My children have two nationalities - luckily both of them are EU nationalities. However, since we live in the home country of my wife, my children have little to nothing in terms of contact with their second nationality of my home country. Both passports for them are largely interchangeable in terms of power and freedom of travel. My children also will never need to decide whether to give up either nationality, making it easier for them to just have a “passive nationality” in the back pocket.
Do your children also have more than one nationality? How does this impact your and their life? How do you manage to retain ties with both countries - if at all? I’d love to hear different perspectives on this topic.
I’m a bit late for this post and early in the parenting world, but here is out experience until now.
We are a mixed EU family with a 2 year old kid, we each speak our native language with the kid and English with each other. It’s a interesting setup, but it works for now.
The child has dual citizenship and we try to visit the other half of the family as much as possible, as well as speak to them via WhatsApp.
He’s to small to understand things like culture and customs, but my wife and I are pretty passionate about these things so I think in time he will catch on to it. We also have tons of books in both languages, so we’re reading him the stories that both parents grew up with.
We can’t control to what nation he will feel closest, but we can show him his roots, family and national history.
If I may ask: which two languages do you speak alongside English? Does your child understand (and perhaps already speak) all three?
I’m sorry for not giving the exact languages, but one of them is Latin based and the second one is Slavic. He knows the name of things, animals and what sounds they make in both languages, funny enough he even translates for us. He is also starting to get concepts like “soon” or “later” in both languages.
English is tricky because when my wife and I talk it’s generally about abstract concepts like how our day went, what we should cook, gossip and what no. So he can’t really associate the words with something that he can see or touch.