The Trouble With Trying To Arrange Play Dates In Dutch

As I waited for my daughter outside her school I was slightly confused when two random children wandered up to me hand in hand.

“Kunnen wij samen spelen?” the brown haired girl of the two asked. It seemed like she was in charge. At the very least she was less distracted than her friend, the small ginger-haired girl who was watching the group of other parents waiting nearby.

In my confusion, it took me a moment to realize she had just asked me if the two of them could play together.

I always find arranging play dates between my daughter and her classmates a little awkward. It takes me out of my comfort zone because it involves arranging things in Dutch.

Speaking Dutch with adults can be confusing enough at times (for everyone involved). Imagine attempting to do so with a five-year-old child who does not understand why you talk so weirdly or that you don’t understand everything they say. Then there is the Dutch conversation with their parents. If you get anything wrong (as I have done in the past) you end up leaving your child with the parents under the impression that they will bring him or her back at five. However, you later discover you were supposed to pick your kid up from them at four.

However, arranging this play date was taking me further out of my comfort zone since neither child was mine. I quickly looked up and saw that my daughter hadn’t even exited the school building yet.

“Eerrr… Bedoel je met Sophie?” I asked, wondering if they meant they would like her to come and play with them too.

“Ummm,” the brown-haired girl looked confused and turned to her ginger friend as if to confirm her identity. My daughter has ginger hair too so I hoped this was not a case of all ginger children look alike. Could she have brought the wrong child with her by mistake? It might explain why the little ginger girl was still searching the faces of the other Mamas and Papas in the crowd.

Unsure how to answer my question the brown-haired girl simply looked back at me in the way children do when they wish you would just make sense and stop being difficult.

“Jij wil samen spelen bij jouw huis?” I asked, hoping they wanted to play together at her house and I could side step this whole thing. Especially since I was rapidly suspecting this play date had nothing to do with me or my daughter.

“Nee, bij u thuis.” She replied, confirming that for some unknown reason, they wanted to play at our house but without our daughter.

“Oh… Sorry. Wij kan niet vandaag.” I quickly replied, telling her we could not play today and hoped she did not ask why.

“Oh,” she replied. There was a short pause as she tried to work out what to do next. Then she simply wandered off with her friend in tow.

At that same moment I spotted my daughter walking towards us, hands in her pockets, looking slightly confused as she watched her Papa sending off two disappointed-looking children.

“Wat wilden zij Papa?” she asked as she watched them walk away.

“I have no idea,” I replied, “Come on. Let’s go home.” It seemed like a wise idea to leave the playground before more random children asked me to arrange their play dates.

When we returned home I explained the whole situation to my wife as I tried to make sense of it myself.

“I suspect you were mistaken for one of the other fathers,” she replied. “There is another redhead father with a beard on the playground. Maybe the brown-haired girl thought you were her friend’s father?”

That would explain why the little ginger girl had spent the whole exchange looking past me towards the other parents. She was looking for her Papa. She’d thought they were on their way to ask him about a possible play date. The whole situation must have been just as confusing for her as it was for me when her friend stopped to ask some random Papa (me).

It was not a case of all ginger children look the same. It was all ginger fathers look alike.