Some people say everything we do is in the intention. Others say intention has nothing to do with it. What really counts is the outcome. I fall somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps that’s my problem when it comes to teaching my children a second language.

When I was 11, my family emigrated from Lithuania. I spoke Russian and Lithuanian, but not English. None. Yet within three to six months, I was fluent.

I was resolute not to have an accent. Everyone in my family did. I was embarrassed of the whole accent thing. People just assumed they had free reign on any type of question they wanted to ask.

Where are you from? Where is that? How long have you been here? Who came with you?

I didn’t want to dole out my whole life story in a two-sentence paragraph in front of others and with people I hardly knew. So I worked hard not to have an accent.

I succeeded. People had no idea I wasn’t born in the United States. Today, when people meet me, they are shocked to find out that I am a foreigner, as my husband likes to joke.

Three years ago, I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl. My family had a picnic for us and gave me advice on how to rear her. They insisted I teach her Russian.

“You must teacher her our ways.”

They sounded like a scene out of Fiddler on the Roof.

“If you do not teacher her, she will not understand when we speak. She will feel left out.”

I agreed. But as time passed, I didn’t speak to her in Lithuanian or Russian. When I tried, it felt awkward. I speak English and think in English.

My husband is American, making the whole pious thought of I’m-going-to-teach-my-child-how-to-read-and-speak-three-languages-by-age-3 even more ridiculous.

Not surprisingly, when my daughter started talking, she didn’t respond to anything that wasn’t English. I was banking on the whole when-she-starts-speaking-I-will-teach-her-Lithuanian thing to save me from the bad-foreign-mother-who-didn’t-teach-her-child-a-second-language syndrome.

I decided a trip to Lithuania would help. We took the trip and came back exhausted. Nothing changed.

A year later, I had another baby girl. I continued to speak to my children mostly in English. As they got older, it was even harder to try anything new.

Now my daughters are almost 4 years and 17 months. They understand about 20 words of Lithuanian and no Russian. Some days I wonder if I made a mistake. Should I have spoken my native language with them all the time? Should I re-start my effort and try to add the languages in?

I wonder if it is too late, if I will regret not making time for my native languages.

Then I wonder if speaking those particular languages would change anything in their lives. Lithuanian is not as practical as Spanish.

My friend’s story makes me feel better. She was determined to teach her daughter Russian. She spoke to her in Russian. She read to her in Russian.

Yet her daughter didn’t want to speak the language and did not pick it up as naturally as my friend had hoped.

When her daughter was 10, my friend sent her to Russia to visit her parents. Her daughter returned fluent in Russian and happy to speak the language with her mother.

The story reminded me that children can learn another language quickly when they are motivated.

I did!

Now, I don’t worry about it as much as I used to. I teach my older daughter words now and then, and she picks up a word here and there when she hears my mom and I speaking. She knows I was not born in this country. As she gets older, I will teach her as much as she wants to learn.

I don’t know the outcome of how my cultural identity will play out in our lives, especially my daughters’ lives.
I do know that passing on my native language has not been the natural, easy process I expected it to be. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, because

immigration in general is not a natural, easy process.

Still, my immigration journey has played an enormous role in who I am.

I still want my children to speak Lithuanian and maybe even Russian. But I’m not in a rush to teach them. I learned English when I needed to, when fitting in was so important I didn’t want even a trace of my Lithuanian accent to give my background away.

My children will learn if and when it matters to them.

Sonata Woodard is a Decatur mom who likes to write, read and hopes to someday be a really good cook.