Help, we don’t have enough babies! On Monday, demographer Jan Latten sounded the alarm in a talk show On 1. Last year only 164,000 babies were born in the Netherlands. The birth rate has fallen to 1.43; far too low to maintain the population. Cause: insecurity among the potential parents. Result: aging. Soon there will be no more young people to care for the elderly. Orthodox Reformed MP Chris Stoffer (SGP) had a solution: baby bonuses. The more babies you have, the more money you get. That had to be done away with childcare.
The Evangelical Broadcaster follows suit More than expected (NPO1) parents who have already boosted the birth rate: they had triplets. The reality soap is programmed daily for two weeks in the early evening, where it is much more popular than the talk shows that the public broadcaster usually broadcasts at that time. Apparently viewers prefer family reality. Will Eva Jinek’s return to public broadcasting soon change that?
For most parents, one baby is already a heavy burden. You wouldn’t want to think about it if that were three times as bad. That’s what the series is all about: you can marvel at the crazy hustle and bustle in the families from a safe distance, and at the same time there is more than enough recognition. Furthermore: amazement at the tight organization in the families. Besides, it looks beautiful, three cute babies in a row.
The series is a sequel to A house full, the equally popular series about large families. However, this also included families with financial and social problems. In More than expected everyone is beautiful, young and wealthy. Spacious living rooms, large cars and beautiful carts in which you can hang three Maxi-Cosi’s. The drama is limited this time. Only with Fahishta and Carlo do you feel tension. Fahishta is in total trouble while Carlo takes life lightly. He dismisses problems with a quip. This irritates her immensely. “That’s the difference between father and mother,” she snaps. “You can laugh, I can cry.”
The Kirmiziyüz family also has three children, but of different ages. One of the sons, Sadettin Kirmiziyüz, makes successful theater performances about his family. He impersonates his family members in narrative monologues. In the documentary At home with the K family. (The Hour of the Wolf, NPO2) director Mijke de Jong asks the rest of the family what they think about that.
Well, they don’t like Sadettin airing her dirty laundry. The sister had even been furious when he openly criticized her on stage and imitated her in a wedding dress. But they weren’t going to say that to his face. Sadettin does not discuss his problems directly with them either. He prefers to incorporate them into a new theater performance. De Jong shows this lack of communication by not letting the family members talk directly to each other. They see each other in interviews on a laptop and then respond.
It is also telling that the purpose of the documentary was not successful because the other family members did not want to tell so much. Once again, it is mainly Sadettin who speaks. His work is about the torment of the migrant son who has one foot in the world of his parents and the other outside. The other family members think that is exaggerated. Couldn’t Sadettin just get over the fact that he is a child of immigrants? They also said this to the camera and not to him. Sadettin talks to them through theater monologues, they answer him through television.