Why I Chose Not to Raise My Children Bilingually

And why I have an aversion to people who criticise my decision

Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash

‘Do your children speak German?’ Here it is again, the most common question I get when someone finds out I was born and raised bilingually myself and have two native languages.

No, my children do not speak German. Although I was born in Germany (ok, in a US Army Hospital, but still) and am completely fluent in the language, I chose not to pass it on to my children. Sure, I’d love them to be fluent in German in addition to their sole native language, English, but they’re not. And now ‘the train has left the station’ as we’d say in Germany.

Here are my reasons for this surprisingly controversial decision:

Monolingual partner

My husband speaks only English. Although he did learn German at school for a few years, he doesn’t seem to remember anything other than asking whether he may take off his jacket, and how to order a beer. At home, we speak only English. If both of us were native German speakers, or at least were able to speak German, it’d be easy to just use German at home and English outside. But we can’t do that. So our family language is English.

Unnatural

Although technically German should be my strong suit, English is clearly my dominant language. I count, swear and dream in English, and I feel awkward talking in German. When my kids were little, I did make an (admittedly half-hearted) attempt to speak to them in German; but each time I realised after a couple of minutes that I’d naturally switched back to English. It just didn’t seem possible to stick to it. Plus, it didn’t feel natural.

Love language

By the same token, English is my ‘love language’. From a young age, English was the language I escaped to. I grew up with English-speaking friends and later penfriends, and I listened to English music and read English books. English has always been my ‘happy language’ — German, not so much.

Trauma language

That’s because I associate German with verbal abuse and trauma. It reminds me of a largely unhappy childhood, and I couldn't wait to see the back of the country — and the language — once I was old enough. Speaking German brings back unwanted memories, so I definitely don’t want to ‘contaminate’ my kids with a language that evokes such unpleasant associations for me.

No family connections

We have no family members who speak German. I see some other families who have a dozen cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles or even grandparents in another country and hold regular Skype sessions to talk to them in their language — and that’s fantastic. But other than a distant half-brother and nephew, I have no German-speaking family members anymore, so there are no Skype calls or grandparents who are keen to communicate with my children. In fact, they have zero connection to Germany or German speakers other than me. So there’s no incentive to learn the language for those reasons.

Final thoughts

Many people don’t seem to realise that everyone has a different upbringing and life experience; they should think twice before having the audacity to criticise someone for not passing their language on to their children.

So please spare me your, ‘Oh, but you should teach them!’ Because I have no doubt that a happy and healthy monolingual family environment is preferable to a forced and therefore unhealthy bilingual one.