for it.

Mariette didn’t work in Malaysia: initially because she wasn’t allowed; then because she didn’t want to. Together Mariette and I made lots of hikes up Penang Hill with our youngest kids on our backs, while the older kids were in school.

Penang to Mariette was getting away from a life that was very predictable. It was their first real adventure, and Mariette found out that just starting out simple will get you there. She sometimes longs for a move again just to experience that simplicity. It is hard to leave a place but it is also an opportunity to reset, meet new people, and do new things.

In 2006, Mariette and her family moved from Penang to San Jose. She quickly dropped the negative images she had of the US formed through TV series. She loved biking around and watching colorful leaves on Curtner Avenue in the Fall. Mariette thought she wouldn’t go back to work but saw an opportunity when her husband joined a startup in 2009. She “played office” to help him with paperwork. Initially it was just the two of them in an office, then slowly they started hiring more people. In 2014 the company was bought by a bigger company in Atlanta. Mariette and her family decided to move closer to the company’s headquarters. This move was by far the most challenging and intensive because their kids were now teenagers. However, it was a great opportunity to show them that it can be thrilling to start all over again.

Mariette decided to stop working to focus on the move and settling in a new environment as a family. She knew she’d have fun working but would also enjoy staying home. When her kids came home from school, she had tea and cookies ready for them. They got a puppy just before the move to show their good will to the kids. Through the dog she quickly met new people. She also started running and picked up tennis again.

Mariette approaching 50

After a year or two Mariette spontaneously responded to an ad on Facebook for a part-time job at a local cupcake bakery, where she worked for a few months. When the owner decided to close the business, Mariette considered starting a similar business with 2 friends but realized she’d have to work grueling hours and wouldn’t be there for her family. She didn’t want to miss the last two years of her oldest being home before going off to college. Her kids supported her decision by saying “did you know kids with parents who work too much are unhappy?”

Meanwhile Mariette started getting more aware of inequality and racism around her, and started looking for ways to help. She is now a mentor AND was sworn in as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster youth.

As a mentor, Mariette was paired with a girl in the school district to help close the opportunity gap. She started visiting her in after school care once a week, sometimes doing homework, sometimes crafts or other fun activities. Covid made meeting in person temporarily impossible; Mariette kept in touch by dropping off some books and school supplies to her mentee every now and then. “The success of your kids depends on if there are books in the house”, she read a long time ago – this way she tried to contribute to the success of this child. At this time, Mariette is able to go on socially distanced walks with her mentee.

To become a Court Appointed Special Advocate for foster youth, Mariette followed a 6 weeks course, after which she was sworn in by a judge and appointed to a case. A judge in Oregon founded this program to make sure the child’s interests are represented by someone who gets to know the child well. Mariette did the training in early 2020 and was sworn in just before the pandemic hit. It is challenging work but she tries to help as much as she can, and tries to be happy with every victory, no matter how small. Mariette had one case over the course of 2020 and started her second case in December 2020.

What Mariette wishes she had known earlier

There is no need to be overly prepared and have multiple scenarios ready for everything: if you just start somewhere and take one step at a time, you’ll be OK. A while ago, someone asked her what place she had lived in she liked most. After giving it some thought, she replied: “I don’t know, and I don’t think that’s important. I live here and now, and here is where I want to be happy.” She would have loved to have that realization earlier.

Mariette’s advice for others in this stage of life

Everyone does what they do with a positive intention (at least for themselves). If you want to change someone’s actions, find out their intention and try to meet them there. Consider your own reactions: why do you feel confronted? Try to figure that out and be open to change your opinions. This definitely gets harder with age, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try..