First Time Mom Issues: To English or Not To English?

As a first time mom, raising my boy on my own makes it twice as difficult to decide on everything related to parenting. So, I am no expert on this matter but I hope sharing this with you guys would somehow help us all, especially single mothers like me.

When raising a child, there are a lot of factors you have to consider. Starting when you get pregnant, going through pregnancy, to giving birth, to expenses and what kind of discipline you would want to impose, to name a few. But of course, the list goes on.



Now, that he is one year old, one of the current factor I'm dealing with is whether to teach my son to speak english and have him use it as his primary vernacular. I think it's important to be able to establish  this as early as now as I believe that it would also affect his interactions with kids his age in the future.

Right now, I talk to him in Taglish (Tagalog-English), I make him watch English language kids oriented channels like Disney Junior and Baby TV.  I must say, the boy is so smart that sometimes, he repeats everything he hears. This teaches me to choose my words with care whenever I'm around him. 

Of course, I want my child to love our native language. I want him to love this country the same way I do. I also want him to be able to fluently communicate in Tagalog. But at this day and age, the ability to communicate, fluently for that matter, gives extra advantage to anyone who hopes to make it in this competitive world.

I was raised in a Tagalog speaking household. My parents said they want us to be "simple" and to avoid being bullied because people might perceive us as "maarte". Everything I know abouf the English language, I either got from the books I read, my teachers or the english movies I watch. I was best in English in 1st grade! 

Right now, I am thinking about whether to enlist the help of my english tutor friends or enroll him in schools that use english as a primary form of communication. 

I know I can just guide him. Right now, I take it one day at a time. Definitely, I don't want to be that kind of mom who dictates what my child does or doesn't do. No one can choose what he'll be comfortable with but himself. Maybe, I should just hope against all hopes that my son would inherit what I'd like to believe I have - an innate grasp of the English language. 

But most important of all, I will always love him no matter what language he chooses to use primarily. After all, love is the universal language that everyone in the world understands. 

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Fellow mommas, I am open to advices that you can share! Leave your comments here and let's discuss. :-) 





Rolled Into One Mom

11 comments:

  1. We are currently trying to teach our sons to converse in the Filipino language which turned out to be a difficult task. We taught them English first and they're quite eloquent in expressing with it, we didn't anticipate that they'll have problems learning our own language.

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  2. I don't want him to have problems in the future., kase diba may culture sa ating pinoy na pag inglesero/inglesera, maarte, I want him to be comfortable with both languages and hopefully ganun nga ang mangyari. :-)

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  3. Right now, you can teach him with English, and later on, when he grow up, he'll know the difference afterall.

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  4. Like you, I grew up speaking Tagalog and pangsosyal lang English. Tagalog din kami sa bahay but my son speaks English and we're having a hard time in his Filipino subject. We did not plan it, maybe because of the english educational videos that he watched.

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    1. diba mommy michi? it's so hard to decide, i want him to be competitive in english but i also want him to be fluent in tagalog.

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  5. There have been studies of kids in multi-lingual environment who were able to learn more than two languages at the same time. I am talking about very young kids. Kids after all easily absorb information around them. But then, this is not a general finding. Kids differ in many ways such as learning style and learning readiness. I have two kids who are totally different. But as a general though I think it would be better to have just one language spoken by everybody in the house. It does not matter what language it is. When the kids already have a good grip of that language then start exposing them to other languages.

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    1. thanks for the advice mommy mitch...i have decided to talk to him in tagalog then i'll just teach him english paglaki :-)

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  6. I guess it's best to speak in Filipino but read and give them a lot of English books. Being bilingual benefits them more :)

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    1. hi samantha, yes, that's how i got the hang of the english language also, through reading english books! thanks!

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  7. As a mom with a kid in high school and grade school, I know for a fact that the child will find it hard to cope in school if he or she doesn't have a good grasp of Tagalog. My girls were raised speaking in English most of the time but when they entered grade school, they started conversing in Taglish more. They still had a harder time with their Filipino and Araling Panlipunan subjects, compared to the other English-based subjects.

    With my 3-year-old son now, he's still English-speaking (but it's mostly because his dad is more comfortable speaking in English). I try to teach him Tagalog words already little by little. I believe being fluent in both languages will be an advantage.

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    1. mommy janice, that's my concern talaga primarily, yung maging comfortable sya and and hindi maout of place sa mga bata pag usapang tagalog na but of course, i still want him to be able na makisabay sa mga english speaking na bata sa paligid.

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