Carice about guilt: “I wanted a child, but I didn’t wonder what kind of world I was going to put him in”
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Actress Carice van Houten has recently become a climate activist. A lecture by philosopher of science Chris Julien, at Extinction Rebellionradically changed her view of the world and her life.
After the lecture, Carice got scared. “Really scared,” she says NRC. And she felt angry, powerless, sad and guilty. Once home, she looked at her six-year-old son who was sleeping and wondered what awaits him. “And not only him, he is of course a symbol of all young life.”
Blanks
Since becoming a mother, the actress says she lived in a bubble and withdrew from public life. “Of course I got something, I smelled danger, but I couldn’t place it properly. I just didn’t understand it either, what about that one and a half degree warming. How bad is that then? All those blanks of information made me restless, I felt that things had to change,” she says. “But in practice I played with Paw Patrol and Lego and really enjoyed it.”
“I can’t do anything else, because I can’t look my child in the eye anymore”
That Carice speaks out about the climate will undoubtedly cause criticism. She says: “I am of the harmony model and I don’t like to antagonize people. But I can’t help it, because I can’t look my child in the eye anymore.”
Bare naked fact
Bar shame is being talked about more and more. For example, writer Susan Smit tweeted in May last year: ‘There is meat shame. Fly Shame. “Shower too long” shame. But no “more than two kids” shame yet. A taboo, I know. But the earth is breaking down from too many people. That’s the bare, naked fact that no one dares mention.’
Bar shame
She doesn’t know whether Carice, with the knowledge of today, would choose to have a child again. “I honestly don’t think so, even though he’s the best thing that happened to me in my life,” she says.
Read also: Baarshame: ‘Do you have to want to have a child in these times of climate crisis and food scarcity?’
steaming ready
The actress thinks that Monte has his birthday in August and would like to celebrate with a bouncy castle. What she mainly thinks about is how extremely hot the summer will be. And that she doesn’t know how to tell him that it might be too hot for a bouncy castle in the garden. She wants to get him ready somehow, without frightening him. About whether she feels guilty, she says: “I wanted a child, but I didn’t wonder what kind of world I was going to put him in. I feel guilty about that indiscretion. It is now my responsibility to fight for the life I envisioned for him.”
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Source: NRC
