The Dutch School Year, Month by Month — A Chat With Liam

Schools back in session and nobody's ready. The alarms are back, the shoes are missing, and somewhere in your inbox is a school calendar you haven't properly looked at yet.

So Eva sat down with Liam — also known as Dad Do Art, self-declared Vulnerable Dad number Two — got the calendar out, and went through the whole Dutch school year. Month by month. Not a masterclass. Two parents, two coffees, and nine months of what's actually coming.

What's in it: studiedagen and why you mark every single one this week, while you're still an optimist. School apps. What happens when there's no substitute teacher, and why the playdate swap isn't the fluffy part of parenting — it's the emergency infrastructure. Herfstvakantie and why you're already late to book. The Sinterklaas intocht, and the small matter of celebrating two men in red who arrive by completely different transport. The long January stretch: darkness, sickness, and lice. The May holiday, which is in April. Keti Koti. And the summer finish line, when everyone gets sick the second they stop.

Plus the things nobody tells you: why the school gates feel awkward and it isn't you, why you should ask a parent — not the teacher — about the class WhatsApp group, and how one Friday afternoon on an empty playground turned into an actual village.

Here's the reframe that started it. There's a US Surgeon General advisory on parental stress that names the mismatch between how work is structured and how children's schedules are structured as a core driver of parental burnout. You're not failing at logistics. The logistics were built by someone who's never met a working parent.

For international parents, expat families, and anyone whose child has just started group 1, 2 or 3 at a Dutch basisschool — whether you're three weeks in or three days in.

Send this to one parent who's just started school, or is about to. Consider that your first volunteer act.

DAM Parenting — helping parents navigate Dutch systems while raising children far from home.