I enjoyed my years at university. I had the chance to lose myself in what now seem like fairly random and frivolous pursuits, and spent endless hours looking at the changes of season in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, question marks in gender-targeted magazine adverts, and the use of sea fowl in poems by Elizabeth Bishop. Like I said, frivolous.
But then, I did something sensible. I decided to spend my final year working on a thesis that might actually prove to be helpful to me in the future. Don't ask me where this spark of good sense came from, in the midst of sea fowl and poetry, but there it was. I threw myself head first into the subject, and produced a thesis with a title that you may need to read once or twice: "Attempting to Raise Bilingual Children: An Overview of the Problems Faced by Elitist Bilinguals Using the One Parent One Language Method."
While this may not be enormously useful to everyone, I knew that there was every chance it would be helpful to me. At this point, Dave and I had been a couple for, let's see, six years, and I had pretty much resigned myself to a future with him. Okay, I looked forward to a life of love, laughter and roses with him. Oh, okay, I thought he was quite entertaining and nice to have around, and also suspected that we might make rather cute babies together.
It turned out I was right.
I also knew, without a doubt, that I would want to speak Swedish to my children. It's my language - it's deep inside my heart. It was the only choice I could make for a number of different reasons, both practical and emotional. Dave, on the other hand, would definitely speak English. It's his language, and we live in England, so it made perfect sense.
So we were both determined to raise Esther bilingually, right from the beginning. I was very prepared - some might say over-informed - and knew exactly what to expect. For that, I am grateful.
When speaking Swedish to my daughter while everyone around me was speaking English made me feel self-conscious, or even rude, I knew that it was normal. I persevered.
When well-meaning relatives expressed concern, suggesting that we were sentencing her to a lifetime of confusion, I shrugged it off. I knew that their worries were common, but unfounded.
Ironically, my first serious wobble came a few months ago when Esther's Swedish really took off. She started using four and five-word sentences, and I was suddenly able to have proper conversations with her. While I was delighted to hear her express her thoughts and feelings, it also made me sad - because Dave was unable to take part in our talks. Esther's English was still at a much more basic level, and her vocabulary was too limited for any kind of conversation.To my surprise, that hurt me. A lot.
For the first time, I found myself thinking Am I doing the right thing? Are we splitting our family in two? But still, we carried on. We made sure Dave spent more time talking to her, and he started focusing on improving her vocabulary. I also relaxed my only-Swedish-songs-at-home rule and started playing some English nursery rhymes on the CD while I was cooking.
It worked. Last week, during Esther's birthday party, I watched her sitting at the table, chatting away to her grandma and auntie. "Grandma eat bread!", she ordered. "Grandma sit here! Grandma eat cake! Eat more cake!" Then she turned around, looked at me, smiled and asked to "Dricka mjölk nu, mamma!" (drink milk now, mamma!") I gave her a glass, and she turned back and carried on speaking English.
It was a proud moment, watching my little bilingual daughter in action. I know there'll be other struggles ahead. But for now, two languages in one family is working incredibly well. And while Bishop and Hardy are nothing but hazy memories now, my thesis lives on in a very tangible way. Sometimes being sensible really pays off.
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