Continuous little efforts

Of all the reasons I thought I might fail on my journey I knew that the only way to truly fail is to give up. What I did not foresee is the constellation of events that would bring me to this point.

It all started before my children were born, when I myself a child left Russia (part of Soviet Union then) at the tender age of 10. My youngest is now 10, and I can appreciate how pure the world is for an average child. I loved my home, I loved my country, I loved my culture with absolutely no reservations. In school I read stories of Russian heroes of challenges overcome and achievements of my people. I still remember how much “research” I did to find the traditional Latvian dress for the Friendship of the Peoples pageant our class put together.

The thing about children, is that they grow up, and learn the nuance in the history that they are taught, in the nation that they are raised. They see that there is discrimination, despite “friendship of the people”, that the government does the wrong thing as much as the right thing. They see the bigger world and realize that maybe their world order is not the best and purest. Which is how we get the grounds, cynical adults that we all are. That’s how my parents are.

But I seemed to have been frozen in that moment. I never got the bad Russian experiences. I never learned Russian history in school, and so my parents never got the opportunity to point out that 20 million dead in a war is not an accomplishment but rather a symptom of the way the country treats its people. In fact they only focused on the good parts of Russian culture, never the bad. As a consequence, as the last 30 years passed, I had a hope in a bright Russian future and thought the best of its people.

All that to say, that when reality confronted me on February 24th, 2022, it felt like my entire world collapsed. My dreams died, my hopes died, and I watched in tears as Russian soldiers streamed across the border and the president publicly denied the existence of a county that has been on every map printed for the last 30 years.

And the inevitable question arose of whether that is the legacy I want to leave my children. They are growing up with the same rose colored attitude towards Russia that I had. I’m giving them an identity that for the foreseeable future will do nothing but disappoint and cause them grief.

And so I can’t bring myself to care if my kids learn Russian. In fact I wonder if they’re better off without it. They can be Americans where cultural heritage is mostly food.

I don’t force them to speak Russian anymore. I don’t seek out any Russian exposure, especially since the tutor we hired was in Russia and books and audio books we may buy contribute to the economy of a country that is using that money to wage war.

And this is where it gets interesting. The process is too far gone. None of us have the capacity or the will power to change the language we speak. I still speak Russian to them because it feels too weird not to, and they still use it, albeit mixed with English, because it’s a force of habit. And my oldest uses it with her Russian classmate as a secret language, while my younger one still listens to Russian audio books as she falls asleep.

So here we are, Russian against our will. We even fail at failing.

On the bright side, their Spanish is coming along wonderfully, and my oldest not only chooses to watch Spanish shows on TV, she yells at the youngest for putting English subtitles on because “they’re distracting.” And the little one has decided to learn Latin. Not sure why, but god bless DuoLingo in helping her with that endeavor. She even points out words now that she recognizes in English because it has a Latin root.