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“I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” brilliantly summarises why some people believe that bringing a child into this world is not a good idea

By Nina Steele 

I don't feel at home in this world anymoreIn “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” (showing on Netflix), Melanie Lynskey plays the role of a childless woman whose frustration with modern living is fast reaching boiling point. She works as a nursing assistant and as such, you would think that she has seen it all. Obviously not. The real world, it turns out, offers her no comfort at all. To say that she is completely disillusioned with modern life would be an understatement.

Most people will identify with the various complaints she has with modern living. From people who never pick up their dog mess even if it’s right on someone else’s doorstep, to the ones at the grocery store who even though they like the order in which they find the items they need, disregard the comfort of others by not putting items back when they knock them down. All these little every day frustrations slowly build up, making her madder each day. Her frustration finally finds a release when she is burgled. At that point, she truly has had enough and with the police refusing to help because her plight is not deemed serious enough, she decides to take matters into her own hands. That the people she decides to take on, end up being some of the most dangerous people around, gives you an idea of things to come.

Even though we are not given any hint as to why Ruth (the character played by Melanie Lynskey) has no children, I think we can draw our own conclusions. She has lost faith in the modern world. She believes that most people are selfish and self-centred and that there is no hope of things changing for the better. Sometimes she feels the weight of the world so much so that she can barely breathe. In a nutshell, modern living for her has become hell.

This may be a film, but I have talked to many people who feel exactly the way she does, and cannot even contemplate bringing a child into this world for those reasons. For them, bringing a child into this world is doing that child a great disservice because of the inevitable pain he or she will have to endure. Some may say that we all had to deal with shit growing up, but for these people and I am of that view too, children today have much greater challenges on their plate. The inevitable bullying, with the Internet adding a new dimension that wasn’t there before. The peer pressure to conform, far greater than what most of us went through as youngsters. Issues related to body confidence for girls (and some boys), once again, made worse by the Internet. The list goes on.

Why will anyone want to bring a child into this world to face all these soul destroying issues, the disillusioned ask? I totally understand why anyone would feel this way.

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