Between maintenance and belonging: negotiating affective tensions in multilingual parenting in Australia

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with eight parents from four families, this study examines the ideological and affective tensions associated with these simultaneous commitments. An interpretivist thematic analysis, informed by family language policy scholarship, explores how parents relate reported language practices to anticipated opportunities and risks. Accounts of home-language routines provide the context for two central concerns, one being possible exclusion from family and community relationships when English is prioritised, and anticipated disadvantage beyond the home when English is perceived as insufficient. These concerns were expressed differently across families. Whereas one family described a division between home-language use and English-speaking childcare, another introduced English reading while continuing to use Arabic at home. Such accounts suggest that accommodating English can express an attempt to fulfil multiple parental responsibilities, rather than necessarily indicating reduced commitment to a home language. We interpret these accounts as exploratory evidence of affective tensions in multilingual parenting, without claiming an inevitable double bind or establishing children’s language outcomes. The study offers a situated account of how anticipated belonging informs reported family language decisions and identifies implications for dialogue between families and early childhood educators.