Similar to the majority of parents, towards the end of my second pregnancy I worried about how Klara would deal with the arrival of her baby brother. We did our best to prepare her for the upcoming change and she seemed genuinely excited about becoming a big sister.There was one occasion however that signalled something different. She woke up from her nap and as soon as I entered her room she uttered: ‘Mama, našla sam te!’ (‘Mama, I found you’). When probed for explanation, she said she had dreamed that I got lost. She had been looking for me everywhere but couldn’t find me. Once fully awake, she looked so relieved I was not missing any longer. I am far from a psychologist, but I understood this dream as Klara’s subconscious fear of ‘losing’ me and my attention to her younger sibling.
New bilingual challenge
As a mum who strives to raise bilingual children, I faced another challenge: how to give the younger child the equivalent conditions for acquiring Serbian as those that the older child had. I read about and heard experiences that claimed that the less dominant language (Serbian in our case) in the family becomes even less dominant when the second child arrives. The reason for this is that the older child has a natural tendency to speak to the sibling in the more dominant language (English), which decreases younger sibling’s exposure to the less dominant one.
Short-term solution
While preparing for the birth, I tried to find some sort of a short-term solution to both of these challenges.
My mum was about to join us a few weeks before my due date to help us with the arrival of the new baby and with Klara. I also saw my mum’s arrival as a huge help with Klara’s Serbian. My due date was about four months after we finished our last holiday in Serbia. Naturally, at that point, Klara’s English was starting to get stronger than her Serbian.
When my mum arrived, nurseries were shut for Christmas. Klara and my mum spent a lot of time together, mainly playing. Two days into the play, Klara even stated she didn’t intend to nap any longer and she took this intention seriously. I remember being so happy watching the two of them bond (a feeling that may be familiar to those who raise children away from their families). I thought this ‘honeymoon’ period of their relationship would last forever, but I was wrong. It lasted until Oliver was born.
Tables turned
Klara seemed pleased with Oliver’s arrival. Never has she expressed any negativity towards him, not even to date. However, I was the first target of her reaction to the change – she started ignoring me, especially while breastfeeding. Then she started ignoring my mum. It was as if she figured that my mum was there to distract her from the big change that has just happened and that she was missing out. After I gave birth to Oliver, I do not think Klara played with my mum again. Instead, she fully focused on her dad, when he was not at work.
Then my mum returned to Belgrade and my husband started his extended paternity leave. He was generally around home with us, so I didn’t have opportunity to have one on one time with Klara as before. She continued ignoring me and her focus became fixed on her father, which I didn’t take so well. I was hormonal, under slept, jealous and in panic about the future of Serbian in our house.
The feeling of discomfort
Firstly, I was unhappy because Klara herself mainly spoke in English; secondly, she mainly addressed Oliver in English. She addressed Oliver in Serbian when they were alone with me, but these situations were rare. With the latter, my worry was that she would create a habit or learn to speak to him in English only, whereas I would have liked her to create a genuine habit of interacting with him in Serbian too.
And again, short term fixes
My hormonal efforts to help Serbian resulted in coming up with two tactics: When Klara spoke to Oliver in English, I would say what she said to him but in Serbian. The idea here was to model the behaviour I effectively wanted to see, with the hope she would adopt it and start applying it herself. Second tactic was simply to create that one-on-one time we seemingly lost. I started taking her to ballet lessons and these did a great deal for our bonding in Serbian.
Taking a step back
Now, five months into having two children, I reflect on these early days and I remember feeling very uncomfortable. I was focusing on the things I didn’t like so much, turning a blind eye on the things that were good and I should have congratulated her for.
Even though she used English more than she did Serbian, Klara was still communicating in Serbian with me and with no exceptions. I observed that in the moments when she couldn’t remember a Serbian word for something, she didn’t use English words as a rescue. She tried to describe the missing word in Serbian instead. I’ll give you an example. Once she wanted to tell me that When it gets dark, she can turn on the lights on her scooter. However, she couldn’t come up with the Serbian phrase when it gets dark (kada padne mrak), but said ‘onda kada idemo da spavamo’ (‘when we go to sleep’) instead. In hindsight, this was a proud moment where I could see how disciplined and creative she is with her languages. Even though I didn’t appreciate it at the time, this is the moment I will cherish and tell her about when she gets older.
We are OK (for now!)
Since we have grown out of Oliver’s new-born phase, it seems that we are all now a little bit less sensitive. Oliver is the first person Klara wants to see when she wakes up in the morning and she is more used to my divided attention. She compensates it with her dad’s attention as well as my mum’s and her uncle and aunt’s. We are now in Belgrade for an extended period of time. As you can imagine, this is making me super happy and more at ease. Belgrade is the only place where I could imagine spending my maternity leave: surrounded by family, friends, love and the language.
This is not to say that we don’t have stressful periods, cries for attention or worry on how we (and our languages) will cope once we return to London. Quite the opposite. But for the moment, I am trying to enjoy life as it is and be grateful for the opportunity to be based back home even for the limited amount of time.