29/07/2026
My kids correct my English every single day.
It’s “th” not “d,” Mama. That’s not how you say it. And my personal favorite, delivered with the full confidence of a seven year old: “you have an accent.” Yes. Yes I do.
And listen, there was a version of me that could have felt small about it. But somewhere along the way it flipped, because my accent isn’t a mistake I keep making. It’s a whole map. It’s Argentina. It’s Spain. It’s every year I spent learning this language on purpose, as an adult, one awkward conversation at a time. We are humans with so many layers, and this is one of mine. It tells you exactly where I came from before I ever say a word about it.
I think that’s why the expat families I photograph feel like home to me. Because you get it. You’re raising little people who switch languages mid sentence, who belong to two or three places at once, who are building an accent of their own that I hope they never lose. That in between is not confusing. It’s rich. It’s the whole story.
The only thing I’d change? I wish I were as funny in English as I am in Spanish. There’s a whole comedian in me stuck at customs, waiting on the vocabulary. Some jokes just don’t clear the border.
So if you’ve ever felt like your accent gives you away, good. Let it. It just means you’ve lived in more than one place, and that’s a beautiful thing to hand your kids.
