To the outside world, it seems as if adopted child Betty lives in a children's paradise. In reality, her childhood is a living hell for fourteen years. She is insulted, humiliated, threatened and abused. "My mother really had traits of a psychopath."
“Glutton.”
“You're dumber than a donkey.”
“You filthy piece of shit, go back to Africa.”
“You fucking Ethiopian, I so regret that adoption.”
In the beautiful house with the large garden and the swimming pool, somewhere on the border between Brabant and Gelderland, just one thing has to happen and Betty's mother goes ballistic. She is a woman with two faces: to the outside world a model mother who the whole village is crazy about, inside a cruel shrew. "She never had an official diagnosis," says Betty. "But she really had traits of a psychopath."
Mother Bea doesn't stop at just scolding. She also hands out punishments. And they are extreme. A few minutes late home after a sports training? Betty - crazy about football - has to leave the club immediately. What are the tangles in her African hair? Mother grabs the clippers and shaves her daughter bald. "You sweep it up, fatlip", is the command the crying teenager then receives.
When she mumbles that she can't take it anymore, Betty is handed an axe. "If you want to die so badly, then do it," Bea screams. And to the rest of the family: "Everyone shout: Do it - do it - do it!"
