I know some people who immigrated around age 10 and had very little of the accent of their first language, and others who immigrated around age 6 and had a very strong accent.

My fave is the guy in the Bender costume holding a sign saying "Kill All Humans".

And "All Glory to the Hypno-Toad!"

I'm a little disappointed there weren't any Klingons, though.

Timelies all!

Gotta pack for Confluence tonight. Not that that's terribly hard. (It's just a matter of deciding which t-shirts to bring, and which earrings to go with them. Toss in some jeans, socks and underwear, and voila!)

Much variance. I know a woman of Indian ethnic background (sorry don't know which subgroup) who lived in Africa until she was six, London from 6-13, and U.S. from 13 forward. She spoke Swahili as a girl, but did not retain a word by the time I met her in her 20s. She has never lost a slight British accent, not strong, but noticeable.

eta: io9 has more photos: [link]

Oh, my. God loves gay Robins. That's AWESOME.

Oh, my. God loves gay Robins. That's AWESOME.

I thought of you immediately when I saw that.

Your beau should be Gay Robin for Halloween.

The Bender costume wins, hands down.

There are those same sorts of feelings over practically any pain-relieving drug. "Strong" people are supposed to be able to "tough it out."

And I understand that there are risks, but for so many centuries under Catholic doctrine, women were explicitly PROHIBITED from receiving any palliatives during childbirth, because they needed to feel the pain during childbirth that God had mandated for Eve's sins.

I think the message that the author is trying to convey, albeit a bit confusedly, is that women should have some authority over their experience during birth. Which I completely agree with.

For (older) immigrant children, how young do they generally have to have immigrated to have no discernible accent? If they're in a place without a large population speaking their first language?

I'm sure it entirely depends on many factors, like the language, and the environment they're in--if it's predominantly foreign language at home and socially, they may have a stronger accent. Assuming, of course you only mean immigrants from places with foreign languages.

I know Jamaicans that never lost theirs, but I dropped my Canadian accent from age 4, my Jamaican from age 12, my British from age 18. Uh, entirely possible I'm just not sticky.

Because it's not risk-free? Because when you have it, you may have felt pressured into it? Because if you wind up in the intervention cascade afterwards, you feel like you could have done something to have stopped it? Because women are humans too, and humans feel guilty about all sorts of things they couldn't actually have as much control over as they think they should have?

Okay, but I'm not trying to state it is unreasonable if you do feel bad about it. It seems like there's this pressure that you should feel bad about it that I don't understand. But like Jesse said, there is a lot of should-ing about all sorts of decisions that mothers make.