(Women) Talking & (Maternal) Guilt

Upcoming talk & thoughts on what it means to feel guilty in motherhood & language

A quick save-the-date(s) announcement. I will be speaking about all things multilingualism, motherhood, and language next week, Thursday, March 27th at 10 a.m. (GMT - London time) with Ute from the wonderful Multilingual Families organisation. You can watch live on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube. If you can’t make that time, the video will live on after our recording on these platforms. And if you have any questions about raising multilingual children, multilingualism, really anything at all about language, you can ask during the interview in any of the chats, or feel free to post in the comments here.

In April, I will be presenting at LingComm, the National Conference on Linguistics Communication, and in May, in my Canadian home city Saskatoon at the Bilingualism and Multilingualism conference, and possibly one more London May event (TBC). Please come say hi virtually or in person!

As always, thank you for all your support. Now scroll past my floating head for a note about that sneaky thing we like to call, maternal guilt.

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Table for one. A pic of my fruit pierogi in Krakow, where I am on a short solo trip. Think of the symbolism of a mother on a solo trip and maternal guilt and the image makes sense. It is also just pretty.

Fittingly as I write this, preparing for the aforementioned live interview has coincided with a busy couple of weeks, or simply, the “daily business of living” as I read recently and will now forever use. Life is always busy of course, but it was “extra” busy with my daughter’s birthday, some other work commitments, and planning a last-minute, 48-hour trip to Poland to celebrate a family member. (Un)Naturally, I let some of these plans get the better of me with an (un)healthy dose of anxiety and guilt. My uncle recently told me I may have inherited the family “worry gene”. I am not sure if that’s true, but maybe I should take some comfort in knowing I come from a long line of worriers. And because I love a challenge, and am sometimes overly ambitious, I should work on breaking the generational cycle of worrying. (I am also unfortunately easily disappointed so maybe not the best task to take on.)

Guilt on the other hand is a funny emotion. It is easier, although not always possible, to pinpoint the source of anxiety. But it is trickier, at least for me, to identify the borders and boundaries of guilt, especially in a temporal context. Do I feel guilty about something in the past, or am I feeling guilty about something that may happen in the future (because of something in the past)? Can you feel guilty for something that has yet, or may never happen, but you work yourself up so much that anxiety turns to guilt? All hypothetical questions, of course.

Not that I truly ever forget it in my work or personal life raising multilingual children, but I was reminded this week about guilt in the context of language after reading a case study on Lithuanian migrant mothers and maternal guilt. Two of the study’s authors were recently interviewed by Ute for the same Let’s Talk series I will be doing. In that regard, there is something poignant about having back-to-back guests discussing motherhood, migration and multilingualism, especially when highlighting the labour mothers perform when raising multilingual children. Hallelujah! And yes, the guilt that so often comes along with this endeavour.

The study on Lithuanian migrant mothers examined how “dominant Lithuanian cultural motherhood norms, or motherhood construct, add to maternal guilt in cases of perceived failure to pass on Lithuanian as the heritage language.” The mothers interviewed were “determined” to pass on Lithuanian to their children and yet when they came up against many forces out of their control, and ones that are ubiquitous when raising multilingual children in a heritage language, they blamed themselves and felt they had failed.

Although the article explores Lithuanian identity and history specifically, as the authors also note in the interview, this is a narrative that is common among most mothers raising multilingual children in a society that has a different majority/societal language from the heritage/home language. There is one part in the article I want to highlight as I am particularly interested in the idea of a language being embodied in a maternal body and all the rich metaphors and symbolism that go along with this¹. One participant in the study “conflates her cultural background with her maternal body, which, in her view, is impregnated with Lithuanian identity and language…” Another mother expresses that Lithuanian is “imprinted on her body”.

As the title suggests, “guilt” is noted over 50 times: “maternal guilt” but also, “excruciating guilt”, “prolonged guilt”, “overwhelming guilt”, “guilt, a lot of guilt”. So, what do we do with all this guilt? Perhaps that is a topic for another newsletter as I am not sure I could do it justice right now in this space. I will share however that I am currently finishing this newsletter in a hotel, alone having breakfast. I am speaking only Polish while my children are a flight away with their father, using only English. I was thinking about my maternal body in the very large bed (or so it seems when you are alone) last night and how it was (again?) only my body for 48 hours.

I have not unpacked all of those feelings and truthfully, I don’t need or want to necessarily. I miss my children a lot because that is just me², but I do not feel guilt. I just am here for the moment until the next worry comes along! I think that is all I wish for the mothers who feel like failures. Yes, I want them to know about all the influences beyond their control, and how receptive bilingualism³ is still bilingualism but I don’t think we always need to hear, “you are enough”. My hope is the guilt will come and go, bouncing off the maternal body until perhaps it loses (some of) its hold on all of us and we are left standing, but still complete. I do think however it is important to keep talking about it all, always.

Thank you for reading.

1. I am working on something for the newsletter exploring language and the body. I still need to figure out exactly what it will be but I am excited to share soon.

2. To be clear, I don’t think we need to miss our children when we are away from them, and I certainly don’t think we need to say we miss them when we don’t either.

3. Receptive bilingualism refers to when someone understands a language but is not necessarily an active user in it. It is very common and it is still bilingualism.