Mother Tongue Tied

Edifying and enlivening, Mother Tongue Tied uncovers life in multiple languages, from one's own multilingual identity to the emotional toll of raising multilingual children. Well researched and easily digestible, Gudowska asks- at what cost does a mother save a language?Kate Baer, New York Times bestselling author of And Yet and What Kind of Woman

Mother Tongue Tied brilliantly illustrates how multilingual mothers are disproportionately tasked with preserving linguistic heritage on one hand and preparing children for public society on the other - all while finding a language for their own new maternal identity. A thought-provoking, political and empathetic bookEliane Glaser, author of Motherhood: A Manifesto

Gudowska writes with eloquence and tenderness from within the daily, sometimes heroic, often disheveled realities of multilingual mothering. Moving between intimate accounts and lucid criticism, she illuminates how multilingualism has been variously valorized, demonized, and romanticized by the dominant ideologies of society, and how the work of meeting linguistic ideals has consistently been borne by individual families, particularly mothers, rather than by the society that wields such conflicting expectations.Julie Sedivy, author of Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self

Raising kids bilingually is hard and often gendered labour, and Malwina Gudowska has written the collection of research and story that she wishes had been by her side the whole time. Mothers with similar struggles will find validation and reassurance hereGretchen McCulloch, New York Times bestselling author of Because Internet