Kinderen achterlaten in een bos om zelf de weg terug te vinden.
Zoals het in de New York Times staat beschreven klinkt het alsof wij in de lage landen de eerste jaren van ons leven als Mowgli op handen en voeten leert om de eigen boontjes te doppen. De Hollandse twitteraar kan het natuurlijk niet laten en doet er nog een schepje bovenop.
1. Het klinkt inderdaad een beetje gek.
The Dutch do childhood differently. Children are taught not to depend too much on adults; adults are taught to allow children to solve their own problems. And so there is the custom of “droppings” — leaving kids in the forest to find their way home alone. https://t.co/WHkBnMREMg
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) 21 juli 2019
2. Maar laten we eerlijk zijn; we zijn ook wel een apart volk.
It’s true. My parents dropped me in a forest when I was 7, I lived of berries and marihuana for 3 years. Eventually I found my way back to civilisation, but I ended up with a family I didn’t know. But we’ve made it work and I think that is beautiful.
— Rianne Meijer (@globalistaa) 22 juli 2019
3. En we steken elkaar er mee aan.
And look where it brought you! Such an independant woman 💪🏻 Up to the part of the forest, my story is quite simular, only I found an abandoned shed and was raised by a ghost called mama. I still only eat berries by the way.
— Kim (@Kim_Amsterdam) 22 juli 2019
4. Logisch.
That’s why we are so tall. Berries are superfoods, we knew that all along.
— Rianne Meijer (@globalistaa) 22 juli 2019
5. Zo leer je nog eens wat.
Foxes and wolves raised me and birds and mouses thought me how to make a dress. Forever grateful to my parents for dropping me in the woods.✌
— Nicky (@Nickeleneel) 21 juli 2019
6. Arme Michiel.
My dropping went relatively well. I fought a badger and caried his steaming corpse, it was the middle of winter and about -14, in to camp where we celebrated and the captain gave me a badge and my first pubic hairs. Others were not lucky. Michiel spend two weeks in the woods.
— KAPITEIN GREEFBEEST (@MENEERDEGREEF) 22 juli 2019
7. En nog zieliger voor Petra.
In my group Petra never turned up. Every year we go to the place were she went missing and sing in hopes of finding her but to no avail.
— A (@_jazzybelle) 22 juli 2019
8. Best een uitdaging.
That’s in summer. Winter is different. On New Year’s Day, my dad would take me, aged seven, out to sea in a boat. He would row five miles out, then put me overboard to swim back by myself. Which, I must say, was relatively easy once I’d made my way out of that cloth bag.
— GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺 (@eetschrijver) 21 juli 2019
9. En koud.
You had a boat…
My father took me to the Pier in Scheveningen, put a ball and chain on my ankle and then threw me in the freezing cold North Sea to make a real man of me.
This all happened providing I could find my way back home from the Forest in summer.— Rebecca (@MrsvanP) 21 juli 2019
10. Moge de sterksten overleven.
True. It’s part of our beautiful Dutch culture.
That’s why I gave birth 8 times in the forest.
3 of them eventually made it home, the strong and independent ones.— Ellen (@EllenNGNG) 21 juli 2019
11. En wat de ouders deden?
And in the meantime the parents go to work. On ice skates
— Boswachter Tim (@BoswachterTim) 21 juli 2019
12. Zo moeilijk is het niet in zo’n bos.
Luckily we are a small country so eventually most of the children will find their way out of the woods after a few weeks.
— Martijn Kuijken (@Kuijken040) 21 juli 2019
13. Grietje vertelt ook haar verhaal.
I once got dropped in the woods with my Little brother Hans, I cheated because I left M&M’s on the road to find our way back, but still ended up at An old ladies house. She turned out to be be a Psycho so Hans and I ended up killing her. But all of this really toughened me up.
— L͎e͎e͎ (@Leelovable) 22 juli 2019
14. Verschil moet er wezen.
No actually, it is quite different. We go on our bycicles and drop of our children on a canal and then they have to wait till it freezes over and then they have to skate all the way home
— Annemieke (@A_mieke) 21 juli 2019
15. Je kunt niet vroeg genoeg beginnen.
And yesterday I dropped my 2-years-old. He’s not home yet, but this will learn him lessons for life!
— Sander de Hosson (@shossontwits) 21 juli 2019
16. Oeps.
OMG THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO COME BACK?
— Ethiek is overal (@Gert_van_Dijk) 21 juli 2019
17. Jong geleerd…
My childhood was like any other. Sense of abandonment. Confusion. Cold. Fending off packs of wild dogs with a pointed stick. Resolve. Finding my way back. Murdering my parents for plopping me alone in the woods. And that was by the age of two.
— Blobert 2020 (@blobert) 21 juli 2019
18. Het komt in ieder geval altijd goed.
I’m not even sure if the family I eventually found is my real family. But we made it work.
— Chopper (@twoerd) 21 juli 2019