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I have been a bad adoptive parent. I’m beginning to get the idea that parenthood is really one long negotiation involving equal parts frustration (because they never do what you want them to do) and guilt (because you never wind up doing what you should be doing). One of the things I feel like I should be doing – one of the Big Important Things for internationally adopted kids – is signing Daughter up for Mandarin lessons.
She’s four, she’s brilliant, and she’s taking ballet.
She likes ballet. She does well at it. But when she’s 24, I wonder if she’ll have built up a tremendous reservoir of resentment over not having any real mastery over the language of the country of her birth.
I know that it matters to some people who were adopted across language lines. Like Jane Jeong Trenka, who recently did a radio diary focusing on the hard work of learning Korean, her birth language – and not one she ever heard growing up in Minnesota, but one she’s gradually mastering now that she’s moved back to Korea. People need these connections. People like the ones our children are becoming. Of course, she’s a writer, so language is singularly important.
Then again, I’m a writer, too. (Or so my editors tell me.)
For now, I’m keeping the worst of the guilt at bay by keeping some kind of Mandarin activity (translating the Tao Te Ching character by character on zhongwen.com, or just listening to Chinese new wave music) in rotation on my list of things to do.
That’s why I’m interested in something I’ve just heard about called Livemocha.com It’s another one of those playing-to-the-strengths-of-the-internet sites, linking people who speak one language and want to learn another with people in the opposite boat – so I could do a little English teaching and Mandarin learning at the same time. At least that’s what it looks like to me… I haven’t actually signed up and started doing any networking yet.
One more thing to feel the guilt over, I suppose.
Anyway, I’ll be looking through their lesson plans as soon as I get a moment to spare. Maybe they’ll even have something suitable for a 4-year-old’s learning level – if we do it together.
I wonder if she could learn a hefty chunk of language as a foreign exchange student one summer or a group of summers?
the good news is: she’s got a lot of years to absorb that language. but it does require lots of follow through on that commitment. maybe contact a local high school or junior high. ask the counseling departmet to recommend a bright, mandarin speaking student, then hire them for a few hours a week to come play with your kid. maybe doing ballet? the language lessons are more relevant for the kid if they can use the skills with a native speaker.
maybe contact a local high school or junior high.
Hmm. That’s an interesting idea, since there’s the older boy in the house what attends a middle school with a few Mandarin-speaking kids in it.
there you go. older boy would be able to give good feedback on which student is best.
our third son has a good friend who is chinese. this kid spends a lot of time at our house. he also happens to be a whiz on the trumpet. this fall, when our fourth boy picked trumpet, perfect. our smallest son works much harder for the older friend than he ever would for me. cheap too, and the kid is already over here alot. it was fun bartering with him over the details too, he loves to haggle.
good luck, hope your girl is chattering away soon. combine language lessons with dance movements, chances are she’ll learn both things twice as fast.
No. When she is 24, she will not have resentment toward anyone (other than herself MAYBE) for not being able to speak Mandarin.
Consider the children of Chinese Americans. These kids tend to overcompensate for the benefit of their school classmates…they work to be as American as possible and that includes NOT learning Chinese.
When they get to be young adults, they are embarassed when Chinese people expect them to be able to speak the language.
Your child will not have Chinese parents…I assume you are white. So the child might avoid some of the peer-pressure to be more American.
Sure, teach her Chinese…but figure out a fun way to do it. If you are near a Chinatown, go to the Culture Center….there is one in every large Chinatown…run by the government of Taiwan. There your child can play with Chinese children…Chinese American kids. And she can learn Chinese with them.
It will be fun and it will help her establish healthy attitudes towards her Chinese “tong-bao”.