Being late in Germany with kids

I was always late anyways, but now I have 2 big excuses: my kids. Not in Germany! Being late in Germany is always rude, it doesn’t matter the context.

Living in Germany you can’t ignore the “on time” culture, or better: the “before time” culture.

In Portugal people are usually on time for work appointments, but a little late for other kind of meetings. My nuclear family as a child was the latest family I’ve ever met. Being around 2 hours late was not unusual for us. However, in Germany, for all contexts being late is considered very rude.

Benefits of having children in Germany

I didn’t want to be rude, so I started to make a huge effort to be on time, sometimes it worked but other times it didn’t. I was working on that, until… motherhood. The logistics for everything is much more complex with children. So I thought that having one or more little humans at home was more than a justified reason to be late, but no!

But here in Germany there is no excuse, and if you are running late you are expected to call warning that you will arrive late and excusing yourself. I confess that I have been using that strategy to reduce my “rudeness level”

Are you always on time? Or not really?

Do you have strategies not to be late with kids?