Are we doing a disservice to our kids by not teaching them spanish?

This is my first reply which is kinda scary that I would pick such a emotionally charged topic to start with but here goes.. *gulp*
First off I am extremely proud to be hispanic and prouder still to speak and write fluently in both Spanish and English.
The comments that "force" their child to learn Spanish strikes me as odd to say the least. I "force" my child to learn math all the time and no one seems to object ( except my children of course !)
I would like to point out that many recently emigrated families (from whatever country) enforce their primarily language at home to keep their culture alive. Growing up we were only allowed to speak Spanish at home even though English was understood by all. It gives a vital connection to your ethnic culture. I have implemented that to a point with my own children. Although none can read it (yet!) they all understand to some extent. My brother in law actually signed up for spanish classes as an adult because his mother never took the time to teach him and felt lost at family gatherings.
ANY language your child picks up can only be of help in the future and excluding a particular language because of your political views IS a disservice to your children. I hope my children will be accountants, businessman, doctors, etc... but how can you guarantee that your child will not end up in a career that you would not have picked out for them? I tell my children often that as long as they have a job that can support them honestly it wouldn't make me less proud of them to see them working as mechanics if that's what makes them happy.
It surprises many people to seed my fair skinned, green eyed husband speaking accented english and as hard as he tries English is a very difficult language to learn as an adult. I find that since I learned Spanish and English early on, picking up a 3rd and 4th language was easier on me than my college peers.
I will not get into political viewpoints as I don't think it was the original posters intention to start such a controversy but I will say that I was hurt at some of the comments many posters made. I was starting to feel comfortable here reading through old posts on homeschooling and guess I should have stuck to those

 

Welcome!

I think the thread died down because it was going in a direction that was starting to be hurtful to some of us.

 

Since the thread has been revived I'll give my opinion about something that I didn't see in the first few pages (I admit I didn't read all 14 pages). There have been numerous studies done that prove that kids can learn almost an unlimited amount of languages fluently up to about age 14. So by the time most kids are in high school it's already too late to begin learning new languages. I know families who were missionaries and their kids fluently speak about 6 languages. A guy by the name of A.E. Wilder Smith (Google his name), is a brilliant man with four earned PHD's delivered a message about Language to a church several years ago and it can be found on his website. I've read some studies in the APA Journal and I think a few in the New England Journal of Medicine.

So, you could teach your child all the popular languages at an early age with very little work while it's still natural for them. So in this respect it's a disservice not to teach them because it will be many times harder as an adult. I'll leave my opinion as to other reason why or why they shouldn't learn them

 

I'm all for learning languages. But the question wasn't about learning A language. It was whether a child in America was at a disadvantage if he didn't know Spanish. And it bugs the heck out of me our children feel that they MUST know Spanish to get by in an English speaking country.

Ujugetito, I appreciate what you're saying. I believe that Hispanic people living in this country should insist on their children speaking Spanish as well as English. It's part of who they are, and the children should be proud of that. Same with those from other countries that come here. And I understand that older people have a difficulty learning a second (or third) language. I know I would have a difficult time learning another language at this point. But I also don't think the answer is forcing Spanish on the general population.

 

In Welsh, 'heddiw' (pronounced hethew) means today, 'dydd' (pronounced duth) means day, and 'bara' means bread. In Cornish, DD is replaced by DH - so those words are 'hydhou', 'dydh', and 'bara'.

Steve, my grandfather's people were born in Cardiff, and emigrated just before 1866 when he was born on this side of The Pond. My grandmother was born there too and emigrated when she was 16. The only bit of the Welsh language that survived in the family were the words (which I have not a clue how to spell, except the one word you just taught me) for "bread and cheese and beer" and "devil" (by which my grandfather referred to the old plow mule). My dad was the youngest of that family, and asked his papa why they didn't still speak the old language -- and was told in no uncertain terms: We're Americans, we talk American!

I'm soooo jealous of people who grow up bilingual! or better yet, TRIlingual. Used to have friends in New Orleans (lost touch long since) -- he emigrated from Japan, she from Italy. They met in English-language class, married, and had a son. His exotic good looks were a perfect blend of the two parents, and he grew up speaking Italian with his mother, Japanese with his father, and English with his school friends (some of whom were also Japanese). No doubt, though, that when he got to high school, he probably took French. It was New Orleans, after all....

 

I have always been the first one of my friends to be outspoken about anyone learning English if they live in the U.S.. However, I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I don't think it's as important as I once thought it was. The language we speak in the U.S. does not define who we are and whether it changes over the next 20 years or changes ever couple of years doesn't matter. Whether we like it or not, Spanish is quickly becoming a second language in the U.S. and with the exception of Chinese it's the most spoken native language. Although English is #1 if you take into consideration those who speak it as a second language.

The question is, are you doing a disservice by not teaching them and I believe it's not so much that it's a 'disservice' as much as it's an 'advantage'. Whether we like it or not, regardless of what our opinion is the facts and experience tells us that it is quickly become the second language in the U.S. and it can only help to learn it. Even if it's not required for many jobs, it's definitely helps in a competitive environment to have one more skill that others don't.

 

I did not read all the responses. I feel most of what I read was way too much for the simple question asked. JMO

As for me no I am not teaching my children spanish. I will keep most of my beliefs to myself, except for the fact I don't believe my children need nor have to learn any other language except the English. Now if they want to then that is an option. Now if we were to visit say mexico or even gremany we would learn enough of their language to get by there, since that is their country and what they speak. I would not expect them to learn my language because I want to be in their country. The same way here, if you come from another country to here you should learn our language or atleast enough to get by. Other countries would not hire us or such if we did not know enough of their language to be a productive worker, so I believe the same should be for here. We should not have to learn another language to make it in our country.

I am not posting this to put anyones panties in a bunch and I will not argue or what not about more on this subject. We all have our opinions and well sometimes they clash very loudly.

 

I happen to be mistaken for a spanish speaking person on almost a daily basis at work because I have dark skin. After, I smile at them and tell them as nicely in possible in the one broken up spanish sentence that I know telling them I don't speak spanish, I get a dirty look and the up and down stare thing. Whatever that's about I don't know and I really don't care. My kids don't want to learn spanish because at our charter school the spanish teacher isn't a good teacher, so my oldest decided on Italian and is currently doing a program for that. Her choice not mine. I wouldn't care if they wanted to speak Spanish. But I am personally tired of being expected to know spanish because of what I look like. But that's just my experiences thus far, and it could change.

 

When we get telemarketers call they always say our last name with an accent. Then when they talk to me for about a minute they lose their accent. LOL They quickly realize I am Anglo. We also get offers for magazines that are Spanish. I think people just make a lof of assumptions. I've had those who met me in person say, "You're white". "Yup, been that way all my life". LOL

We recently had an insurance claim when someone slammed into my ds' car while it was parked. The other guys' insurance company sent us a letter in Spanish. Told my dh that he would have to translate it for me. LOL

 

I let my kids decide what language they were interested in learning. My youngest choose French, because she wants to visit France someday. My oldest was born in Italy so she was interested in learning Italian. My son wanted to learn a language that wasn't so common so he is working on Greek, he also decided to give Italian a try so he and his older sister could have conversations.
In my experience, once you learn a Latin based language it is easier to learn other Latin based languages. So if they ever decide they want or need Spanish, they can do that.
I think learning other languages is a good thing, when we lived in Italy we took the time and effort to learn the language. The people appreciated the fact that we cared enough to learn their language so that we could communicate. Yes, most of the people we came into contact with did know English, but we were in their country and we felt we needed to speak their language.

 

Well, yes and no. I have a French background. I can pick out some words in Spanish because they're similar, but I would never be able to follow someone speaking to me, even if it were VERY SLOWLY. However, I've no doubt that my French would make it easier to actually learn Spanish formally.