What could have been..

After looking at culture and how receptive someone can be to culture I asked myself the question... I wonder at what point in someones life do they pick up the most culture? Thinking, I realized when you are young and start to learn about the culture around you that is when it will shape you the most. It made me think of a funny story that my parents used to tell me when I got older. Although I grew up in a traditional english speaking home, both of my parents worked and I had a babysitter that was traditionally Spanish. When I was younger I spent a lot of time with my babysitter, so naturally I began speaking Spanish. My mother noticed this quickly and wanted to put a stop to it as fast as she could because she didn't want me having Spanish as my primary language. She nicely asked my babysitter to stop speaking Spanish around me, that way I could learn English. My babysitter thought it was cool and important that I had the ability to learn Spanish and English at such a young age and continued to speak Spanish to me a little. I would go to parks with other babysitters that were hispanic, who's children were primarily speaking Spanish. I could respond in full sentences in Spanish but struggled with English. My parents would come home late, so I'd only have a little bit of actual English influence in my life. Later, after my mother and father both noticed more Spanish in my life my babysitter unfortunately got fired. But, looking back on it I can see why my parents were so concerned about me being so immersed in a Spanish culture. I had to learn my own culture before learning another.