Inter-married families: hybridising teaching-for-two languages and parenting in regional Australia

Abstract

Children learn language through engaging in a rich language environment. However, some parents make a decision to rear their children bilingually/plurilingually, in a context where the community around them does not use the home language (HL). For some families only one of the parents speaks HL, thus they are in a position of combining their parenting role with an additional one of language teaching. Such role combinations involve emotionally demanding work, which takes place invisibly in the home. Parents develop a hybrid role combining elements of teaching with the relationship and care work expected of them as parents, moving between roles as context requires. In this paper we explore four in-depth case studies of families where one parent is the speaker of a HL different from that spoken by the other parent and the community. We explore their perceptions of the impact of hybridising teaching and parenting roles. The HL speaking parents talked of the cost of their multiple roles, and the challenges of being the HL speaker in terms of stress and tiredness. Their inability, in their eyes, to fulfil both roles (teacher and parent) perfectly led to their feelings of inadequacy and failure which can then impact on their parenting and family life.