Should I Speak Spanish or English to My Baby? What I’m Really Trying to Figure Out
Last Saturday, I sat on a bench at the park, watching a toddler chase a pigeon while her mom pushed a stroller with one hand and balanced a coffee in the other. The little girl tripped, and her mom called out, “¡Cuidado, mi vida!”—then immediately switched to English, “You’re okay, sweetie, get up.”
I’m pregnant with my first, and I’ve been thinking about language nonstop. My husband is American, his family has been here for generations. I grew up in Mexico and moved to Texas for college. Spanish is the language of my grandparents’ kitchen, of lullabies I don’t even remember learning. English is the language of my job, my friendships, and now my marriage. And our baby is due in six months.
The question feels simple when I ask it out loud: Should I speak Spanish or English? But the answer is tangled up in identity, homework help, in-laws, and the fear that my child will be the one who doesn’t fit in either world.
I have a cousin who raised her kids bilingual in Miami. She told me it was easy until kindergarten, then everything got hard. Her son started answering in English when she spoke Spanish, and her daughter refused to watch movies in Spanish. My cousin kept pushing, and now that her kids are teenagers, they order tacos in perfect street Spanish and text their grandmother in Spanish. But they also roll their eyes when she corrects their grammar. My cousin says, “They got it, but not without a fight.” I wonder if I have that kind of stubbornness in me.
On the other hand, my neighbor is a speech therapist. She told me the most common mistake she sees in bilingual families is not speaking the language—it’s parents who freeze up. “They get so anxious about doing it wrong that they end up saying less,” she said. “And that’s the real risk.”
That hit me. Because I already feel that freeze. When I talk to my belly (which feels ridiculous, but I do it), I sometimes start a sentence in Spanish, then switch to English because I’m not sure which one is supposed to be the “real” one. My Spanish is homey and warm, full of diminutives and phrases I don’t even fully understand. My English is professional and precise. I don’t want to hand my child a half-made language.
But then I listened to that mom at the park. She wasn’t doing anything research-based. She just spoke the words that came out naturally, and then translated for the world around her. Her daughter didn’t seem confused. She just got up, brushed off her knees, and ran after the pigeon.
Maybe that’s the practical part. My husband and I have actually sat down and made a loose plan. It’s not elegant, but it’s realistic.
We decided I’ll speak Spanish most of the time at home, especially when it’s just me and the baby. Not because I’m trying to be a hero, but because the way I sing “A la nanita nana” is the only way I know how to sing a lullaby. English will be everywhere else—mostly because it already is. My husband will read goodnight stories in English, we’ll watch movies in English, and playgroup will be English. We’re calling it “one parent, one language,” but honestly, it’s more like “one parent, most of the time, in the house.”
I also asked the mom at the park if she ever feels like she’s splitting her daughter in two. She laughed. “No. I feel like she has more tools than me. She already switches without thinking.” That was reassuring, but I had to stop myself from asking too many questions. She was just trying to get through a Saturday, not solve my existential crisis.
What I’m learning is that the biggest fear isn’t about language itself—it’s about what language represents. When I speak Spanish to my baby, I’m handing over a whole history of Sunday afternoons and grandmother’s tamales. But I’m also possibly setting up a future of “No quiero” followed by tears. When I speak English, I’m making sure my kid feels confident at school, at the doctor’s office, at birthday parties where everyone shares the same language.
There’s actually a piece of practical advice I’ve started to follow, and it’s helping. When we’re out in public, I don’t force a language. If we’re at a restaurant and the waiter hears me order in Spanish, I don’t apologetically switch to English. I just order. If a stranger at the grocery store says, “Oh, she’s going to be so smart with two languages,” I say, “I hope so,” instead of explaining all my doubts. This small shift has made it feel less like a project and more like a normal part of life.
I’ve also started reading simple picture books in Spanish to my belly, even though it feels silly. There’s a board book about a bear that says “Abeja, abeja” and it’s all I can do not to cry because it reminds me of my abuela reading it to me. That’s when I know I’m doing the right thing.
But I’ll be honest. There are days I feel like giving up before we even start. My husband asked me last night, “What if she says her first word in English and you resent me?” I had no answer. Maybe because I do worry about that.
What keeps me grounded is something my speech-therapist neighbor said as she was leaving my house. “Bilingualism isn’t a race. It’s just a way of living. You don’t have to control the outcome, you just have to keep talking.”
Keep talking. That I can do—in whichever language my heart is closer to at that moment.
So maybe the real answer to “Should I speak Spanish or English?” is: yes. Both, actually. Not perfectly, not without doubt, but with enough intention that my child will grow up hearing that language is not a dividing line. It’s just how the people she loves communicate. And she’ll figure out the rest. We both will.
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