The most risky adventure

I have seen, and I recommend, the documentary Goodbye, savages, which is being offered to Filmin. It's the story of a couple—she, Norwegian; he, English—who decide to live far from the city, in direct contact with wild nature, on an isolated farm. The couple has three sons and a daughter from a previous relationship. The mother, a photographer, documents family life in a diary full of images.

From the beginning, it's clear that the couple has a clear goal, focusing above all on raising their children with the utmost respect for the planet, a great deal of freedom, and away from the restrictions and conventions of so-called civilized society. The children, of course, don't attend school and learn to read and write at home with their parents.

A series of idyllic scenes of the children in the wild present a mirage of happiness that shatters the first time the father confesses his doubts about how the lifestyle offered to them should influence his children.

Then comes the unexpected tragedy that unravels all his plans and forces this man and his children to "give up" and try to integrate into society. School, friends, neighbors, and, in general, human contact, is the remedy that will eventually pull them out of the sadness of grief. And the crux of the documentary, for me, is when the adult protagonist, admitting this fact, can't help but feel guilty for betraying the ideals with which he and his wife founded a family.

Beyond the considerations about the dilemma between a wild and free life and the undeniable advantages of living in society, I was interested in the transparency with which the documentary exposes the weight—clumsy, immense—of the responsibility of raising children.

As the saying goes, all parents do what they think is best for their children, but life often makes it a point to make you realize that you were wrong about something. When this happens, it's really difficult—perhaps impossible—to escape the feeling of guilt. Children are virgins, and we parents have the ability to make people this way or that, to make their lives go this way or that way. It's incredibly fortunate that we're not aware of this at the moment we make the decision to have children. Few would be the brave ones who would dare.

How can you assume this responsibility without being intimidated? How can you accept that what you considered best for your children was actually nonsense? Perhaps the only reasonable option is to be humble from the beginning and accept that our choices and decisions, even if they seem indisputable at the time, can have problems and fail.

And knowing that life will always find a way, even when the fog is thick, and our children, if they have received love, will eventually find their way (right or not). The children who star in the documentary Goodbye, savages They love their father madly, they admire and respect him, and yet they don't hesitate to express their determination to go to school regularly because they understand, with complete clarity, that this is saving them.

Having children is a stimulating but high-risk project, let's admit it.