My sister-in-law was the one who brought it up, at my baby shower, of all places. She watched me stack tiny onesies in a woven basket and said, “So, are you going to speak Spanish to the baby?” The room went a little quiet. Everyone had an opinion, but nobody wanted to be the first to say it.
I told her I didn’t know yet. And that was the truth. I grew up in a home where Spanish was the background music of our lives—my grandmother’s telenovelas, my uncle’s jokes at the dinner table, my mother’s voice calling me from the front porch. But I also grew up in a neighborhood where speaking Spanish at the wrong place, to the wrong person, could get you a side-eye in the grocery store line. I learned to switch as easily as pulling on a jacket. Now that I’m about to have a baby of my own, the question isn’t just a matter of preference. It feels like a decision about who he’s going to be.
I remember this one afternoon at the playground, maybe six months ago. A little boy around four years old was pushing a dump truck through the sand, and his grandmother sat on the bench calling out to him in Spanish. “Ven, mijo, dale la vuelta.” He answered her in English, not even looking up. She switched to English mid-sentence, as if it were nothing. I felt an ache in my chest, watching that. It wasn’t about who he was or wasn’t. He was just doing what kids do—taking the path of least resistance. But I couldn’t help thinking: in twenty years, will he still know how to talk to her, really talk to her? Will he have the words for what he’s feeling on the days when English doesn’t cut it?
That moment made me do some real homework. I read a few studies, talked to other parents in my same boat. The first thing I learned was that bilingual children don’t get confused the way people used to think. They might mix languages now and then, and that’s not a sign of trouble. It’s actually a sign they’re using the best tool they have. A child who says “quiero leche” mid-English sentence isn’t broken. They’re just bilingual. The second thing I learned is that the biggest predictor of whether a child keeps their heritage language is not intelligence. It’s not even discipline. It’s whether the language has a purpose in their daily life. If it’s only for special occasions, it becomes a museum piece. If it’s the language of love, of rules, of mealtimes, of getting hurt and being comforted, it becomes something they can’t give up.
So I started making a plan, not because I’m the type of person who likes plans, but because I realized that without one, I’d probably let it slip. It’s the easiest thing in the world to fall into English all day long, especially when you live in a country where the television speaks English, the doctors speak English, the school sends home permission slips in English. My mother did that when I was little. She didn’t do it because she didn’t love Spanish. She did it because she wanted me to succeed. I get it now, but part of me is still sad about it. My abuela used to say that my toddler Spanish was “full of holes.” I don’t want that for my son.
What I’ve settled on is pretty simple, at least in principle. I’ll speak Spanish to him, and my husband will speak English. He’s learning Spanish too, so sometimes he’ll try a few words, and sometimes I’ll answer in English so we’re not all sitting in silence. But I’m going to keep my side of it as consistent as I can. Not because I think it’s the only way, but because I know from watching other families that it’s a lot harder to build a habit without a pattern. When a baby only hears Spanish from you, he learns to associate that voice with comfort, with food, with being picked up and held. He doesn’t need to know it’s a “minority language.” He just needs to know it’s yours.
I also learned that it’s okay not to be perfect. There are days when I’ll forget a word or slip into English because I’m tired or frustrated or just not paying attention. And that’s fine. What matters is that I come back. I keep reading Spanish board books at bedtime, even if he’s seen the same dinosaurs one hundred times. I keep narrating what we’re doing, even if it feels silly talking to a baby who can’t answer. I keep playing the music my dad played on Sunday mornings, the Mexican standards he loved even though he never sang along.
The practical part is trickier than the emotional part. I know there’s research that says children raised bilingual may have slightly smaller vocabularies in each language individually, but they often catch up by the time they start school. I know that codeswitching is normal and I shouldn’t correct him every time he says “dog” and then adds “perro” in the same breath. I know I need to be ready for the phase around second grade when he might refuse to speak Spanish in public, because that is what kids do. What I’m less sure about is how I’ll handle that day. I don’t want to make Spanish a chore, a thing he has to do before he can watch a video. But I also don’t want to shrug and let it go.
When I was pregnant, a neighbor told me that her daughter used to translate for her at the supermarket. She told it like a beautiful story, but I could hear the weight underneath. The daughter didn’t mind, but what could she do? Her mother was never going to learn all the English words. The translation wasn’t just a skill—it was a way of being together in a country that didn’t always have room for both of them.
I don’t know if my son will be fluent in Spanish by the time he’s ten. I don’t know if he’ll prefer watching cartoons in English or if he’ll yell back at me in Spanish when he’s angry. I hope he’ll have both languages, but I know that hope can’t be passive. I’ll have to keep choosing Spanish in small, unglamorous ways, day after day, even when it’s easier to just say “honey, hurry up” instead of “apúrate, mijo.” The truth is, there won’t be a moment when I look at him and know I did it right. There will just be mornings when he asks for waffles, and I’ll say “¿waffles o pan?” and he’ll look up and laugh, and that will be enough for now.
The other day I told my sister-in-law I’d made a decision. I said, “I’m going to speak Spanish to him, and I’m going to try not to feel guilty about it.” She nodded and said, “That’s good.” But I could tell she wanted to ask more. Honestly, I’m still figuring it out. The plan might change. The balance might shift. But at least I know that if I start with Spanish, he’ll always have a door open that some doors don’t close. He’ll hear my voice in that language, the one that belonged to my abuela and my mother and the rest of them before they ever set foot in this country. He’ll know that part of him belongs somewhere else, even if he never lives there. And that feels like a place to begin.
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