As babies, I refused to talk baby talk with my kids. I never made those weird baby sounds that people make to their little bundles of joy. This was partly because I didn’t grow up with that. Our kids learned American/English nursery rhymes at school. At home, they learned Haitian, French, and Latino songs.
Before we became parents, I spent time reading about how the brain works and how language develops, as we wanted our children to grow up multilingual. As much as they hated it, today they thank us for it. Our son, who now speaks three languages fluently and dabbles in a fourth, was 13 when he thanked me for that and for sending him to Saturday school at the Russian School of Math. That came much earlier than I ever thought it would! Our daughter thanks me for being raised by a Caribbean mom. She only recently started understanding that Black mom look, that piercing glance. We got there eventually.
As toddlers, I would always tell our kids to collaborate and compromise. They knew that if I had to mediate their conflict, they would both lose. So, they had to figure it out on their own. When they had conflict, they would remind each other to collaborate and compromise. Our friends thought our kids were a little weird. This wasn’t the only thing we did differently from other parents.
Our kids never drink soda and grew up thinking that seltzer was soda. I remember the day we were attending a party and our daughter tasted soda for the first time. She spat it out with disgust and turned to me saying it was the worst soda she ever had. Eventually, she learned the difference. She still hates soda, though.
Recently, I had lunch with another West Indian mom, and we discussed our cultural values and the exposure we want our kids to have to all things Caribbean. While there is a lot that we consciously do differently from our parents, growing up in Caribbean households and as immigrants had a lot of advantages. We learned a lot of skills and struggled through a lot to ensure that our parents’ sacrifices weren’t for naught.
As our kids grow up and head to college, we realize that we are preparing them for life, for their life partners, and for the workforce. Little tyrants at home become little tyrants at work. We talked about how our girls, especially, are better than us and still need our coaching. We see the young women we wish we could have been and raise our sons to be the kind of partners someone will want to be with one day.
So, parents, some days are hard, but they are ultimately worth it. You are preparing your kids for life. As our kids get older, they become the kinds of adults we want to be friends (and hopefully, they see the same in us).
