My Own Understanding of What Happened

Why did we leave Poland?  My older daughter asked me this question a few times.  I still don't know what to tell her.  The facts are so many, so overwhelming, so double sided. 

In the end, all that has ever rung true for me is this:  Here I am, Polish born raised and living in Amerika, with two beautiful daughters who I love.  And, really, that's the most important fact.  My daughters. 

I hope one day they understand what I mean when I hug them and say "Life is a complicated, strange thing.  And it led me to where I needed to be so that I could be sitting here hugging you.  That's all that matters, really."

Other subtle facts float by on the edges.  I have an American accent, not a Polish one.  My kids are Polish-American, not just Polish, not just American.  We are the bridge between the two worlds, as there always is in every American family.  At some point in all of American family history, there is a bridge between the two worlds.

There is nothing wrong with preferring a snack of pickles over potato chips, or loving barbecue pulled pork, or not knowing what it means to stand in line for hours for food.  There is nothing wrong with continued contact with the family left behind.  There is nothing wrong with speaking English, the third language of a person's life, better than their mother language. 

So, how to answer my daughter's question?  I don't know.  And part of it comes from the fact that, in order for my parents to answer it, they will have to look back on that time and embrace homesickness as well as the feeling they had watching the news, seeing with their eyes what was happening, and then snuggling their little baby girl after standing in line for food.  They can't answer it all the way, nor can I.

So, I started looking for videos I could save to show my kids later in life to explain.  I found this one.  I'm not sure if I should share it.  I don't fully understand the facts, whether it was really like this, I'm no historian, no sociologist, no diplomat, no expert.  I'm just a Mama.  That's enough.

To those of you who remember this time, or understand it, what do you think of this video?  Does anyone else struggle with how to answer this question when your children ask?

Na razie...

Being A Bilingual Parent

I have been working harder lately at teaching my children Polish.  I'm also hoping that in two years, we can work on Spanish together.

I had been using Polish words here and there before with my kids but I knew it wasn't enough.  Polish school was also not an option.

Trips to the local library never ended with colorful board books in Polish for children, because my library doesn't have it.  And it seems I may actually need to know titles to find such books and request them to be sent to my library.  I think.  That's what it seems, so far.

So, I rolled my mental sleeves up and thought hard. 

What tricks were used to teach me English when I was ESL?   

What tricks was I suggested to do for French when I studied it for six years (which I recall very little of, partly due to a lack of opportunity to use French)?

A Polish friend of mine, Maria (thank you, Maria) reminded me of a game that I remember playing to learn different animal names.  She, herself, had seen a child saying Elephant in Japanese at the zoo one day and still recalls the word. 

The kids walk around a room with the teacher pretending to be the animal, all chanting in a sing-song voice the name of the animal.

So, this week, we are chanting a few animal names while playing in the living room together.

We are getting silly, we are making loud monkey and bird and elephant noises.  We are laughing.

And I'm hoping they remember.

The trick I remember the most about learning English was the ESL teacher resting her hand on my shoulder, looking in my eyes, and saying two words.

"Don't stop." 

I knew those words already in English.  They were some of the first words I had learned from her.

So, whether you are learning a new language yourself as an adult, or teaching your kids. 

Don't stop.  Keep trying. 

Na razie...

Related Posts:

I Love Sesame Street

We Learned English

Teaching Children About Poland

Teach Kids Polish:  Belly and Belly Button