Hinda Bluekens in 'Start gemist': 'My mother really tried, but she just couldn't take care of me'

Growing up without worries. That is what this year's De Warmste Week is all about. A theme that is close to Hinda Bluekens (35)'s heart. She spent the first years of her life in an institution. Together with Danira Boukhriss Terkessidis (33) she looks back on that missed start in a two-part documentary.

“I really don’t find it easy to share this,” says Hinda Bluekens halfway through the first episode of Start gemist . She is sitting at the table with Danira Boukhriss Terkessidis and leafing through a thick folder containing photos and reports that document the first four years of her life. A period that she was forced to spend in a ckg, a centre for childcare and family support as it is called in full. “Even the fact that you are even touching that folder, I find intense,” she confesses to Danira.

“Sharing the contents of that folder with an outsider affected me much more than I had anticipated,” she says a few months after that fateful day of shooting. “The whole story that is described in it is not new to me. I have carried it with me for more than thirty years. But when you show that folder to someone who does not know that past and who asks questions that you have never thought about, you start to look at everything in it in a different way. Photos that you have seen a hundred times suddenly take on a different meaning. That released quite a few emotions.”

These unexpected emotions did not cause any doubt about the plan to share her past not only with Danira but also with the television viewers of Flanders. Hinda, who is known on Instagram as Hinda House, has worked as a journalist, columnist and video reporter for Flair , De Standaard and Gazet van Antwerpen in recent years and has written for the VTM GO series Only Friends in the past year , had been thinking about doing something about that past for some time. “I just didn't really know what that 'something' should be. Did I want to write about it? Should it be a television project? Or maybe a podcast?”

Hinda Bluekens: 'I was armed to tell this story. I don't know if I am also armed to meet my biological mother' Wouter Van Vooren

The pieces of the puzzle only fell into place when Hinda saw Alicia on Dutch television . A documentary in which the girl from the title is followed for a number of years during her journey through youth care.

“That provided a completely different perspective on youth care. Because when it is in the news, it is mainly about figures. There is hardly any attention for the stories behind it. By telling my story, I wanted to give the children from youth care a face.” Hinda went to the VRT, where the theme of De Warmste Week was coincidentally being decided at that moment. Hinda's pitch fitted wonderfully with the baseline 'growing up without worries' and with Danira Boukhriss Danira Boukhriss Terkessidis they have a Warmste Week ambassador walking around on the Reyerslaan who was more than happy to get started with Hinda's story.

Trip down memory lane

Together they visit the homes where Hinda was cared for, they look up the children who stayed there with her and they talk to Hinda's adoptive parents. An intense trip down memory lane that takes them to De Kleine Vos, the CKG in Deurne where Hinda ended up as a baby 35 years ago. There, the door is opened by Sonia, who at the time, as a very young educator, did everything she could to give Hinda the warmest possible home, despite the circumstances. "She even took me home with her on the weekends. So that I could still form an emotional bond with someone as a baby."

A story that also impressed Danira. “Of course, it remains terrible as a child not to be able to grow up with your own parents. But when people like Sonia appear, who try to give warmth and love to those children in such an institution, it somehow reassures me.”

The meeting with Danielle, who is currently the head of De Kleine Vos, also makes an impression. She talks about a visit from Hinda's biological mother and how euphoric the little girl reacted to it. "I thought that was really beautiful. Because it was a very concrete memory of an interaction between me and my mother. I have no memories of that at all." The only thing she still has of her biological mother is a black and white copy of her identity card. "Nothing really. I still find that difficult."

Hinda tells how she used to wonder – and still does – whether she looked like her mother. But with a bad copy of a passport photo as the only reference point, that was difficult to determine. Her skin color is the only thing that definitely links her to her biological mother who is of Moroccan descent. “I have always been very proud of that. I still am, by the way. In contrast to a number of my friends who have struggled with their browner skin color.”

Danira says she was one of those children who wanted to be whiter. “I also found it annoying that it was pointed out to me so often that I had a more difficult name than most of my classmates. As a child, you don’t want to stand out, you want to disappear into the crowd and that is more difficult if your name is Danira and you look a little different from the rest of the class. It was only later, in my teenage years, that I became proud of my roots and name.”

Foster child

Hinda never sought contact with her biological mother. “I went to live with a foster family when I was 4 and a half years old, where there were four other brothers and sisters. To the outside world, I may have been a foster child, but I always felt like a child among the other children. Just like I see my foster parents – who later adopted me – as my father and mother. I didn’t feel the need to look for my biological mother.”

Although making Start gemist and the confrontation with the past still piqued her curiosity. “Of course it makes you think. That’s how I discovered the existence of the descent center, where they help children who want to know more about their biological parents. I registered there and recently I received a message that I am next on the list.”

Hinda doesn't dare predict where that will lead. "Before I started Start gemist , I knew I was armed for that confrontation with my past. But this is a big step further. I was armed to tell this story. I don't know if I am also armed for a meeting with my biological mother."

'I was armed to tell this story. Whether I am also armed to meet my biological mother, I don't know'

Danira Boukhriss Terkessidis (r.): 'By making this report I have learned to look at parents like Hinda's with kindness.' Wouter Van Vooren

Hinda's foster and now adoptive parents also tell their story in Start gemist . "I thought it was important to hear their side of the story," says Danira. "And I wanted to know whether foster parenthood was something they would recommend." (laughs) The answer turned out to be more nuanced than Danira had expected. "According to them, it's mainly about the expectations with which you enter such a story. The focus should be on the child. You become a foster parent to give such a child - even if only for a short while - a safe and warm home, not to fulfill your own wishes and needs. If you do start from your own expectations, you risk being disappointed."

'You become a foster parent to provide such a child with a safe and warm home, not to fulfill your own wishes and needs'

Danira

The admiration for what Hinda's adoptive parents have done is great. So great, in fact, that Danira herself has started thinking about foster parenthood. "I don't rule out that I would do it myself one day," she says. "But only if there is time and space for such an extra child. Hinda came to live with her new parents when their youngest child was 12 and there was time and space to take care of her. With a baby on the way, that time and space will be much less for me in the coming years." Hinda herself has a few more reservations. "My boyfriend has a child from a previous relationship. I think it's great to have such a child in my life, for me that's enough."

For a long time, Hinda assumed that the false start she made had left no traces. But that changed when she met her current boyfriend a few years ago. “I suddenly started to suffer from abandonment anxiety. That really scared me. Of course, it was obvious where those feelings came from, but I had never been confronted with it before. With the help of a therapist, I learned to deal with it. But it remains a pain that will always be there.”

Hinda is not angry that her mother left her behind. “My mother really tried, but she just couldn’t take care of me. She just couldn’t do it. There’s no point in worrying about the how and the why.”

'By making this report I have learned to look at parents like Hinda's with kindness'

Danira

Danira joins in: “I learned from making this report to look at parents like Hinda’s with kindness. We are all so quick to judge without knowing the exact context. Hinda’s mother felt that she would never be able to take care of her as well as the people in the shelter, so she left her daughter there. Instead of judging that, you can also see it as an act of motherly love.”