From “Más” to Multilingual: What Three Moms Taught Me About Raising Bilingual Kids

My son’s first word after “mama” and “dada” was “más.” It’s still his favorite, used whenever he wants more food, another book or extra time outside (funnily enough, he picked up the sign language for “more” before he started saying the word, and will revert back to it sometimes for extra emphasis). Of the dozen or so words he says, none are in English – a thought I didn’t fully process until he started speaking.

I’m American; my husband is Argentine. We met, dated, got married and began our lives together in English. When I got pregnant, he had one request: Speak to our child only in Spanish. The goal was to recreate the environment he and his siblings grew up in, which produced fully bilingual adults: Spanish at home, English learned in school.

The wrinkle in that is that I’m not a native Spanish speaker. I had done some lessons with Mango, a free language learning app through the library, and spoke haltingly with my in-laws in Spanish, but I was nowhere near fluent. 

When I returned to work after maternity leave, we intentionally hired a nanny who spoke only Spanish, forcing me to communicate with her and my son in Spanish. My vocabulary expanded exponentially, and I became a more confident speaker. But my grammar is still often horrendous, and I struggle with tenses beyond the simple present and past.

At brunch recently, two friends who are fluent Spanish speakers joked that our son will think I have no future or regrets since I haven’t mastered the future or past perfect tenses. It got me thinking: What will happen once my son’s Spanish outpaces mine? If he argues with me in Spanish, can I successfully resolve it? When he realizes Spanish isn’t my native language, will he inevitably switch to English with me? And how can we help him become fluent without the advantage of two native-speaking parents?

It’s a struggle I’m sure we’re not alone in navigating. More than 20 percent of U.S. children speak a language other than English at home. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, growing up multilingual can enhance children’s connections to family, culture and community while supporting communication, reading and even math skills (sources found here).

To answer those questions, I turned to other moms who have raised or are raising bilingual children. Whether you’re reading this for Hispanic Heritage Month or another time, I hope you find their insights as helpful as I did.

Teaching Kids Spanish – and Portuguese – Without a Fluent Spouse

Isabel Porzecanski spent 25 years working in luxury hospitality across the U.S. and internationally, from Four Seasons to Mandarin Oriental. Originally from Uruguay, she lived in Brazil from ages two to nine and credits her mom, “one of the smartest people I know,” with preserving her Portuguese through Portuguese Thursdays at home.

When she and her husband moved to Miami with their sons, then two and four, a Spanish-speaking nanny helped the boys learn the language. Because her husband didn’t speak Spanish, the family spoke English together, though Isabel sometimes switched to Spanish. For her, immersion was key. “I think the immersion piece is critical,” she said. “It was not even negotiable; they had to be bilingual at a minimum.” Her sons are now bilingual and trilingual young adults.

They traveled to Uruguay every year. When her oldest reached school age, they enrolled him in their neighborhood school, Coral Way Elementary, the first bilingual school in the country.

Both boys later entered rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) programs – one in Spanish and one in Portuguese. Rather than studying the language as a single subject, they took core classes such as math and science in their respective languages. When the program ended after eighth grade, Isabel requested a transfer to Miami Beach Senior High, the only Miami high school offering an IB program in Portuguese.

“Now that I think about it, it took a lot of effort to have these kids do that,” Isabel reflected. But “the fact that they’re able to hold a conversation in a different language” is important to her. Her youngest recently completed an internship at Apple’s Latin America office where, she said, “not a word of English was spoken in that internship.”

She is also quick to acknowledge that, with two working parents and a family that moved often, they were fortunate to have paid help in the early years and other avenues to teach “not just the language, but how to think in another language, and the cultural aspect.”

Two Latin American Parents, Two Spanish-Speaking Kids

Silvia Nauta is vice president of AtelierCX at Forbes Travel Guide and has spent more than two decades in luxury hospitality, with roles at Four Seasons, Acqualina Resort & Spa, Mandarin Oriental and The Breakers Palm Beach. Born in Venezuela, she grew up speaking Spanish, as did her Colombian American husband.

When their first child was born in 2010, they both spoke Spanish to him. By age five, “my husband and I couldn’t have a conversation in Spanish without him understanding.” Around then, however, he stopped responding in Spanish.

Silvia thinks the shift began when he learned to read and write at school, where everything was in English. Location also played a part: He had much more exposure to Spanish in South Florida than after the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee.

When her younger son was born in 2016, they took the same approach: speaking and singing in Spanish and even watching Ms. Rachel in Spanish as she became popular. After he was diagnosed with dyslexia at age six, his instructors advised the family to focus on English and avoid speaking Spanish at home. He had previously taken Spanish classes but has had no formal instruction since. [Editor’s note: The recommendation Silvia’s family received was specific to her son’s circumstances. Families with concerns about dyslexia or language development should consult their child’s pediatrician and other qualified specialists for guidance based on their child’s individual needs.]

Four years later, the Spanish is still there. On a family trip to Peru this past summer, he ordered in Spanish and felt proud. Silvia emphasizes that it’s about more than language to herself and her husband; it’s also Hispanic heritage. “I don’t think it was an intentional conversation between us,” she recalled. “It was more us both knowing it was important for our personal identities as Hispanic individuals that our children understood where their parents came from.”

Silvia advises parents to provide consistent exposure, encourage Spanish-speaking relatives to participate and keep speaking Spanish even if children don’t respond, especially during the first five years. “They are little sponges,” she said. “We were almost surprised at how well our 16-year-old is doing in Spanish classes.” And as he starts thinking about college applications, he’s seeing a second language as an advantage.

Both sons also see Spanish as a family “secret language” in Nashville, where about 14 percent of residents are Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2023 U.S. Census. “I’ll say things to them in public like, ‘Hold the door open for this lady coming,’ in Spanish,” Silvia said. 

Culture is key, too: food, movies, travel and traditions. Even small things, like trying arepas or talking about guava, matter. “I really saw them embrace the culture as a whole when we were able to expose them to the whole picture,” she said. “If you focus solely on the language, it probably won’t be as attractive. My kids have learned to celebrate and get excited about traditions, food and culture.”

One Parent, One Language = Four Languages?

Alba Basora is director of global trade sales at Go City, leading international commercial partnerships across EMEA, APAC and Latin America, and serves on the EMEA board of Women in Travel Thrive. Originally from Catalonia, Spain, she lives in London. Her husband’s native language is French, which has always been the main language of their relationship.

From their son’s birth, they used the “one parent, one language” approach: Alba spoke to him in Catalan, while her husband spoke to him in French.

As Alba explained, “I speak Catalan directly to our son, my husband speaks French to him, my husband and I generally speak French to each other, and our son has English all around him at school and in London. He has grown up understanding very naturally that different relationships can have different languages.”

For her, it was important that her son be able to communicate naturally with both sides of his family and feel that both cultures were genuinely his. “For us, languages are very closely connected to identity, family and culture,” she added.

Although Alba’s brain may feel tired at the end of a day spent navigating multiple languages – a work meeting in English, speaking to her son in Catalan and answering her husband in French – she doesn’t see the same fatigue in her son.

“For him there is no ‘switching’ in the way there is for me,” she explained. “These languages have simply always existed in his world. He doesn’t stop to think, ‘Now I need to speak French’ or ‘Now I need Catalan.’” He associates each language with people and situations and moves between them naturally.

Consistency is key. Although her son knows his mother speaks French and his father speaks other languages, “Catalan is ‘Mamá’s language’ and French is ‘Papa’s language.’”

Like the other moms, Alba has seen one language become stronger than another, particularly once children start school, but stresses that the others haven’t disappeared. Her family uses languages as they live: talking, playing, reading stories, traveling and spending time with relatives. “The objective for us has never been perfect vocabulary in four languages at six years old,” she said. “It is for our son to feel comfortable and emotionally connected to all of them.”

Takeaways: Immersion, Consistency and More Than Language

Immersion was one clear takeaway. Whether through a school program like Isabel’s sons, travel or time with Spanish-speaking relatives, all three moms emphasized the value of sustained exposure.

Silvia also sees bilingual programs as a way to reflect children’s mixed backgrounds and normalize a second language, helping counter the shame some children may feel when few people around them speak it.

Those programs are expanding beyond majority-Hispanic communities. A recent Boston news article estimated there are about 3,600 dual-language immersion programs nationwide (including options in Boston, where about 19 percent of residents are Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2022 U.S. Census). Nashville’s new Stellaris International School, which Silvia mentioned in our conversation, is another example.

Consistency mattered just as much. Alba maintained Catalan as “Mamá’s language.” Silvia kept speaking Spanish even if her sons stopped responding in it. Isabel sustained Spanish and Portuguese through school, travel and outside support. Their experiences suggest that when one language becomes dominant, often after children start school, the others may still be there to draw on later.

Most importantly, raising multilingual children has never solely been about vocabulary or fluency for these women. It is a way to connect them to family, identity and culture. As Alba said, the goal wasn’t perfect vocabulary, but for her son to feel “comfortable and emotionally connected” to all his languages.

I’m grateful to these women for sharing their stories and advice as I raise a bilingual child of my own. When I flub the grammar or struggle to conjugate a verb, I’ll remind myself that this is a journey and we’re learning Spanish together. We’ve booked our first trip to Argentina, and I have no doubt that soon enough, that single “más” will begin a sentence he rattles off with ease. Maybe: ¡Mamá, yo quiero más asado, provoleta y dulce de leche, por favor!

Melissa Benhaim is founder of Benhaim Public Relations, representing hotels, destinations and travel brands across the U.S. and Caribbean to secure them media coverage in the outlets that matter to them most. A contributor to hertelier, she wrote Returning to Work, Travel, and Running After Becoming a Mother.