TV column

It's great that Rutger Castricum is giving priority to the misery of the benefits affair again.

November 8, 2024

Only a hundred thousand viewers? Rutger Castricum understood, he said at Today Inside, that in this America week, people didn't pay attention to an hour of tragedy in his PowDoc Recovery hell (Powned) Tuesday. The “recovery operation” of the benefits affair has been dragging on for years anyway. At this rate, another hundred years: it already cost one hundred million euros in penalty payments, said NSC Secretary of State Nora Achahbar.

In retrospect, the US elections turned out to be a black hole for all my attention, and hope. I looked back at titles and was first impressed by the beautiful, recognisable Backlighting-episode The Mother of All Myths (VPRO) last Sunday.

Your own development in the fridge

A story about the modern ideology of good motherhood, and how it saddles young, educated women with a sense of isolation, loneliness and failure. While neither history nor biology indicates that caring was always only a maternal role.

Once conceived, ideas can be stubbornly guiding. If you didn't want to cuddle and kiss a baby a century ago — a morning handshake was enough for the manipulative creature — nowadays, you need to be fully aware of its emotional signals and put your own development on hold for a while.

Well, ideals. If things only go half well in the erratic reality, it's already beautiful. In the documentary Recovery hell by Rutger Castricum, it was mainly about parenting and irreparable damage. He follows four families torn apart by deep debt and stress. You know that the benefits affair is a cesspool, but you don't often experience what it smells like. It's great that Castricum is giving that priority again. If you can, you should see that movie again.

That fraudster and horror mom

The recovery of childcare allowance was only the first push over the edge. With the divorced mother Riemke, the two oldest children, then 2 and 5 years old, were placed out of the home. She was “that fraudster, that polluted horror mother” and never got to see them again. Only recently, 21-year-old Tim rediscovered how sweet, and admittedly innocent, she is.

Mother Sylvana was also alone, but had to work so much due to debts that son Dylan took full care of his brothers. The pale boy with downcast eyes had no childhood, and has no life now. It gets even more painful with the sisters Shahira and Denise, who came into foster care as teenagers, felt “lost” and didn't even know about each other's suicide attempts.

In a very dark place

Finally, the desperately fighting, tough Renate and Jeroen. They still have each other, but the 92,000 euros they suddenly had to pay back in a year in 2008 has made them destitute, sick and unemployed. The oldest two children ran away (no longer in contact), the youngest three grew up in deep poverty.

The daughter asks so little that she barely takes up space to exist. She is now “in a very dark place”, the parents say terrified. They had won their lawsuit against the state, but it remains ice-cold about the amount of the recovery amount.

Pedagogical expert Elisa Scholte was clear about distrust, the need to “apologize”, and closure. This PowDoc shows clear words that, however, cannot muffle the well. As a citizen of this country, I am deeply, deeply ashamed again.

Write four times a week Maaike Bos and Renate van der Bas columns about television.