Eva Jinek thinks the Netherlands is still too conservative in the field of maternity care

Eva Jinek hunts for documentaries Eve’s world Look differently at motherhood and the problems mothers encounter, she tells NU.nl. In this three-part series, Jinek tackles important issues in the lives of mothers: the physical problems that women experience during and after childbirth, the guilt you feel as a working mother and sex after childbirth. †

First of all: The approach of the series that Jinek made is that motherhood is beautiful, but still has a number of taboos. He says he has learned a lot. Starting with the problems that many women face during pregnancy. One in five women experiences a traumatic birth, a quarter suffers from urine loss and in the Netherlands no epidural is given, just like pelvic floor therapy.

Choosing the subject of motherhood was not easy for 43-year-old Jinek, who did not only do her late night show for RTL. gyno but there is also room to make documentaries for Videoland.

Eve’s world It is the first success of the weapons. “The biggest change in my life in the past 3.5 years is that I am a mother and a working mother. That is something that worries me every day.”

Guilt as a working mother is a big theme for Jinek that she wants to emphasize. “A scientist I interviewed told me how it happened: we see the father’s care as making money for the family, the mother’s duty of care is to take care of her children. So if a working father doesn’t leave his sick child behind, he can. good luck everyone thinks it’s normal mom She cannot hold her child and many see her as selfish and cold.

The anecdote of journalist and presenter Liesbeth Staats in the documentary is remarkable: her husband forgets to mention his dentist appointment. Staats then arrives with her child for another dentist appointment, and they openly resent him for missing the appointment. When Staats says that her husband has forgotten to report this, the dentist melts and forgives her everything. Because you should never bore a working dad with a dentist appointment, right?

“I spend a lot of time and energy on my guilt”

“It’s hard to measure, but everyone feels it. During my upbringing I learned that I had to be financially independent and that my job had to be interesting. It’s not a hobby and it’s what my family lives on.” . I also share these cultural values ​​and how working mothers are seen in the Netherlands. They have put me under pressure. It bothers me. I put a lot of time and energy on this feeling of guilt. You hear it all your life and it determines how you see yourself and your role is to watch.”

Jinek does not only want to show the problems of young mothers. He says he is a “very pragmatic person” and therefore wants to see how this can be solved.

For example, a scientist explains in a documentary that mothers feel less guilty if an employer treats young fathers as young mothers. “I think it’s very practical, we can do something with it. So there are really concrete solutions. Let’s go to him.”

Motherhood is described on Instagram as something beautiful, and it goes without saying that a mother comes out fresh and happy three days after giving birth, but Jinek soon realized that that was not the case for many mothers.

“I was forty when I became a mother and then you think you have a sense of security with your whole life experience. I thought: soon I will be walking with my son Pax in the pram. fascination outside and then life starts again as before. At home, the opposite happened: I got sick after giving birth, making me very sick and barely able to walk, which shocked me. I have always known myself as someone with the energy of ten. Whoever throws the beech, no matter what time it is. Now it didn’t work. I feel sorry for this situation.

The server was not a veteran in other fields either. In the postpartum sex episode, Jinek said she doesn’t feel as attractive as her Instagram photos, but “like alligators.” “You can’t stay there after three days with a strong and functioning body.”

She talks to people about sex on the show, which was a confrontation: when Jinek asks what kind of people have real sex, they all say probing sex.

“It’s not that easy when you’ve just given birth. In the Netherlands they say: if there is contraception, you can go back. But then you start again. Many women also feel pressure. : When can I have penetrating sex again? They begin to associate it with pain and break up when there are many other forms of sex and intimacy.

He also states that things are better organized in the countries around us. “We can conclude that the Netherlands is quite conservative. Perhaps this is a thought from years ago. I hope this drama will open the dialogue between men and women, but also the women themselves.”

‘I see that as a manager I will work very little’

Although Jinek feels guilty as a working mother, she is sometimes accused of working too little. After all, is it possible to have a talk show for a few months a year and be off the rest of the year for a hefty paycheck? He also saw such comments on social media and shrugged.

“I see it as someone’s frame. I work even more at RTL than at NPO. I certainly don’t want to complain about it, but I spend more hours on my own talk show. It starts early in the morning at 7am. 30 am and ends late at night.”

Then Johan Derksen’s comment plays there too Today in. He says he is not a student. After the broadcast of her own talk show, Jinek is said to have said: “We have that too. in today good post after all! ”, when the broadcast stopped shortly after the “candle story”.

He denied having told this to his colleague Beau van Erven Dorens last week. She repeats to NU.nl: “I love my job and I know that I can be accepted for what I say. part of the game† But now about the things that are not true. I can’t defend myself against that.”

“It has not been a normal talk show week”

Now looking back on the two years that she presented on RTL4 Jinek, she concludes that there has hardly been a “normal” week of talk shows in between. “First there was corona for a long time, then the war in Ukraine. Those are of course the scary things you have to deal with in a journalistic talk show, but they are intense topics.”

“A talk show should really be like a magazine: a mix of everything and nothing and a good atmosphere. We catch people before they go to bed and finally do something nice for them. But since I moved to RTL, news has a strong impact on everything. Fortunately, there has been more room for other things lately.

Meanwhile, Jinek is writing the sequel to his book. think big, again he wants to portray people. “Yeah, I do that too when people think I’m on vacation,” she laughs.

“The great thing about a book like this is that you can talk at length and make a detour with someone who can’t sit at a talk show table. I could only imagine doing long interviews in my next Videoland documentary series. like in the book.

Even now that the M-talk show has stopped, there is still room for NPO1 in the early evening. Is Jin interested? “I am doing very well at RTL.”

Eva’s World can be viewed on Videoland from Wednesday.