[Prudence]

I think some parents put their kids in a difficult situation. They want their homes to be an oasis of wherever they came from. They want the comforts of familiar media, familiar foods, familiar values, and familiar culture. The kids have to straddle two worlds, which is inevitable for any first generation American, but isn't easy. And it isn't made any easier by parents who try to keep the home as familiar/old country as possible, rather than try to ease the transition for their kids.

I understand that it's difficult for adults to pick up a language, but they're here. In this country. And presumably no one held guns to the heads and forced them to move here. The governator's comments might have been a bit glib, but I agree with his point.

If you want your kids to succeed academically, in this country, give them the best environment you can. Make sure they listen to English-language media. Not to the exclusion of the parents' language, but English should be a presence in the home as well, not just something the kids hear at school.

If it's more important that your kids grow up like they would have in the country you left - well, perhaps you shouldn't have left. You can't have it both ways. The paradigm is the melting pot of assimilation, not little oil beads of insularity in our national waters.

Compounding this is an attitude that schools are supposed to do it all. Apparently there's no role for parents any more, save banker and chauffeur. Schools are supposed to teach the basics, the extra-curriculars, self-control, "life skill", social mores, cultural values tailored for each individual child according to the whims of the parents -- all carried out by people subject to public opinion as either altruists who don't need to make a decent salary or incompetents who teach because they can't "do."