Pinning My Linguistic Hopes on More Travel.

Posted by Multilingual Mama

This post was written for June’s Raising Multilingual Children Carnival hosted this month by All Done Monkey. This month’s theme is Multilingualism and Travel. If you would like to participate, host or simply learn more about the carnival, please visit Piri -Piri Lexicon’s Carnival Page.

I haven’t been home in two years. Wait, that’s wrong. I haven’t been home in three years but I am not sure anymore what home really is. I haven’t seen my parents in two years. The last time we saw each other, they flew from New York, the city where I was born and raised, to meet us in France, where I grew up spending my summers. Two years ago, they met our second daughter for the first time. She was 10 months old.

Prior to the trip, I was brimming with anticipation as I was sure, once immersed in the language, that my daughter Pea would flick a switch and start speaking French fluently. I felt like I’d read about this a thousand times, children who understood a language simply needing some time in the country to make the linguistic leap to actually speaking.

I was so very disappointed when it didn’t happen. Truth is we weren’t there long enough. We were also surrounded by people who understood and could speak English and who were all too keen to do so despite my begging them not to. I was reminded once again that there are no quick fixes when it comes to multilingualism. I did console myself with the idea that she had been immersed in lots of lovely French culture and, in a bid to try and view the glass half full, wrote a post on the topic here.

One of the reasons we chose to move to the other side of the world was the idea that we could afford to send our kids to a French school. I knew from friends’ experiences that spots in French/English immersion programs at public schools in New York were nearly impossible to come by, and private schools in the US are utterly unaffordable for us mere mortals. At the time, my daughter was attending a local Singaporean school but, after that trip, I was more determined than ever to get both our girls into French or bilingual schools and our upcoming move from Singapore to Bangkok was going to make that a reality with a more affordable French Lycée and an amazing little French/English bilingual nursery called Acacia conveniently near our new digs.

The first year was pretty much everything that I’d hoped for despite some major bumps in the road that caused me no end of neuroses -oh how I need to learn to think long term and not panic at every short term setback. But I digress… English is still the dominant language in our house but the girls’ French is fluent and I know progress has been made when, despite being an ‘English day’ at school, Pea comes home and choses to speak to me in French. My wee one, little plum already happily switches back and forth. They both love their schools and it’s all been a great success.

So why am I pulling them out?

A year in and I’ve realized the choice is really between private schools or tickets home to see family so in the end, I am opting for the latter. I’ve often preached about sticking to your heritage languages but what exactly is the point of my kids speaking French and Spanish if they then can’t go see their Mexican and French extended family? And really, since el Jeffe works all the time and all our funds go to the French school, Spanish is barely hanging on in our household.

What I will lose in giving up their formal French education I hope to gain with the ability to take more trips to France and Mexico in order to deepen their cultural connection and truly live their languages. Right now the girls don’t really get why Spanish is important but I know once they spend a few months with Abuelita and meet their cousins, they will want to actively add this language to their linguistic arsenal, as will I.

And let’s face it, I really miss good tortillas and ceviche.

Swimming Against the Tide: Why I am homeschooling.

Posted by Multilingual Mama

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Homeschool Blogging Carnival hosted by Lisa at The Squishable Baby and Keisha at Unschooling Momma. This month our participants are introducing their homeschools and styles.

It seems like only yesterday I was pondering whether or not to homeschool my kids: what would it mean for us? Would I be patient enough? Could I, a non qualified teacher, teach them? Did we have a big enough support network? Would I ever get to pee alone again?

Wait, it was only yesterday and I am petrified.

My little family currently resides in Bangkok, Thailand. I am franco-american and lived in the UK for many years. My husband, aka el jeffe is Mexican and we have two daughters: Sweet Pea just five and little Plum, who will be three on September 1^st.

I’ve just received the emails from the kindergarten and Pre-K schools confirming I’ve officially withdrawn my children. It felt so final that I broke into a cold sweat and nearly fainted. I wish I were exaggerating.

There are many reasons why I am choosing to homeschool but they aren’t the two main ones I typically read about. Most of the time you either hear about families for whom it is a faith-based decision or kids not thriving in school. I want a secular education for my kids – and that for me means they learn about all the major global religions. My two girls overall both love school and this is probably the hardest thing about pulling them out. It would be so much easier if, like me, they were hating the experience.

So why am I doing it? The main reason is totally selfish. I am suddenly incredibly aware of my mortality and I know my kids will only worship the ground I walk on for a few more years so I’d like to spend as much of that time as possible with them, harnessing that adoration, instead of only getting the rushing on either side of school. Traffic in Bangkok means I have to get them up at 6am and they are gone by 6.55. By the time they get back in the afternoon, we have time for a tiny bit of tired play and the whole dinner, bath, book routine. During these windows, I frequently feel like I am tap dancing in a minefield as their exhaustion makes them emotional explosive time bombs. Ultimately, I get the two slices of bread and none of the delicious filling.

Another factor is the a question of value for money. Living in Bangkok, my only option is to send my kids to private school. These schools are extremely expensive catering generally to an élite expat crowd, bankrolled by their companies and the schools take full advantage of this including outrageous sign-up fees leaving us mere working mortals struggling to educate our children. Maybe if we were a monolingual family, I would have considered local Thai school but my kids are already growing up with English, French and Spanish and it just didn’t make sense to add Thai to that. Also the Thai educational approach is far from what I want for my kids.

Freeing up these financial resources allows me to organize a whole host of educational trips and activities including extended stays with Abuela in Mexico and their Papoo and Yaya in France and the US. It kills me that my mother in law hasn’t seen my eldest since she was 8 months old and has never met our second girl.

As far as approaches – well it is a little too early to say what we will end up doing but my plan at this point is loosely following a waldorf-based curriculum called Oak Meadow but without signing up for the teacher support at this stage. To this, I’d like to incorporate aspects of the Well Trained Mind approach. I am big on the classics and laying foundations. As far as maths go, I am hesitating between Singapore math and Montessori math. I am in Asia and hear so many good things about the former but from what I can tell so far SM and MM are actually very similar in their approaches so it may just be a case of which materials are easier for me to source. Of course all of these are ideas and only time will tell what ends up working for us.

Jumping into the deep end.

I mentioned earlier, I am petrified but ready to jump into the deep end. The courage I’ve found has come less from within but in the knowledge of the incredible support group I’ve been able to find here in Bangkok. Homeschooling is not common here but I’ve been fortunate to find a small group of families with kids of similar ages who are already homeschoolers or starting out like me.

And as I sat there, nauseous and nervous, having just read the withdrawal emails, my daughter, unbeknownst to her, shared an experience that sealed the deal. She was a little upset, wanting to draw a fish but insisting she didn’t know how. When I tried to encourage her, she explained to me that a teacher had told her that she hadn’t drawn her fish right.

Who tells a 4-year-old that their fish isn’t right? Apart from the millions of different types of fish and sea creatures I am pretty sure the teacher isn’t familiar with, WHO tells a FOUR-year-old their fish ISN’T RIGHT?

Talk about killing creativity and sowing the seeds of insecurity and doubt. No way, you are not getting my money or more importantly, my child.

Visit The Squishable Baby to see how you can participate in the next Homeschool Blogging Carnival.

Please take the time to read the submissions by other Carnival participants:

Lisa at The Squishable Baby Introduces her Homeschool.

Jody @ Mud Hut Mama shares how she Tailors Education to Fit Our Family, Our Experiences and Our Values.

Cecy Fencer Shares Who She is and Why She Homeschools.

Joy @ Who’s Learning? Who’s Teaching Shares Our Homeschool Beginnings.

Fast and Furious in Bangkok: Learning to Drive in a Cloud of Complexity

Posted by Multilingual Mama

I’ve been told I’d be crazy to drive in Bangkok. Then, when people realise I’ve never even had a driver’s license, they think I’ve totally lost my mind. I’d like to propose that my lack of license or previous driving experience makes me a lot more like the local Thais already on the road, but we will get back to that.

There is such a long story as to why I don’t drive, I can bore myself just thinking about it so I am going to sum it up in a series of words and short phrases: New York City, London and no money, boats, significant others with licenses, and of course, the state that rules my life: procrastination.

How long have I been procrastinating? Well getting my license has been a new year’s resolution of mine since about ’96. At the stroke of midnight I’ve jumped off a chair (Danish), eaten 12 grapes (Spain) and banged the walls with bread (Ireland), or down a flute of champers (Various), all to no avail. I’ve owned the rules of the road code books for NYC, Singapore and now Thailand. In London and France, getting a license is so cost-prohibitive, I could never even consider it. When my SO at the time finally gave me birthday card promising lessons I reacted by running off to Turkey leaving him high and dry. The question remains whether I actually left ‘him’ or the idea of finally learning how to drive. Seriously though, I am someone who managed to quit smoking and yet I can’t find the willpower to follow through on this one.

About four years ago, I came really close. I had an eight-month-old baby and my husband and I were traveling to Mexico to introduce our little bundle to his family. The journey consisted of two flights to get there and four 4-hour road trips in a period of two weeks. Those of you with kids will know that entertaining a kid of that age, for that long, in the back of the car, would be the greatest incentive ever. By the end of the trip I vowed I’d get my license within the year. I went so far as to drag myself to the DMV, a feat in and of itself, pass the theory test, get the worst photo ever and receive my learner’s permit! But morning sickness, a miscarriage, and morning sickness again, culminating with a round the world move while 34 weeks pregnant put an end to that attempt.

So why now? Well this summer is a milestone birthday and I’d really like to get it before then. I am also going to be in France for two months with my two under 5s, relying on the generosity of others to put me up. Also, everyone I know lives in the sticks. It’s one thing to be in your late teens and call up your friends’ brothers and cousins to persuade them to drive you around the countryside to various parties. But I am pretty sure that 20 years on, me and two kids would be an exceedingly hard sell. Train travel with children that age, platform changes, steep steps to board, suitcases and just me is definitely one of the circles of Dante’s inferno. If I can drive, the trip could transform from torture to pleasure in one turn of the ignition key.

Tune in next week for part 2: guns, the art of zen, and never parking in Park.

Playboy Bunnies, Bells, and Plastic Eggs: Welcome to Easter in Bangkok

Posted by Multilingual Mama

I am finally getting into the swing of things when it comes to celebrating holidays with the kids. We have so many of them when you consider our French, American and Mexican heritages. And now, on top of a social calendar rivaling page 6 socialistas, we are immersed in all the Asian holidays as well. At times it feels like a never-ending party to plan.

This weekend, a mere fortnight before the big Songkran or Thai New Year, expats everywhere were on the hunt for Easter booty. Decent quality chocolate eggs and bunnies are not abundant and poor quality treats of the Cadbury cream egg/ Marshmallow Peeps gendre even less so; a fascinating post on the history of peeps here.

Worried that a jam-packed schedule would limit my pre-Easter egg shopping, I decided to sign up my two little banshees for an organized egg hunt in a lovely green garden at the back of a posh hotel. The sign-up fee was to go to a worthy charity; it all sounded like a lovely idea.

With a ten a.m. start time delayed and hords of kids crowding two tiny start lines under the tropical sun, it dawned on me that prancing about a lush green garden collecting eggs was not a such a brilliant plan after all.

Little red riding hood finally made it –Yes, I too have no idea what she has to do with Easter, the basket maybe?– to lead the under fives to their egg area. I was extra grateful since it interrupted the conversation had just started taking place. The organizers were explaining how the bells [Les Cloches] had come through the garden to leave the eggs. I had completely forgotten that the French don’t have a lapin de Pâques. Instead, they tell children that while they are in Church on Easter Sunday, the bells, which have been silent since the thursday night to ensure they don’t ring during the mourning of Christ, return from Rome delivering chocolate eggs as they pass through town.

I hoped P&C didn’t register this new story. We were firmly established as a bunny family and I dreaded the tales I’d have to weave to reconcile the various versions while suffering from heat exhaustion. My kids, stressed from fidgeting in the sun, with sweat pouring down their faces, soon forgot the morning chaos and ran off ready to fill their makeshift egg baskets.

The eggs they were collecting were plastic. There were also large numbers of plastic fish strewn about. I never worked out if this was due to a lack of sufficient plastic eggs or some sort of French Christian thing. P definitely demonstrated the spirit of the day by running around finding kids with less eggs and filling their baskets with her own. Like me no doubt, she will always have an empty bank account.

P sharing eggs.

In the end, P’s generosity was neither penalized nor rewarded as every kid handed in their plastic booty to be swapped for a small bag of chocolate eggs straight out of a cooler. The rest of the morning was spent paying obscene amounts for drinks at the hotel bar while avoiding a sea of kids running around with melted chocolate all over their faces and hands -now I understood the reasoning behind the plastic egg. I feel that Songkran, a holiday where people douse each other in water, should be merged with Easter so we can hose down all the kids next year thereby cooling everyone off and washing away all the excess chocolate. Now that’s a little Euro-Asian fusion I can get behind.

A few hours later, P and I hopped into a cab. As we settled on the nice cool vinyl seats, P asked me what the bunny stickers on all the windows said. I am never entirely sure what to make of cabs plastered in these. I don’t usually like to fib and always try to give honest and realistic answers -apart from the classics like Santa Clause, Bunny, and the tooth fairy. Today, however, I had an easy answer: