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Originally Posted by evanny
i am not one, but i think being a parent is something a lot more that just rising your child to be bi-lingual. i will say i am surprised, but i do not think that makes you a bad mother  |
If, in the future, my son takes an interest in speaking English I will certainly support him in every way.
However, I weighed the options and decided against it. I think I`ve written about it before, but to sum it up - I studied linguistics and did a long term study on the language acquisition of children in bi-lingual households... And the effects this had on their family dynamic.
Children learn the language of their primary caretaker first, and only tend to catch up with the second language once immersed in an environment where it is spoken by their peers (like school).
Up to school age, language ability is really governed by the amount of time they spend with the speakers. So, in a family situation where they are with one parent (and one language) 90% of their waking time, 90% of their language skills will be in that language.
That`s fine when the parents can both speak that language... But what happens when the minor language they spend 90% of their time listening to is one that the other parent doesn`t understand? That parent tends to miss out on a lot, and the overwhelming response from parents who didn`t speak the minority language was one of sadness and loneliness... As they were unable to understand the majority of the first 6 or 7 years of their child`s life. The children also had a much stronger bond with parents who spoke their primary language during early childhood.
My husband does not speak English. We live in Japan. The only real way to raise my son bilingually would have been for me to speak to him in English. He would definitely have acquired English first, and would likely not have learnt all that much Japanese until school age.
What would that have meant for my monolingual Japanese husband? It means he would have been pushed to the sidelines, and would have had trouble communicating with his own child during the most formative years of life - and likely would have had a compromised relationship with him for the rest of his life as a result.
That wasn`t a sacrifice I was willing to make. I am lucky to have a husband who wants to be involved in our son`s life in every way. There is NO WAY I am going to just throw that away for the sake of bilingualism.
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must be some primitive instinct form ages long gone.
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I am going to go out on a limb and offer my opinion. I think that part of it may be the pressures of their society. When a woman sleeps around, society tends to shun her. But when the man is someone who she will not only never see again, but who is from somewhere far away enough that he is unlikely to have an effect on her social standing... Things change.
I think that for some women, it is a chance to get attention with no risk of backlash and no worry of getting involved further.