{"id":156296,"date":"2023-06-14T15:20:29","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T13:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=156296"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:36:18","slug":"poverty-violence-and-depression-first-generation-student-milio-van-de-kamp-grew-up-in-a-troubled-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/06\/14\/poverty-violence-and-depression-first-generation-student-milio-van-de-kamp-grew-up-in-a-troubled-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Poverty, violence and depression. First-generation student Milio van de Kamp grew up in a troubled family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most students who are the first in their family to go to university receive support from their parents in various ways, interviews with the parents of first-generation students in Erasmus Magazine <\/em>show. However, students who are brought up in poverty and troubled families are usually on their own. Milio van de Kamp wrote the book Misschien moet je iets lager mikken<\/em>, in which he shares his own story.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMigle Alonderyte<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

It was during the presentation of his bachelor\u2019s thesis that Milio van de Kamp (31), a lecturer in Interdisciplinary Social Studies at the University of Amsterdam, recognised the significant discomfort and anxiety in his mother\u2019s eyes. It was her first time at the university, and she had put on her Sunday best, which she had bought at the market. She sat at the back of the room, withdrawn into herself, and Van de Kamp soon saw that she was not able to follow his presentation in the slightest. \u201cShe didn\u2019t need Marx to tell her she wasn\u2019t part of the group of people in the room\u201d, he writes in his book Misschien moet je iets lager mikken<\/em>, which was published last month. \u201cI felt that the gulf between us had never been greater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Behind closed doors<\/h2>

Parents of first-generation students sometimes find the university experience stressful because it is a world they are not familiar with, according to a series about the parents of first-generation students by Erasmus Magazine<\/em>. However, they were able to offer their child a safe and secure home and support them in many ways during their time at university. Van de Kamp was on his own.<\/p>\n

He grew up in a deprived neighbourhood of Amsterdam, where his violent father terrorised the family and where there was no gas, water and electricity because there was not enough money. His father moved in criminal circles, and his mother shuttled between welfare benefits and a cleaning job for years due to heart problems, until she started working long evenings and nights as a bartender.<\/p>\n

The fact that the stories of parents and first-generation students who live or have lived in poverty often remain obscured \u2013 even to the media \u2013 is no coincidence. Van de Kamp believes there is a certain stigma attached to poverty, which leads to shame.<\/p>\n\n\t

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