Earlier last week I had to write my first post on my new blog – Besos – for Babble as one of their new Voices. As I tried to introduce myself to that new audience, I kept coming back to the label of nonconformist which was given to me by my high school friends when the class superlatives were announced. There I was, right under the title of “Class Nonconformist.”

No, I wasn’t thrilled with it at all, but over the years I’ve learned to embrace that seemingly negative trait and realized just how happy I am to not meet everyone’s expectations of how things “should” be. Check out my Babble Voices article and you’ll get to know my nonconformist self just a bit more.

After that bit of self exploration, and reading the many comments from other women (and men) applauding and coming out as nonconformists themselves, I realized that all of us here are nonconformists just by the fact that we’ve decided to gift our children with a second (or more) language. Wouldn’t you agree?

Why are we nonconformists?

We’re nonconformists because we won’t believe any of the myths thrown our way by those who seem to know better than we do and have never read or researched the plethora of facts surrounding the incredible benefits of the bilingual brain.

We’re nonconformists because we will go out of our way to find the books, music, apps and toys that will enrich our kid’s lives with the sounds of our language of choice.

We’re nonconformists because, if given the choice, we will ignore the ignorants who claim bilingual education fails the system and we will do everything we can to enroll our child in a dual-language immersion program.

We’re nonconformists because we don’t care if others think it’s rude we’re not speaking to our kids in English when out in public. We are focused on our kid’s language learning and immersion process and not the other’s insecurities.

We’re nonconformists because we won’t let society dictate that one language is all we need; we know bilingual is better.

I’d love to hear from you on this one. Do you feel you’re a nonconformist? Why or why not? Let’s start this conversation and continue leading this #BilingualKids movement together.