Be a Local Friend to a Foreign Mom

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I sat down behind the steering wheel of our car and pulled out the stapled sheets of paper my son’s teacher had just handed me. All the other moms probably skimmed over the sheets in a matter of minutes and were caught up-to-speed on school news. Not me, though.

“What did you learn in school today,” I habitually asked my son, this time pulling my phone out and opening the Google translate app.

“We’re learning cursive letters,” he responded.

I rolled my eyes. That seemed a bit advanced for a group of kids still learning how to grip a pencil. Nevertheless, I didn’t dwell on my list of disagreements about the school’s curriculum – that wasn’t why I enrolled my son in the local school anyway. “Friendships and language,” I repeated to myself in my head. Those were the two things I hoped he would gain from attending a local school.

The first sheet of information in the packet informed me of the testing schedule for the end of the school year. That much was easy enough to understand.

Then, I turned to the next page.

At first glance, I could understand the words for “rehearsal” and “report cards.” There was a total of six bolded topics. Under each topic was 3-4 sentences of information – where to meet for the rehearsal for the end-of-the-year program, what the students were supposed to wear, how to retrieve their report cards, dates for parent-teacher conferences, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately for me, it was all typed out in my second language.

“Why are we just sitting here,” my son asked.

I knew I wasn’t going to read through these three pages anytime soon. It would take at least thirty minutes of my time to sit and translate all of it. Then again, I also had three small children at home, so make that two hours of my time. I could always ask my husband – but then how would I ever reach the level of language he’s achieved?

“We’ll head home now,” I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Mommy just needed to look at the papers your teacher gave me.”

“What do the papers say?” It was a reasonable question for him to ask. No harm, no foul. Except I felt frustration and embarrassment bubble to the surface.

Well son, I have no idea, I played the rest of the conversation out in my head. Your adult mother can’t read more than three words at a time without looking up a brand new (to me) word and there are three pages of these new (to me) words…so you do the math!

Instead I responded appropriately. “It’s just some stuff about the end of the school year.”

Driving home, my thoughts took me back to the States a couple years prior. My mind dropped me off at a conversation I had with a young, Asian mother. She was a student in my ESL class on Wednesday evenings.

“Could you help me write a note to my daughter’s teacher,” she asked, almost a little embarrassed.

“Sure, no problem.” I reached out and grabbed her pen and paper. On the paper, I saw scribbled out portions where she had tried to compose the note herself.

All she needed to say was that she would be picking her daughter up for a doctor’s appointment and she would not need to ride the bus that day. I handed the pen and paper back to her with the simple note written on it.

“Thank you so much,” she squeezed my arm.

I certainly didn’t feel like I had done enough to deserve all of her gratitude. At the time, I couldn’t have possibly understood the predicament she was in that evening.

But now I do.

Now I know she had the same level of responsibility as all the other parents of students in her child’s school, but she had half the level of language proficiency.

I know it probably took her three times as long to read and comprehend the dozens of papers sent home by her child’s teacher.

Now I know she might have misunderstood a school announcement, thereby causing her child to miss a deadline. Or maybe she made her child wake up early two mornings in a row for school, only to find out there was no school on those days. Did she miss the announcement or misunderstand? She probably berated herself when it turned out to be the latter.

I know because “she” is really me.

I honestly don’t know what else that mom experienced as a second-language learner, navigating a new culture with a child dependent on her to know what to do and not to do. But based on her deep gratitude for me composing a basic note to her child’s teacher – I’d be willing to bet our experiences weren’t much different from one another.

I speak as a mom who often falls under the category of “foreigner.” Having a local mom befriend me and help me with some of the most basic of tasks (while also reassuring me that I’m not burdening her with my requests), is a true blessing. If I could, I would create an exchange program of sorts — one that ensured all foreign moms were given a local mom friend to help them navigate the choppy waters of a new country, new language, and new culture.

Sadly, I’ve not created such a program. Instead, I’ll leave you with this simple request:

Go be that mom friend.

Chances are there’s a mom sitting in her car right this minute trying to decipher a letter from her child’s school. She’s probably using Google Translate, but what she really needs is a friend like you.

 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Awww yes absolutely, so glad you wrote this. Growing up with a Spanish only speaking parent I was often the translator and although I loved it, it would have been such a blessing for my parents to have that community.

    Great piece

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