'Life is worth living'

Waddinxveen - She is 40 years old, writing a book and giving lectures; Mariel Fox. She lives in Gouda, but the first 18 years of her life she lived in Waddinxveen. First with adoptive parents, later in a foster family. She has sometimes asked herself the question: do I want to live or do I choose death? Her conclusion is now: 'Life is worth living, make something of it.' That is her message for Foster Care Week (November 2-9).

She was four months old when she came from India to her adoptive parents in the Netherlands. Vos calls her adoptive parents gifted. “I was beaten, mentally molested and at the age of eight I already knew how much my adoption had cost.”

Were adoptive parents not screened in those days? "Surely. But the rules that apply now are very different. I also know that the church guaranteed my adoptive parents.”

One day, Vos was eight, she was sick and vomited. According to Vos, her adoptive mother was not happy with her and kept repeating that she was not getting value for money and now she also made the sheets dirty. Vos was locked in the barn where she was eventually freed by the police.

She was asked the question: do you want to go to the office or do you want to stay at home? “I chose the latter and promised to always be a sweet child. I did everything to please my adoptive parents.”

If her adoptive parents didn't feel like picking up Vos from a friend where she played, she had to spend the night there. “I also slept with a teacher once.” Eventually she ends up with a foster family, first only during the day and later structurally.

“I was devastated with grief and homesickness for my adoptive parents, especially my adoptive father who could still be kind of nice. I really believe that it works in such a way that every dog ??that is beaten prefers to go back to its owner.”

Around the age of fifteen she had serious doubts about the meaning of life and what to do next. Eventually she decided that she still wanted children and wanted to get married in a white dress someday. That convinced her. Vos calls herself an extremely strong woman who, by the way, gives a lot of credit to her foster mother.

“When I became a mother myself, I was so afraid that I wouldn't be a good mother. It was my foster mother who always uttered the magic words: “Mariël, you were not born of your adoptive parents, of course you can.”

In addition to a book, a documentary may soon be made about the life of Mariël Vos.

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