Big decisions, a.k.a. grosse Entscheidungen

One of the biggest decisions that we've been thinking about is about what languages we'll speak at home and, alongside, which cultural traditions we want to build into our nascent family. Holidays are rather prone to invoking such reflections, since splitting Christmas between my parents and in-laws makes it clear that there are very different ways of celebrating even the same holiday. This is really just an extension of "what kind of family culture do we want to foster", but it's a more outward manifestation that is also more prone to generating disagreements (i.e. "what do you mean you want to deny your children the magic of Santa Claus?").

In the end, I decided that I do want to make a legitimate concerted effort to raise this child and future children bilingual. Although I love Spanish and it is a much more practical language to learn, I'd like to keep up with German as a way to connect this child to my cultural heritage... and to pass on my favorite books and stories and songs from when I was little. While I do get that the one-parent-one-language system does tend to be a little bit obnoxious in the vein of "our secret, pretentious, special language", I think is an especially important bond in the absence of a biological relatedness to that culture. This will also be helpful in furthering communication/bonding with grandparents on my side, and also if we ever do a postdoc in Germany. Additional resources available to us include the Kinderstube and even a German-Immersion preschool/kindergarten though it's doubtful we'll be in Seattle long enough to take advantage of the latter). (There's also a Saturday school/summer camp and daycare.)

And, eventually, it may make it easier for our child to additionally learn el Castellano, which remains my favorite language. :)

Decision having been made, I'm getting ready now with the very important lullaby selections in time for our baby's ear development in utero. I think my favorite might be Schlafe, mein Prinzchen because it's a catchy melody that I don't think I'd mind singing many times a day, and it also features secular, non-creepy lyrics (bonus!). In the event that the baby is not a boy, I can totally change the lyrics to, Schlafe, Prinzessin.



There are some other good ones, too. Schlaf, Kindchen, schlaf is very popular, but it has the same melody as Maikaefer, flieg which was horror-inducing for me (lyrics include, roughly translated, "father is at war, mother is in Pommerland, Pommerland has burned down"). Even though the lullaby version has different, kinder and gentler lyrics, I'm not sure I can get over that.

Stephanie has yet to be convinced that having perfect pitch is not a requirement for singing a lullaby, which is too bad, because she had a really sweet, western-style one passed down in her family (I think the title is My Little Buckaroo).