Your anecdote suggest confirmation bias, because the opposite is equally possible. How do I know? Because I am the counterexample. Nobody in my family speaks

Your anecdote suggest confirmation bias, because the opposite is equally possible. How do I know? Because I am the counterexample. Nobody in my family speaks anything but English. I am from a small town. I have never had a conversation from anyone from my hometown in anything but English. We grew up in a very conservative church, in a very conservative part of the country. While I was never taught that "questioning" was wrong, it was never an active part of the teaching, either; just indoctrination. No early exposure to STEM. Really, church activities (and the band in school) were my life. At 16, I began teaching myself how to play the piano and to study languages (when the Internet made access to other languages possible). I also taught myself programming, because it was interesting (Pascal, then Assembly, then PHP... I know, it's weird). I had no direction from family (my dad was a butcher (later a salesman), my mom was a nurse) because they didn't know anything about any of it. I just did whatever I thought was interesting on my own. What is the result? My first degree was from a seminary, where I earned a bachelor's in Biblical Studies. I then went to a state university, and earned a BMus in Piano Performance. I then earned a MSci in CS. I'm 3.5 years into my CS PhD program. As for language, I'm comfortable in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. I have also studied French, Italian, German, and Russian. This was all done in my late teenage and adult years (again, due to Internet availability).