Thank goodness times have changed. My friends S & N are native English speaking white people, but they live in the Mission in SF. Both had some Spanish but upon deciding to have children, did some immersion classes to improve their skills, and thereupon deliberately *only spoke to their daughter in Spanish* for the first two years of her life. It helps that when they both went back to work, her daycare was with a Spanish speaking woman, but still - they were DISCIPLINED about this. I babysat for the sprog a few times and would be rushing around looking up nouns or using broken Spanglish while my English-only partner tried to keep up.
They assumed, and were 100% correct, that she would get plenty of English from her environment - even living in the Mission - to develop it as well. They sent her to a mixed English/Spanish pre-school, and lo and behold, she tested able to go to a Spanish-language kindergarten this year. Kid is growing up bilingual and it will serve her for the rest of her life - my few bilingual Spanish students can command a premium at the rare paying jobs around here while interns.
If I reproduced, I don't know that I'd be that disciplined. But I sure as hell see the value. (FFS, it made their choices of caregivers so much broader that she and they speak Spanish).
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zvi
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-05 06:33 am (UTC)They assumed, and were 100% correct, that she would get plenty of English from her environment - even living in the Mission - to develop it as well. They sent her to a mixed English/Spanish pre-school, and lo and behold, she tested able to go to a Spanish-language kindergarten this year. Kid is growing up bilingual and it will serve her for the rest of her life - my few bilingual Spanish students can command a premium at the rare paying jobs around here while interns.
If I reproduced, I don't know that I'd be that disciplined. But I sure as hell see the value. (FFS, it made their choices of caregivers so much broader that she and they speak Spanish).