Why we raise our child in non-native English
My husband and I are both born and raised in the Netherlands, and our native language is Dutch. Why then, did we decide to raise our child in English, you might ask. Isn’t it enough to focus on just one language, especially since none of us has English as their mother tongue?
The simple answer to that question, is no. For us, just raising our daughter in Dutch is not enough and although it will be a challenge, we are determined to make the English work for us as a family. We (especially I) have thought about this for a long time and have taken the pros and certainly the cons into careful consideration. Here is why we decided to raise our child as a bilingual.
First of all, my husband and I believe that English is crucial to living in the international world we are in today. Over 90% of the Dutch population can already speak English and a lot of people, my husband included, use English as one of the main languages at work. There is much to say about the Dutch way of abandoning their own language so easily, both good and bad. But it is reality, and if she needs to learn it anyway, why not start early?
Second of all, as we planned for children, we thought about what possible struggles our child might have growing up in our own family as the child she is and person she will become to be. As a combination of both our genes, she could inherit the ease of learning and using languages of her mother, but could also be burdened with the struggles of dyslexia and all its problems of her father. Even though her father is now fluent in English, it always was a struggle and a pain to learn it, and we don’t wish this on anyone. Let alone our own daughter.
Continuing on the ease and love of language I myself have, I always knew that I wanted to raise any children I might have, bilingual. From own experience and the knowledge I gained as a speech and language therapist, I see the huge advantages of being taught multiple languages from birth. There are almost no downsides to bilingualism, as long as the quality of the languages are good enough. As I have had bilingual eduction in high-school and acquired a native-level of English, it is certainly enough to give our daughter what she needs.
We look forward to seeing our daughter grow up and hopefully soon utter her first language specific babbles and words. As she also hears Dutch a lot at her grandparents’ place and daycare, we are curious as to which language will the the first to be used by our little girl.
