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• Engagement as access to school, the wellbeing of the child, and curating diversity. • Parental actions both bridged and distanced the spaces of homes and schools. • The home-school language divide was upheld. • Reasons reflected complex language ideologies and notions of a parent and a family. • Insights are given to revisit theorisations of parental engagement. Persisting divides between 'multilingual homes' and 'monolingual schools' exist around the world, including Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Applying the lens of space production, we explore how 'parental engagement' is established, and the role it plays in shaping language separation. Discourse analysis on interviews with 24 parents of multilingual children revealed parental engagement as striving for parental access to schools, facilitating the schooling, learning and wellbeing of the child, and curating cultural and linguistic diversity. Parental actions both bridged and distanced 'schools' and 'homes', marking these spaces as intertwined and/or separate based on parents' motivations, reasons and opportunities to become engaged or not. However, the home-school language divide was upheld. Besides reflecting conformity with schooling and the language of schooling, parental rationalisations presented with a drive to preserve the family as independent from schools. These findings provide insights to revisiting theorisations of parental engagement, and its role in reconciling home- and school languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]