Many parents, nowadays, refrain from using their native language to communicate with their children. Even for daily conversations within the household using a non-native language has become the trend. But, from my end, I can proudly tell that my husband has always insisted that we speak with our daughter in our native language. To him, no other language matches the beauty of the mother tongue. I hate to admit that I was initially annoyed with his ways, as I believed that there was no harm in exposing your child to other languages from a young age. But, on later thought I realized that he was right indeed. My mother tongue was the medium of communication in the household where I grew up, even though I was sent to study in a convent. I had by and large conversed in my mother tongue with my parents and friends. It is indeed a joy to hear your little one speak at length in his/her mother tongue.  Consider this: If each of us are not going to be proud of our native language who else is going to be? We must never teach our child to look down upon our own language and tradition as by doing so we are sending across a wrong message to our kids and indirectly taking away their inherent nativity. There are households which take pride in constantly communicating and reminding their kids to speak in a non-native language mainly fearing social acceptability. But is this what we all strive for our child in the end; social acceptability should come from how the child behaves and expresses himself irrespective of the language spoken. There are people who lecture that we should not forget our roots but turn back and insist that their child speak in a foreign language. I have even heard of teachers in certain schools complain to mothers that their child, who is only in pre-school, is unable to speak in medium followed at school. So the pressure in fact begins from there.

In addition, the competitive environment is forcing parents to change their medium of communication at home. But what they are forgetting is that young children will by themselves be able to learn and speak in the instructed language through regular communications with the teacher. Each child will take its time to learn a new language. Teachers should take the responsibility of making the child understand, learn and talk in the medium followed at school and not complain about the child’s inability to the parent. The medium of instruction followed at school need not be followed at home. Parents also fear that children will not be able to be part of the social circle if they converse in their native tongue. But such fears are unnecessary as when the child grows he/she is going to choose to converse in the language which they are most comfortable. Children should be taught from a young age that there is nothing embarrassing about speaking in their mother tongue within a group. We must never forget that children studying in schools where native languages are the medium of communication also do fare well and achieve greater heights in their career. Every language spoken in India has its own history and its own unique literature which would itself take several years to master. Our mother tongue was the language of our forefathers and we ought to revere and preserve it for our future generations. We must give our children the chance to experience its richness.