On Native-Language Playgroups

I know some people swear by them. I myself think they might be a good idea. Just so we’re clear. ‘Cause really, they haven’t worked out for us all that well.

When I first got involved in one, I thought it was a great way to bring some little German speakers into S’s life. I’d been living here for quite some time before I ever thought about having kids, and had never sought out this contact to other German speakers for myself. Once we knew we were going to have a baby, however, that all changed. Of course I was going to speak German to this child. Of course this child was going to be fluently bilingual. Of course, of course, of course. And of course s/he was going to have little German speaking friends.

When the opportunity arose, I was happy to jump in and become a founding member of our Playgroup. S was still a baby at that time, though I had already gone back to work to allow The Husband to also take some parental leave at (almost) full pay. I never had enough time for anything, but we started off full of energy and with a lot of enthusiasm. Without a plan, though. Which, of course, means that group members have very different ideas of what they want out of this group, and how important it really is for them to raise their kids to be bilingual. Furthermore, some people are stay-at-home moms, and others – like me - work full-time. Early on a few activities happened, both during the week and on weekends, but after a while, the group pretty much fell asleep. We fell into the habit of using the group as a bit of an electronic resource, but not nearly as much as we could and perhaps should.

Recently, I have been trying to revive this group. Since no one had any interest in doing anything with their kids on weekends and no one else tried to get things going during the week, we started out with regular pub nights. I hoped that this way the adults could get to know each other better and then hopefully be willing to start doing things with the kids again, if not on weekends, then at least during the week.

To say this didn’t exactly work according to plan is a bit of an understatement. While people took to the pub nights early on, things seem to be fizzling out again already. And what’s worse, people are still decidedly opposed to doing anything involving kids. Regardless of whether it’s on weekends or during the week.

Here’s what people are saying as to why they can’t attend anything on weekends, ever:

• "Weekends are family time and nothing else."
• "My husband doesn’t speak any German, and I don’t want to exclude him."
• "Continuing to teach my kid German is just too hard! S/he never answers in German, so what’s the point?!"
• "I don’t have time."
• "My kid already takes ballet, piano, and soccer on weekends, we can’t also do German!
• "My kid has too many play dates!"
• "I’m looking for stuff to do for myself, not for my kids!"

I am not quite clear as to why these people continue to belong to this Playgroup, and just find it sad that the energy with which we’ve started has been replaced with nothing but apathy. At this point, it’s fairly clear that no one can be bothered with anything at this point, including discussing what the point of this group is today, and whether or not we want to go back to our original intent and purpose. When I asked at one of the last pub nights, there were a bunch of blank stares and mumbling about “Let’s have another beer!”
We probably should have sorted all of this out when we first got going. Instead, we allowed things to just happen, banking on our energy and enthusiasm to continue, and assuming everyone was on the same page.
But we didn’t. And now it looks as though this particular group is done.
Good thing there’s The Other Group, then. This one we found more recently, not quite a year ago. Having come into existence because a mother noticed her kids speaking less German the longer they lived here, it meets monthly and does some kid-friendly activity or other. Participants are mainly people who live in the neighbourhood or somehow knew one of the parents – and a handful of people thrown in who stumbled across this group accidentally. Like us.

The good thing here is that all people actually want their kids to be fluently bilingual, and that a number of the kids have lived and gone to school in Germany. As such, most of them actually speak German to each other and any of the adults around. S totally benefits from this since she is one of the few kids who’s never lived in a non-English-speaking place and normally quickly falls into English with kids who are bilingual but who’ve also been raised here.

S loves going to this group’s activities, though until now she’s been mainly listening to the other kids, rather than speaking to them herself. With time, I hope that will change. However, most of the children are a few years older and know each other privately through their parents – so they take off doing their own thing, without necessarily paying a lot of attention to the newer and younger kids.

If I had more time, i.e. if I weren’t working full-time, I’d probably try to organize something new with kids more in line with ours in terms of age. But as it is, we’re working with what we’ve got. We go to the activities of The Other Group, ponder the future of the Playgroup, and get together with people we know and like.

In the long rung, maybe something else will come up?