When Mariel Vos (39) was four months old, she was adopted. When she was eleven she ended up in a foster family, where she lived until she was seventeen. Mariël: “People often expect that everything will be fine in a foster family. But that is not always the case.”
Mariel's adoptive parents were gifted people. They couldn't really take care of her, so Mariel had to deal with mental abuse. “I kept hearing that they regretted adopting me. They thought I was very expensive and wanted more value for money. As a six-year-old girl, I knew exactly what I had cost. I was also beaten by my parents. It was a very tough situation.”
foster care
When Mariel was nine years old, she ended up in day foster care. Out of school, around three o'clock, she went to a foster home and also stayed there for dinner. Then she was taken back to her adoptive parents. “At a certain point I could see the differences between my adoptive parents and me more and more. Actually, I took care of them, instead of them taking care of me. As a child you are very loyal to your parents. I really loved them, they were my mom and dad, even though their upbringing was totally wrong.”
Two years later, Mariel was then eleven years old, she was permanently removed from home. An experience she will never forget. “In the morning my adoptive parents told me that in an hour I would leave for my day foster care family. I totally panicked. I cried and apologized a hundred times for everything I did wrong in life. I so wanted to stay with them. I promised that I would always be sweet and caring. It was a traumatic event. In retrospect, I also think it was a low point in my life.” In the period after that, Mariel suffered from homesickness. She wanted so badly to go back to her parents. “I also noticed that I found it very difficult to act on the love of the foster family. These people were nice, but I was scared to death for doing something wrong. I was afraid that I would have to leave again.”