Looking for Baby Sitters: Foreign

Language a Must

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Yashmin Fernandes, right, hired a bilingual nanny, Elena Alarcón, center, to care for her
1-year-old daughter, Calliope Castro.
By JENNY ANDERSON

Published: August 18, 2010

When Maureen Mazumder enrolled her daughter, Sabrina, in a Spanish singalong class a
year ago, she hoped it would be the first step in helping her learn a second language. But
the class did not seem to do the trick, so Ms. Mazumder decided to hire a baby sitter, one
who would not only care for her daughter but also speak to her exclusively in Spanish.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Elas Tarazona was hired to speak in Spanish with Nir Liberboim’s son, William.

“It was a must that she speak Spanish,” said Ms. Mazumder, who said neither she nor her
husband was fluent in the language. “We feel so strongly that our daughter hear another
language.”

Ms. Mazumder, whose daughter is nearly 3, has company. Although a majority of parents
seeking caretakers for their children still seek ones who will speak to their children in
English, popular parenting blogs and Web sites indicate that a noticeable number of New
York City parents are looking for baby sitters and nannies to help their children learn a
second language, one they may not speak themselves.

That has certainly helped Elena Alarcón, a nanny born in Mexico who attended school in
the United States. Ms. Alarcón recently completed 15 interviews with parents living in
Brooklyn, and all of them insisted that if hired, she speak only Spanish with their
children.

“I thought I would have to speak English with the families,” Ms. Alarcón said. “I was
surprised they wanted me to speak only in Spanish.”

Ms. Alarcón now works for Yashmin Fernandes, who became fluent in Spanish living
and working in Latin America. Ms. Fernandes speaks in Spanish with her daughter; her
husband, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, speaks in English. “His family is the Spanish-
speaking side,” Ms. Fernandes said, “but I was more adamant about getting a Spanish-
speaking nanny.”

Parents cite different reasons for hiring baby sitters and nannies to speak a second
language with their children. Some struggled to pick up foreign languages and want to
make life easier for their children. Some believe it makes them smarter. And naturally,
this being the melting pot that is New York, many parents have a connection to another
language and want to reinforce it.
Simona D’Souza, 38, grew up in Kuwait and Canada. Even though her parents spoke
Konkani, the language of Goa, India, to each other, they insisted that their children speak
only English. “They didn’t realize it would be beneficial to us to learn another language,”
Ms. D’Souza said.

Indeed, not long ago, many parents insisted that their foreign-language-speaking nannies
refrain from using their native tongue and speak only English with their children, for fear
that another language might muddle their English-language development.

Ms. D’Souza has taken a different tack with her own three children. Her husband is
German and speaks to the children exclusively in German. Her nanny of five years spoke
only in Spanish with the children. “We would not have hired her if it wasn’t for the
Spanish,” she said. Now, she is contemplating putting the children in a French immersion
program.

“Once you are trilingual,” she said, “your brain can break down new languages that make
it so much easier to learn your fourth, fifth and sixth languages.”

In fact, research shows that learning a second language makes it easier to learn additional
languages.

In recent years, a number of neuroscientists and psychologists have tried to untangle the
impact of bilingualism on brain development. “It doesn’t make kids smarter,” said Ellen
Bialystok, a professor of psychology at York University in Toronto and the author of
“Bilingualism in Development: Language, Literacy and Cognition.”

“There are documented cognitive developments,” she said, “but whatever smarter means,
it isn’t true.”

Ms. Bialystok’s research shows that bilingual children tend to have smaller vocabularies
in English than their monolingual counterparts, and that the limited vocabulary tends to
be words used at home (spatula and squash) rather than words used at school (astronaut,
rectangle). The measurement of vocabulary is always in one language: a bilingual child’s
collective vocabulary from both languages will probably be larger.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 23, 2010

An article on Thursday about parents in New York City who are looking for baby sitters
and nannies to help their children learn a second language gave an incorrect name for a
language of Goa, India, spoken by the parents of Simona D’Souza, a mother whose
nanny speaks only in Spanish to her children. It is Konkani, not Konkanese.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 19, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.