"All About That Bass," and my Bilingual Home

After my girls and I got into the car while coming out of Target last Saturday while shopping for Emily's birthday presents, the radio was barely audible. At the first stop light, though, my 7-year old excitedly yelled to the front seat, "Turn it up! I like this song! Turn it up!" I learned many years ago that on most days I've given up the right to the driving music, so I acquiesced and gave her some volume. I didn't recognize the song until inundated with the chorus:

"I'm all about that bass, 'bout that bass. I'm all about that bass. . ."

While no avowed expert on pop culture, I can at least comprehend that the premise of the song is a celebration of the singer's backside and her ability to shake it. Apparently the singer has "all the right junk in all the right places."

So that was my rather instructional Saturday morning.

I'm fairly certain that my daughter's eternal soul isn't in jeopardy because she's heard this song or finds it catchy. If it is, I'm in trouble; I myself couldn't get the cursed chorus out of my head all afternoon. But it did get me thinking: how? It's not like we've put up some kind of brick wall around our kid and the rest of the culture, banning all hints of secular society from her. But this music? In our house, we play Johnny Cash, CCR, hymns, and classic 90's hits from back when music was really music. How did these lyrics become a part of her lexicon?

Later that afternoon while doing yard work, which is the absolute clearest time to think about anything of this nature, I was reminded of our friends that we stayed with in Austin, Texas over Spring Break. Both husband and wife are bilingual, speaking both Spanish and English. She grew up in Costa Rica; he in central Iowa. Before they had kids, I was intrigued to listen to them switch back and forth when in conversation with each other, depending on the central topic of said conversation and any audience with whom they shared the conversation. Now, however, they have two kids - one almost four and the other closing in on his first birthday. They now speak only Spanish in the home.

Obviously I asked why when we were there. I was exceedingly jealous that they were able to raise their kids bilingually and begin their language education at such an early age. But why just Spanish at home? "They get English everywhere else," my friend told me. "Everywhere they go in the city - school, church, stores - they hear English." So the home became their best chance at consistent Spanish dialogue.

Their oldest is smart enough to switch back and forth depending on audience. All conversation with his parents was in Spanish; with me and my family, he spoke English. Once I exhausted the 15-20 Spanish words I know, I let him teach me some. But he recognized a poser when he saw one. Fortunately, he refrained from giving me condescending looks when he had to switch to English. I found it all fascinating.

This experience came to mind on Saturday. We have a "language of the home" as well, and it's not "All About That Bass." We have other values that we hope run counter to pop culture, other ways of speaking our worldview and priorities. I hope our home sounds profoundly different than many corners of society. But I realize now that it has to. I've got to make sure to speak full-time "Dykstra Family Dialect" and all that it entails in the home, not switching back and forth into "world-speak" or dwarfing into some weird hybrid. They get the world's language and priorities everywhere else. If I want them to know our language, I've got to be purposeful about using that language at all times during our hours together.

My friend admitted to me that he worries about the day down the road when his son comes to talk to him and the conversation requires English due to vocabulary or nuances of situation. English, he admitted, will most likely become his sons' dominant language over time.

Now I understand that very real fear. I want my girls to be in the world and effective in it. Effective at communicating, effective at service and sympathy, effective at navigating adventures and obstacles. But I don't want them to become of the world. I don't want that to become their dominant language. And that fear highlights all the more my responsibilities at home. Without purposeful effort, they could lose their native language.

And whether that entails UNO trash talk or a Biblical worldview, I want them armed with the language of their homeland.