“You can do it, no: you have to do it. You have to show your children how important it is to be strong, to fight and to win.” Whenever Ceyda Y. (Name changed) was close to despair, she encouraged herself with such sentences. Whenever she didn’t know how to get her three children to make ends meet, when she didn’t have the money for even the bare minimum of food, she concentrated on her own strengths. That gave her the strength to move on. “I have to stay strong because the only thing in the world that is valuable to me is my children,” says Ceyda Y. as she puts her arms around the two youngest children.
As a child, the 42-year-old already experienced how hard life can be and that you can’t survive it without hard work. Her father had already come to Austria and then to Munich as a guest worker in 1967, and found work on the assembly line at BMW. The mother looked after the children at home, there were seven of them in the end. When Ceyda Y. was twelve years old, her parents sent her to Turkey, where she attended boarding school for four years. Her German, which she had already mastered so well, was getting worse and she longed for her friends in the north of Munich. And wasn’t she a real Munich child, born in the Schwabing hospital?
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When she was finally able to go back to Munich, she first had to catch up at school, what she had missed, and graduated from secondary school. She worked as an IT specialist and, at the age of 19, married a young man from Bosnia whom her parents did not accept. The relationship with them is difficult to this day. She gave birth to two children in the marriage, the daughter is now 17, the son twelve years old. But how it is then: The marriage broke up, but did not end in a catastrophe. Even after the divorce, her ex-husband looked after the children, interacted with them and pays maintenance for them as best he can with his job as a tram driver.
And just as Ceyda Y. had settled down to some extent and set up a home for her children in a new apartment, a new relationship became fatal for her. The man, who then became the father of her youngest daughter, had emigrated from Turkey and, as she soon realized, had only started the relationship in order to be able to stay in Germany. He avoided work as well as learning the German language. At home he made her life hell.
Ceyda Y. doesn’t want to talk about this difficult time in front of the children, she continues the conversation with the visitor in the small kitchen. It is about massive violence, this man took no account of the fact that his partner had just given birth. The police and the youth welfare office intervened and freed Ceyda Y. from this emergency situation. The authorities forbade him to have contact with his daughter, and then escorted contact was permitted. Ceyda Y. lived in constant fear of him, she had to seek psychological care in order to lose the fear that she would not be able to protect her children from him.
It was only when he disappeared to Turkey and was imprisoned there for various crimes that she breathed a sigh of relief – and the children with her. German is spoken at home, little Melinda – now seven years old and an enthusiastic first grade student – learned Turkish out on the street. In terms of health, the little ones were not always doing well. She was a premature baby and has had a weak immune system ever since. Then, as an infant, she got a herpes infection that resulted in doctors having to remove her front teeth. When everything has stabilized, she will get new teeth.
The children have got used to the fact that money is always tight. That they cannot wear the same things as other children whose families are financially better off. Melinda and Edin, her brother, have humble wishes. “I would like a snow globe with a shooting star in it,” says Melinda. Edin, who is enthusiastic about sports, needs new, sturdy shoes for it. The brand is not important to him, he knows that the trendy brands are too expensive.
It is important to him that the family is together and happy. That they support each other. And the way he looks up at his mother, everyone can see that he admires her. There are many reasons for that. She always tried to make ends meet with the family, and at least improved the household budget with mini-jobs. Corona then largely eliminated them, but this created a new opportunity. Ceyda Y. began training as a nanny when she was more than 40 years old. “It has always been my dream job,” she says. “And now I’ve done it.” In the summer she completed the exam to become a social pedagogical assistant and nanny with a grade of 2.6 in Würzburg and has since worked in an institution of the Bavarian Red Cross, initially part-time.
Now she has her next goal in mind: to become a kindergarten teacher. And because the eldest daughter is currently preparing for her secondary school diploma, there is learning and studying in the 2.5-room apartment. But there is no desk, a chair or a laptop – things like that. And as the children grow, they always need the right clothes and shoes. Donations would help her and her three children a lot. And Ceyda Y. will now earn money herself again – to be an example for her children.