Monday, November 15, 2010

2 months down...

Saturday marked 2 months since we received Jae's referral.  If the wait time does not decrease, that means 2 months down and 6 to go.  Yuck.  But still positive.  Still moving forward.  Still excited to have a happy, healthy son.  Still very excited to have a giant Noah's Ark to play with. 

Lately I have thoughts about how far we go to keep the Korean language in Jae's life.  If Jae doesn't come home until May (which would be 8 months after his referral), he will have absorbed quite a bit of his native language, even at that young age.  Which we think is great!  I would love for Jae to continue to learn the Korean language.  But how much do we push?  Do we find a Korean language school?  Can his parents also join in the class?  Can our buddy, Brian, teach us what he learned from Rosetta Stone?

I really want to bring the Korean culture into the Herzog house.  But big picture, Jae just needs to be a kid.  And I suppose it is like any parent's dream for their kiddo - -a baseball player, a rocket scientist, an actuary...whatever.  But since the Korean language is already a part of him, is it a good idea to continue to push him in that direction?

Not necessarily looking for an answer.  Just sharing my thoughts.

Love,
Jae's Mom

3 comments:

  1. An actuary...really? That cracks me up. Only a finance major would come up with that. -Tara

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  2. After doing a couple of lessons I am not sure Brian will be able to teach Jae. It is one difficult language! But we will try to learn as much as we can to help pass the wait time. Someday I think we will be thankful that we learned even a little bit.

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  3. Yes, a very difficult language. He may be able to say "Umma" for mama. What we learned, which I think is a worthy thought, is that the parents can show an interest in the child's heritage and just integrate it into the child's life with books, food, things you visit, etc. But don't ignore it and just wait for the child to bring it up. He won't, probably. For if you don't value it enough to make some if this part of his (and your) life, he will think it doesn't have value.

    But you may also find that he will just ignore the whole thing. I found my oldest more interested in the various books, etc. than the other two, who were from Korea, were. It is natural for the children of immigrants to this country to step away from that culture, but the next generation to look back to the culture. Your son will be, generationally speaking, like the child of an immigrant, although he won't have your "old-country-ness" to rebel against.

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