It's really hard to maintain German in the states, because unless you're in certain parts of rural Pennsylvania, no one else speaks it and it's not really useful for jobs.

But I'm grateful that my parents passed it onto me.

Acquiring that core of the language at an early age is really valuable. Throughout my teens my German was a lot weaker, but once I decided I wanted to get better it was really easy to train myself up by listening to news and podcasts, and setting up regular conversations with native speakers.

Your kids' experiences may turn out to be similar.