My six-year-old is also happy that school is beginning and he has even decided that this year, he doesn't mind if I talk to his friends "a little bit". You see, last year, my faulty Spanish and nonexistent Catalan were deemed to be too shameful for public exposure. This year, I can talk but only if I don't "talk too loud" because then, according to Nico, all the other kids are going to look at me and think "Whoa, who's that weird Mommy with all those freckles?" I have pointed out to him that there are other mothers at his school who have freckles, as well as other mothers who are haphazard in their use of the subjunctive and who can't reliably say words such as inmediatemente without stuttering. It doesn't matter though. As far as he is concerned, the only weirdo he has to worry about is me and therefore, I'd better keep a low profile.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if instead of a local public school, Nico went to an international school where all the other parents spoke English. I know many parents who choose to send their children to international schools and I can certainly see that there are benefits, presumably one of them being that your kids wouldn't want to duck into the nearest alleyway whenever you opened your mouth. Of course there are other advantages to international schools as well. Families with older children may feel that it would be too stressful for their children to try and pick up a new language. Others may only be here for a few years and want their children to continue with the national curriculum of their home country. Still others may feel strongly about staying involved in their child's education (something that can be tough to do when you need to use Google Translate just to figure out what "Tomorrow we will go swimming" means when it is written in Catalan in a note your child brings home from his teacher).
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