Why do I feel so guilty that my daughter is not "truly" bilingual?

I have to give credit to Otir of Un jour à la fois for giving me the inspiration for this entry. In her musings about the end of the summer, the beginning of a new school year, and the passing of time in general, she mentions her son, Monsieur Zebu, and notes in passing that "il est temps d'avouer qu'il ne parle pas le français et que c'est entièrement de ma faute" ("it is time to admit that he does not speak French and that it's entirely my fault.") I seemed to detect a hint of a guilty feeling here, and this resonated with me in a big way, because I have been feeling very guilty for the past 17 years or so about the fact that my daughter is not bilingual - which has been known to scandalize some of my relatives, friends, and acquaintances.

For many, it is a given that, if a couple of which one of the two spouses is not a native speaker of English has a child or children, those kids must and should be 100% bilingual - i.e. they should have acquired both of their parents' languages (English and, let's say, French, or Spanish, or Chinese, etc.) simultaneously.

I am no linguist, and no specialist of first and second language acquisition, although I teach French at the university level for a living. My not-so-ex-husband, Rick, is an applied linguist who, very early in his graduate school career, conducted a qualitative study on kids' acquisition of the language other than English spoken by one or both of their parents, as well as on those parents' strategies (or lack thereof) to ensure that their children would grow up bilingual. From what I recall from that study that Rick conducted, raising bilingual kids is much easier said than done - especially when only one of the two parents speaks a foreign language.

In our case, even though Rick speaks close to flawless French (he taught French at the high school level for nine years, and then for about six more years at the college level), we never really spoke French to each other. Our main language of communication has always been English. When our daughter was born, we made the decision that I would speak French to her. I found doing this a bit onerous - I cannot really put my finger on the reason why such was the case but, nevertheless, I stuck to French when addressing Claire until she was about three or four. Actually, probably until she started attending pre-school. I am still not sure why I kind of quit entirely speaking French to her. I just think that it was just too difficult. By the time I quit speaking French to her, though, her language output was mostly in English. Perhaps, one rule that we should have enforced with her was to have her talk to me exclusively in French.

Another issue that did not help with Claire's acquisition of the French language was that I never took her again to France after the disastrous trip that I had taken with her in June 1990 (she was not quite three years old at the time - and by the end of that month, her French production had increased rather tremendously.) I know a handful of Franco-American couples who have successfully raised 100% bilingual kids, but the truth to the matter is that they take their kids to France, where they stay with relatives and friends, and play with cousins or other French kids who are their age, and get to hear and speak French for at least two months out of the year. Those parents also tend to be very consistent with speaking French to their kids and having them speak French at home. For us, taking Claire to France every year was never an option because:
1. We had no money to travel to France every summer.
2. Staying with relatives was absolutely out of the question.

Claire did take French for three years, I believe in the 8th, 9th, and 10th grade. She did well, but did not like her French teacher at all (although he is quite a good teacher, his teaching style is what I would deem "drilly," but all the students whom I have taught who come from his program are exceptionally good.) She decided not to continue with French after the 10th grade (I really can't recall if she took French during her junior year of high school or not), and never took any French at Pitt (two years of high school French satisfies the language requirement at that University, which somewhat surprises me.)

Yet, Claire could probably become extremely proficient in French in very little time. One problem that happened when I took her to France when she was 15 (after her sophomore year of high school) is that, the day after we arrived in northern France, she broke out with the chicken pox, and was so devastated that she pretty much never spoke to anyone but me for the entire duration of our stay (about a week, if I recall.) She might have socialized more with her cousins and other relatives had she been well, but that was not the case. This left her with such a bad memory that she has not been back to France since. She did regret not having gone to France when she travelled throughout Europe in the spring of 2006, because she had met some French students in Ireland, I think, and had had a great conversation (all in French) with them, and had been very surprised that she could conduct an extensive conversation entirely in French with native speakers of French. So, maybe she will return to France some day, and become proficient in the language. In the meantime, although she can get by, she is by no means bilingual.

Should I feel guilty about this? Well, I certainly do. Raising my daughter bilingual is one thing at which I did fail, and I am not at all proud of this.

A little note to all of this: I have seen, in my teaching career, a handful of kids of French expats or of Franco-American couples who were perfectly proficient in spoken French (i.e. they spoke French like natives.) However, they were practically illiterate in French - they could not write the language, could hardly read it, and did not know any of its grammar (well, actually, many of my American students don't know much English grammar...). I find it really fascinating to teach those kids, who cannot be assessed excactly in the same fashion as other students, but can be guided so that their written French becomes decent.