Elias van der PlichtOctober 20, 2023, 10:00 PM
When anthropologist Roanne van Voorst thinks about the future of her toddler daughter, she worries. With all the damage we are doing to the earth, the increasing polarization, people on the run and other people afraid of those refugees, it seems inevitable: ‘She will suffer.’
She took her concerns to twelve parents whose ideas she finds inspiring. Thinkers and writers such as Arnon Grunberg, Marjolijn van Heemstra and Henk van Straten. She collected the interviews she conducted with them in the well-readable Leven doet Hoop.
Her interlocutors are concerned. Journalist Fidan Ekiz states that her son is growing up in a harsher world than she is. The innocence is gone. ‘A fluorescent light has been turned on, while we used to have candlelight.’
But there is also hope in every conversation. Historian Rutger Bregman realizes that his daughter’s double ear infection two centuries ago could have ended very differently without antibiotics. We are healthier than our ancestors and are doing so well. ‘In fact, it is almost arrogant when Dutch people ask themselves whether it is wise to bring children into the world now.’ Van Voorst’s conclusion: ‘Those children of ours are lucky.’
Roanne van Voorst
Life makes you hope. Parents about the future of their children
Stage; 167 pages. €22.99
Book reviews
2023-10-20 20:00:48
#Children #growing #lucky #conclusion #Life #hope
