Bilinguality

... that can't be a real word, can it?

Been working on it. My boy doesn't talk yet but of course language development starts immediately when a baby is born if not earlier. I'm happy that I have two sisters with bilingual kids (Finnish-Swedish) so I know some things that work and others that don't work. I've also seen some Finnish mothers trying to teach their children Finnish in America. Comparing these is helpful. Here are some tips I've received or figured out myself:

If you want to raise a child bilingual you have to stick to it. It might offend friends or grandparents (hopefully not I:s grandparents) that they don't understand you when you speak to your child, but if you start making exceptions they will get more and more frequent until...

It's very difficult to raise a bilingual child in America. English is practically the only language they ever hear here, unless you watch Spanish TV (most don't), so they don't get exposed to many languages. Things are easier in Finland since they might hear TV in four-five languages.

If a child doesn't have a community of said language speakers (and the mother is the only one speaking it) he will grow up understanding it but will have an accent while speaking. (This creeps me out - how can you have an accent on your mothertongue, different from your mother's accent?)

The parents must always put extra effort to language-related things. You must speak good language because nobody else will... and also, you really have to speak all the time.

Books and films and things like that help a lot. I want to get a great Finnish library.

So, after all this trouble, why bother? Is it important in any way to be bilingual? Well, apart from the fact that knowing two languages actually helps you to learn more (the different structures of languages isn't so much a mystery, or the differences in pronounciation) or that it might be that bilinguality also boosts your language abilities in general (only if they're really strong languages both), there isn't much reason. Except that language and culture go together and I love my language and culture. I couldn't imagine that my children wouldn't be Finnish in both language and culture.

Being born liking cars?

Sorry, mothers, boys are not born liking cars. Otherwise, imagine all those little boys 200 or more years ago, liking them but not knowing what they like, a shapeless yearning... Nope, liking cars is not inborn and I will say this even if the first word of my boy happened to be 'auto'.

I've lately heard many feminist mothers (and some others too) complain (or just explain) how they worked hard on gender neutrality in toys and were thwarted in their efforts by their boy who wants cars. Or girl who wants to wear pink although the color isn't even present in their house. I still say liking cars isn't inborn!

If something is inborn about liking gender-specific toys (which I'm not certain about) it's the fascination of a certain gender role. Many boys might be excited in things that are culturally perceived as masculine (probably they don't explain it in these words to their parents, though). Not all, of course. And many girls might find overly feminine things attractive. What they see as masculine or feminine has to change, though, else boys would still just like horses and NOBODY would like cars.

And here comes the other part: if a child is attracted to things that are culturally perceived as masculine or feminine, and their parents were very vigilant in trying to raise their kids gender neutrally, what's the explanation? I think it's that there's no way you can raise your child actually gender neutrally. They don't grow in a vacuum - if you can be completely gender neutral (which I don't think is possible at all, but that's a whole different tweet) the rest of the world isn't.

I won't even try. But I think I'll go for trains in stead of cars, much more ecological. And animals, and dolls too if he wants them, and I think he'd be excited about a little kitchen. But I'll try not to complain if he only wants to play with his toy tigers and scorns the pots and pans.

Quotas or no quotas?

I'm a bit worried about gender quotas. If say a magazine has them, wouldn't it be possible that they would just be scrambling around to fill them instead of thinking of quality?

But if a magazine doesn't think about gender at all, will they end up not publishing any women writers just because they're much too used to their men? (Or for some other, more nefarious reason...) And will all the women writers then just end up writing in so-called women's magazines since they can't get in to any others?

This is what happened in the New Yorker. Anne Hayes noticed that in several issues (two were mentioned specifically) there were only a couple of pages written by women despite the fact that there are many writing women for them to have. In fact the magazine itself has many women editors. So Anne decided to return the latest offending issue, displeased with it, like a box of cereal that's flawed.

I think there should not be gender quotas - in a perfect world. In OUR world however, if women don't make a noise they are still overlooked. Still. And Anne's quota is so modest too, just five out of thirteen. Don't think five women writers should be hard to find at all, and quality need not suffer.

Here's Anne's letter on facebook.

Resolutions... wishes...

A couple of years ago I decided not to make any New Years resolutions. In stead I expressed New Years wishes. The good part is that those weren't really dependent on me. The downside is that the reason I did this is a Finnish ailment: pessimism. Why try to change since it didn't work last year? How could I do any better next year?

Well well. Last year I made resolutions anyway, even while realizing that I might not be able to fulfill them. I thought that two resolutions would be enough: I'd give birth to a baby (very safe: he was about to come out anyway) and I'd finally finish my novel, big project that has been going on for way too long. Not finished, I'm sad to say. It seems my first resolution messed with my second one. I started off fine but then got too heavy and tired and then too busy and then too tired again... you know how it is.

With a 50% success rate I might try again, however.

It seems like I've lately had trouble with faith-related issues, so I'll work on that. Decided.

Baby needs mama to give a strong foundation in the Finnish language. I'll work on that. Decided.

Novel still needs to be finished. (It can't be impossible with 250 pages down already?!) Decided.

What's the 50% success-rate for this I wonder? Slight improvement in faith-related issues, no novel but excellent use of Finnish? Or something else?

Language minorities

Sometimes I think we people are not very generous. Take the position of minority languages. In most countries minority languages have difficulties even existing. Russia is a great example. Even in a western country like the UK, Welsh and Gaelic are seriously struggling, and nobody knows how many generations will speak those languages fluently.

Then there's Finland and Canada. Finland has some struggling official minority languages (the Same languages in Lapland) and one official minority language that's not struggling in the same way, Swedish. Besides these there are of course several unofficial ones. The problem in the language majority's eyes seems to be the Swedish. Their situation in Finland is apparently very much like the French language situation in Canada. It's a second official language of the country, so anyone should get service in any government offices in Swedish. Also, as Swedish speaking Finns have to study Finnish at school, Finnish speaking Finns have to study Swedish. And they hate it so much! In fact, this hatred sometimes envelopes all the Swedish speaking Finns too. They are happier than Finns, they seem to be richer than Finns (this is only true about a small part of Swedish speaking Finns, but since those are the very visible ones...) and they sing better and even write better than Finns (well, at least Tove Jansson, Bo Carpelan and Kjell Westö do in my opinion)!

People hate minorities that do as well, or sometimes better in their eyes, as the majority. Minorities should suffer. Minorities should content themselves with speaking the majority language.

Only, as majority language speakers we have no clue how hard minority languages are to maintain. At school cool kids sometimes speak Finnish on breaks. If they didn't have their own schools - or were in the same complex even as Finnish speakers - how long until Swedish would only be spoken during lessons? And how many of those kids would eventually speak Finnish to their kids?

I was raised in a Swedish speaking village and went to a Swedish speaking school. Obviously, I'm partial. But I'm partial for the rights of other minority languages too. And, incidentally, I think Spanish should be compulsory at school in America!



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non-holiday post

Sorry, today I thought, once more, about skin color. Oh, I thought about Christmas too, a bit, but that wouldn't make much of a post.

The question of today was: what will we teach our child about this skin color issue?

My decision was (and husband might agree) that we will first teach him that skin color doesn't matter. This teaching should mostly be done non-verbally, only if there is an issue should it be discussed. Issue could be child asking, or situation seen.

However, a couple of years later we will also teach our child that skin color has always mattered. Hopefully at this point he will already take people as they are. I don't want him to become one of us whites who thinks black people are making an issue out of nothing - I want my child to understand how privileges define his world, and above all, that being a white male he can't get an idea of what it is like to be in America, or Finland, as black or as female.

Maybe this will eventually help him to create a world where people in fact aren't defined as white or black and skin color is pinkish-yellowish, or brownish beigeish, or deep brown, or copper-toned with slight tinge of yellow... and all of these are admirable.

How to teach this and when this should be taught is another matter. I have no clue. Any ideas?

Does Christmas translate to joulu?

A week ago was the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is something I learned at school. My teacher taught me it is waiting for Christ (Finnish schools were definitively more Christian and more Lutheran when I was a kid). On the first Sunday (actually the Monday, of course, no school on Sunday) in Swedish-speaking schools we lit up one candle from a four-candle holder and sang Hosanna David's Son and talked about Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

I was so sad this year that nobody even realized it was First Sunday of Advent.

There's an irony in all this. In Finland I had just started liking Christmas again. I had been suffering from a serious Bridget Jones syndrome ("once again I am humiliatingly spending Christmas Eve alone in my parents' house in a single bed") but then along came Current Husband, who, not prone to depression anyway, loved all kinds of Christmases, Finnish or American. So I spent two nice Christmases with him in Finland, enjoying how I enjoyed Christmas again, and then moved to America. Now I'm wondering whether I'll ever have joulu again.

Joulu is, for me, a Christmas tree (always a fir tree or spruce, whatever the difference between those two, never a pine tree) with a star on top, loads of Christmas presents and huge Christmas meal consisting of traditional Finnish foods and lots and lots of fish, all on Christmas Eve. All of this (except maybe the presents) I hated for several years, feeling it underlined my singleton status... but now I'd like it. Only, now I have a Christmas tree at my in-laws, and it might be a pine tree and it might have an angel, not a star on top. I have more presents than ever, but some of them come by mail to my own address and are opened once we leave for the holidays or once we come back, and are always opened on Christmas Day. I have loads of food, but random American Christmas food, so no knowing really what will come up except for jello salad (this is in Utah). I can't blame my in-laws since they really try to encourage me to cook Finnish Christmas foods and sometimes even open up the presents on Christmas Eve. I think my mother-in-law guesses that Christmas is a time of home sickness. But what's the point if everything is just a bit off anyway? Besides, Finnish Christmas foods are about the weirdest Finnish foods in people's eyes here (they're the most traditional ones, that's why.)



Did I start liking joulu again only to notice there is no more joulu? Will I just learn to like the American version of Christmas in itself, without attaching any childhood memories to it? But isn't Christmas very much about childhood memories?