Sep 12, 2014

Playgrounds in Amsterdam: Let's Hope You're Well-Insured

Playgrounds in Amsterdam are the best.

And by best, I mean dangerous.


It's not just the zip lines (often over water), or the tall slides (make that super tall slides), or the best swings ever (see below). It's that I'm pretty sure the motto of the Amsterdam Parks Department is: Did you pee your pants at a playground today? 


Please America, can you get these swings before we move back?

Until recently, the most amazing playground contraption we'd seen was an inverted, rotating teeter totter, six feet off the ground, with zero safety belts. If this were the US, there would be an entrance fee, a height restriction, safety harnesses, and a warning to pregnant women and people with heart conditions. As it is, there should be a warning to American parents that watching your kids play on it might give you a heart condition.

One of our favorite parks has a mini-amusement park with toddler-sized carnival rides for 1 euro each, including the Bumper Boats-- where kids get to steer their own motorized boat around a small pond, with no life jackets, no supervision, and no waiver to sign.

Now, the boats don't go fast, the water is shallow, and most parents stick around to watch, but it still took me at least five visits to get over the utter amazement that the entire thing was allowed to happen.

And it's not just the playgrounds. See this edge with no safety rails?
It's common. It's like they don't even have a powerful steel manufacturing lobby. 

Another common thing: being able to walk through construction zones. Like right next to the backhoes and cranes-- no hard hat required. And no one bats an eye.

Here's a fun story: within the first two months of moving to Amsterdam, we took a day trip to a nearby lake. While my kids played on the beach, I noticed a young boy by the water playing with a plastic bag.

A freaking plastic bag.

My jaw dropped as I watched him first wrap the bag around his neck, and then stretch it out directly over his mouth. Of the three or four other adults around, no one was looking at him, or paying him any attention.

I looked away. Just mind your own business. Don't worry about the kid playing with a choking hazard. I'm sure he'll stop soon.

Nope. He just kept on walking and playing with this plastic bag as if he was starring in some PSA about exactly what NOT to do with plastic bags. After about five minutes, I was pulling at my hair, chewing my nails, clawing at the sand-- waiting for someone to look the eff up and tell him to stop, until I couldn't stand it anymore.

I approached the boy. "Waar is jou moeder?" I tried to spit out, but I'd only started learning Dutch and it was most likely indecipherable. No matter, as he completely ignored me, to the point that I thought he might be deaf. I noticed a woman looking up from her book, with the suspicion of a mama bear, and as I started towards her, she said something in Dutch. I said, "Oh, I just wanted to make sure someone was aware of him playing with a plastic bag, because I'm feeling nervous about it."

She looked back down at her book, "Let him play. Leave him alone." Cold, blunt.

"Oh, OK, great, that's fine, just... um, no problem." I walked back to my spot, and continued to watch a scene that I was sure would never happen in America.

And guess what? He died.

Just kidding. He survived. In flat-out defiance of plastic bag labels, and helicopter parents everywhere, that boy lived.

I recently asked a neighbor what was the legal age for children to be left alone at home. They were confused. I clarified, "Is there a law stating at what age a child can be left alone?" "Hmmmm, I've never heard of such a thing. Are parents not able to figure that out themselves?"

I still don't know if there is a law or not.  No one seems to be bothered about it.

The concept of child safety in The Netherlands is not really a thing. What's more important is the concept of risk management. Most parents here find it important to help their children learn to manage taking their own risks, rather than shield them from any risks in the first place.

This is not to say that Dutch parents are reckless with their children, plastic bag lady aside. They just don't allow safety precautions to override their parental mandate to teach. Inoculation over bubble wrap.

Which leads me to the best thing about Amsterdam for kids. And by best, I mean-- well, you know.

Over a year ago, Mark took our kids to a park on the outskirts of Amsterdam. When they came home, my husband sat on the couch for a while before he could speak. "I don't know quite how to explain what we just went to, except that it would never be allowed in the US-- and there were hammers and saws."

WHAT??

He showed me the pictures he had taken, an my American brain could not process what I was seeing.

The concept is a "build and play" park where children can check out hammers, nails, and saws, to transform pallets and old boards into huts and forts. There is also a small petting farm, a game room, craft room, a boat dock, and a fire pit. And what's more-- it's all FREE.

We've since learned it's not the only one in Amsterdam, and they're not anything new. Do you remember a few months back, there was an article in the Atlantic about a playground in Wales, and every American had a panic attack? Well, the Dutch were like, YAWN.

So guess where my kids love to go? Yep, the danger parks.  I still don't know what to think of it all. Sure, it's a little Lord of the Flies, but I can't help but think it's pretty cool-- even while I bite my knuckles and hope nobody dies, or contracts tetanus, or maims someone, or descends into lawlessness and chaos-- OK, I'm going to stop now.

*Wanna go? Visit Jeugland in Flevopark, or 't Landje in Rembrandtpark. Go to Amstelpark for the Bumper Boats (and more), and don't miss Vondelpark's Treehouse playgound! 

That's right, a little bit of danger never hurt anyone. Oh wait... crap. 

Just some kids playing with HAMMERS. (And yes, that is possibly permanent marker all over my son's face, but HAMMERS!) 

Zip line over a river? We don't need no stinkin' liability waivers. 

At the dock, kids do have to wear life jackets, but are free to paddle their own canoes out of parent's eyesight. Be sure to pack the anxiety meds, people. 

This ain't Disneyland, that raft is real and so are the piranhas. 
OK, just kidding about the piranha part. Maybe. 

Yay tetanus! 

Hmmmm, how can we make this more dangerous? I know, how about more nails. On the ground, sticking straight up. 


Oh, and kids here ride to all these playgrounds on bicycles, without helmets. 

That's right. All my American readers may totally flip out now. 


3 comments:

Courtney @ Ordinary Happily Ever After said...

You know, we could use a little bit of that Dutch spirit over here. Heaven forbid I let my older kids play outside in our yard without me watching their every move. My kids can't play outside in our own front yard while I'm making lunch (at the end of a dead end street) but it's because I'm more scared of a "good samaritan" calling CPS than I am of them falling, or wandering off, or getting in the car with a stranger.

There has to be a happy medium somewhere...

I'm with you on the tetanus and plastic bags though...

nelsonjeneen said...

I agree with Courtney. We moved to the "country" so that I wouldn't have another parent helicoptering over my kids and what they are doing. My kids would love the parks over there b/c it kind of reminds them a little bit of our yard (a small portion).

But I would be afraid of tetanus and plastic bags too.

Unknown said...

That was fun to read! I'm a German mom in the Netherlands so I'm used to quite a bit. My husband is Dutch and a lot less concerned than me but I guess moms are always more concerned. I think the nails sticking out would bug me too by the way. ;)