Spanish Speaking Child

In case you can’t tell, or if for some reason I may look as if I’m of a different ethnic background (people ask if I’m Asian all of the time) than what I really am, I’m stating now that I'm Hispanic. More specifically, I’m Mexican. My dad is from Mexico, and my mom is Mexican BUT she was born here in Texas. I was born here in Texas too.

I grew up speaking both English and Spanish. And according to my family, they were all amazed at how easily both came to me. Some family members spoke to me in English and others spoke to me in Spanish and I consider this as being one of the major reasons why I was able to catch on to both. Also, most of my summers growing up were filled with a few weeks spent in Victoria, Tamaulipas, México to spend time with my dads side of the family. So that helped. I was able to communicate with my family, and they all understood what I was saying. Even if I mixed a sentence up. My daughter on the other hand, well, it’s a different story for us.

My husband is half white and Hispanic. He looks and dances like a white boy though! Since his father was never in the picture, he wasn't taught how to speak Spanish. While I was pregnant though, he was very upfront about wanting our daughter to be taught BOTH English and Spanish. I was in complete agreement. We wanted her to be able to talk to her Spanish speaking family just as easily as she does with her English speaking one. But we both work full-time, and now I'm going to school full-time, so teaching her Spanish seemed like it would be difficult. Thankfully, our babysitter speaks only Spanish. So that solved our problem.

But now that Emery is saying words, we've both noticed that they’re all pretty much Spanish. Even her little “toddler mumbles” come out sounding Spanish! And this doesn’t really phase me because I can understand the words she’s saying, but my husband can’t. Sometimes he’ll smile, nod, then quickly ask me what she said. But the other night, he just smiled and said “Love, I wish I knew what you were saying.” His statement really got me thinking about how frustrating it will probably be for him. Emery will more than likely be learning the language she hears the most a bit more quickly, than the one she doesn’t. I was like that too. And who knows, she might even prefer Spanish over English? So it makes me a bit sad to think that my husband won’t really know what she’s saying half the time.

I've been trying to teach her the English words for all of the Spanish ones she knows. I’ve also been trying to help my husband out by telling him what her phrases mean that way in the future (or when I’m at school and they’re alone) he can understand what she’s saying/asking. She’s not speaking complete sentences yet, and most of her “questions” are one or two words. She knows a lot of English words too, so it’s not like everything she says is in Spanish. Still, I’m pretty sure even one word questions can seem confusing to someone who doesn’t understand them. And with her growing vocabulary in both languages, I'm sure it's only going to get more confusing.