Multicultural Mayhem

By Marina Kuperman

My three-year-old is one confused little man! He has a mom who was born in Russia but grew up in the States, and who insists that he speaks Russian and English. His daddy is 100% Guatemalan (but speaks English fluently), who insists on pounding Spanish and English into his little brain. On top of that, he was born in Costa Rica. So with all this twirling around in his head, he figured he might as well add to the confusion by inventing his own unique language.

My son is at that age when kids are not only muttering a few incoherent words, but are attempting to have full conversations. Since his speech is half-invented and delayed, making it difficult for many people to understand, he feels so frustrated on a daily basis that my heart goes out to him. Surrounded by three languages, he tries hard to express himself by saying words that would best fit the situation. However, when one doesn’t understand him, which is 90% of the time, he screams and cries, repeating the word over and over again until we figure it out, or he finds something else to distract him. As much as I love this stage and the adorableness that goes along with toddlerhood, I can’t help but wish he would finally speak. Not only so he can tell me what he wants at the moment, but more importantly, so he can tell me whether he’s hurt or feeling sick. Regardless of all these problems, our dedication and devotion to maintaining the three languages actively is not going to falter.

In my bi-monthly column Multicultural Mayhem I’ll take you through the difficulties of raising a multilingual child by giving you tips and ideas on how to stay disciplined. The beginnings maybe tough, but the rewards are beyond limits—both for you and your child!

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This Month’s Tip
If you are in a bilingual or bilingual family, each parent should pick one language they want the child to learn, for example, Russian and Spanish, and ONLY speak that language to the child, no matter what!
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“Is your child a little slow?” is a question that no mother wants to hear, especially when her child isn’t. At times I find myself wasting energy trying to explain: “No my son doesn’t have a disability,” and, “No my son doesn’t have communication problems.” What he does have is a trilingual household. Is that so hard to grasp?

Apparently it is.

Living in Costa Rica, meeting bilingual and even a few multilingual children isn’t out of the norm. However, we don’t live too close to the foreigners that could relate to our situation, but rather in a more local environment where the Costa Ricans nod their heads understandingly as we explain that our almost three-year-old processes everything, but with all the confusion in his head has a hard time expressing himself.

This is exactly what happened when we sent him to a local nursery school. A few months back we decided it was time he went somewhere where he could interact with kids his own age. We stressed our situation to his teacher on the first day and she replied with utter joy to be receiving such a unique little child. It took him a while to adjust, but that goes for every child in every corner of the world, and within two weeks he would run to play with the kids.
One day the psychologist of his school asked me for a conference. She said that it was customary for all the parents to come in for a review of their kid’s assimilation to their new environment. At the meeting, my son’s teacher joined us. In unison, the two immediately asked: “Is your son a little slow?”
“How do you mean?” I asked defensively.
“Does he have speech problems?”
“No!”
“It’s just that he’s the only one in the whole group who still doesn’t know how to talk? We were wondering if there was something wrong.”

I sat in a state of a shock. Did they not participate in our conversation three weeks ago? Did I not tell them specifically that with three languages my son is fully aware of everything but has a hard time getting the correct words out and to compensate for his lack of expression he’s invented his own language to help express himself better? “Umm-hmmm,” they nodded as I repeated myself. Then, as though not hearing a word, psychologist continued, “When did he first start talking?”
“Around eighteen months,” I replied not wanting to deal with the situation anymore. This was not the first time I had people question my son’s odd language and I didn’t find it appropriate that they should be giving me the inquisition.

I left the place with a heavy heart, rethinking all my worries that I initially had by sending him to school in the first place. I, too, had grown up in a bilingual household. My situation was totally different though. I came from Communist Russia to the US when I was six years old during the heart of the Cold War. Needless to say, Russian wasn’t the most favorite language of the decade and I got my fair share of ostracism driving me to reject my heritage and language for over ten years. I felt embarrassed by my background, my family, and anything that would put me in the public’s eye.

My Guatemalan husband comforted me and explained that, first of all, a psychologist’s job is to point out problems so that you go back to them for resolution. Secondly, many people had a long way to go by understanding a more worldly family, and thirdly, does our son look like he is having problems? When I reviewed my kid’s eagerness of going to school and his enthusiasm when I picked him up, I realized that it had nothing to do with him (and us). So instead of getting angry and insulted I decided to expose more of who we were.

One day, the class had to present a farm animal. Our choice was a horse. Unlike the typical collage of horse stuff we presented the horse in three languages. The teacher was thoroughly impressed and enjoyed the free lesson as she proudly tried to pronounce the word horse in Russian for all the other kids to see who my little man was! Two weeks later she asked me if I could teach her some cute words in Russian so she could use them with her kids. The psychologist has yet to come around, she is intent on making my child speak, but I guess with time she’ll come around, too.

Next column: Can You Say Duck In Three Languages?

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Marina Kuperman is a Russian-born American, married to a Guatemalan, living in Costa Rica. She blogs at Backpackermom.typepad.com.

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