Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to want to drop a foreign friend?

327 replies

livingintheeast · 30/10/2012 20:58

Firstly let me get one thing straight - I am not a rascist and I have a foreign mother (a genuine one not one of those that people sometimes invent just to prove how PC they are). It is a real bugbear of mine that my foreign friend will constantly talk to her lo in their mother tongue. They are both perfectly capable of speaking english - the mother talks to me/my lo in english and the lo talks to me/my lo in english. Personally I find it blooming rude and so irriatating that I'm not sure I want to be around them much at all. Even my lo has resorted to asking me (in her 2.5 year old way) what they are saying - and I don't have a clue! I know my friend wants her lo (also 2.5) to know her mother tongue but surely on a playdate, with english people etc it's just common courtesy to speak in english. AIBU?

OP posts:
LimeLeafLizard · 31/10/2012 22:29

Been thinking about your thread a bit more, OP. Maybe this friend just spends a lot of time talking to her toddler, and that is part of what is bugging you?

When I see my Mum, she often talks so much to my children that she hardly has a word for me, which I find quite irritating.

Another thought - What DO you like about this person? If she is lovely in every other way, it is worth coming to terms with this habit of hers, but it doesn't seem like it.

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:29

Honey tea. No, no jealousy at all. :) I would have no reason/occasion to speak Spanish evening I could (although I can still count and sing some nursery rhymes).

OP posts:
pipoca · 31/10/2012 22:30

I just can't believe there's so much conversation btw this small child and its mother that you're so bothered by it.

halloweeneyqueeney · 31/10/2012 22:32

cause in English it'd be riveting? Wink
seriously its not hard to work it out/join in/whatever. There are only so many topics of conversation a mum has with a tot and you don't need to know the words to mostly work out which it is.
I can tell you now what it probably means:
"did you do a poo?" "please share" "its X's turn" "do you think that piece goes there"..
are you really feeling deprived?

earwig1 · 31/10/2012 22:33

"I would have no reason/occasion to speak Spanish evening I could (although I can still count and sing some nursery rhymes)"

I think that says it all, sorry to say OP. My children are fluent in my language (Spanish as well), and it will be great when they are adults.

halloweeneyqueeney · 31/10/2012 22:34

"Been thinking about your thread a bit more, OP. Maybe this friend just spends a lot of time talking to her toddler, and that is part of what is bugging you?"

yes that's kinda my point! if the conversation is dominated by this mum talking at her LO, wouldn't that be just as annoying in English?, it's hardly going to be interesting!

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:34

Lime leaf. I actually think you hit the nail on the head, she isn't "lovely" IMO of course. I think of her more as an acquaintance which might have gone on to be friendship.

Yes, she spends an awful amount of time talking to her ds, which I actually think is great.

OP posts:
honeytea · 31/10/2012 22:36

But if you could speak spanish it could have given you the oppertunity to be linked to Spanish culture also it could give you great oppertunities at work.

Having a second language is a fantastic gift, even if it is an obscure not very useful language it still gives you more options in life.

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:37

It is interesting queeny when parents talk to their kids, because parenting styles are interesting and I might learn something about how she deals with something that I am having issue with e.g sharing or something like that.

OP posts:
Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:38

Honey...I am happy with the choices i made and never felt deprived. Of course it would "be nice" in as much as its nice to have any skill.

OP posts:
halloweeneyqueeney · 31/10/2012 22:39

but she IS doing something interesting and different to you by doing OPOL

that doesn't mean you can't chat about parenting stuff

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:39

Ps mum is Latino not espanol.

OP posts:
Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:41

There is no cohesive conversation so no, it's not particularly enjoyable. Listening to a foreign language isn't hugely fascinating to me per se because I have been around and heard many.

OP posts:
honeytea · 31/10/2012 22:46

You didn't make those choices your mother did.

I think your lack of interest in any other language is sad and unfortunatly not uncommon. You mentioned earlier that your mother wanted to concentrate on you being English, unfortunatly I think you have ended up with a negative attitude to linguistic difference.

LimeLeafLizard · 31/10/2012 22:46

OK, so...

YABU to drop a friend because she talks to her toddler in her native language.

YANBU to drop an acquaintance who you find a bit irritating and can't have a cohesive conversation with.

halloweeneyqueeney · 31/10/2012 22:48

then it does sound like you don't particularly click because if you did you'ld be nattering to each other in English interjected with her saying stuff to her LO in her language and you stopping to say stuff to yours in English. Conversations between mums do get interrupted but if you get along you still manage to have a nice chat. I don't see how if you're not doing that now it'd be different if she spoke to her LO in English.

Is it that you meet primarily for your LOs to play together rather than being friends? if so then it'll fizzle soon anyway because either your LOs will develop different friends or you will soon get to "drop and run" age.

Don't think that Language is the issue, think perhaps its that maybe you're not taking the relationship for what it is.. just play date not friendship?

Just accept that when you meet its for the LOs to play if you don't chat easily then it wont grate so much?

AgnesBligg · 31/10/2012 22:51

I don't think you are unreasonable in this (sorry not read thread just op) as I have a collection of overseas friends living in this country, and they gabble away in the mysterious language to partners and dc's but never to the extent that I feel excluded or don't get what's being talked about.

If they just did forrin all the time I'd have to slide away I think.

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 22:53

Lol honey tea, you are so so so far off the mark in your personal assessment. But at least you weren't personally insulting so thank you. :)

OP posts:
honeytea · 31/10/2012 22:57

What positive feelings do you have about linguistic differences? How can you not care that you don't speak another language and have positive feelings towards other languages? I am not saying you should feel sad or worried that you don't speak another language but I don't understand why anyone would be so uninterested in learning.

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 23:04

Positive feelings? Why would I need any? To me the language a person speaks is a part of them, not all of them. I have no interest in speaking another language like I have no interest in being blonde or learning how to knit. Why should I care that I am not interested? I learn things I want to learn and am interested in, these are usually things that I can apply to my life either professionally or during leisure time. I would love to learn a musical instrument and I would love to learn how to paint oils....

OP posts:
BegoniaBampot · 31/10/2012 23:18

Do your friend a favour and drop her. It doesn't seem that anything the mums here have said about why they choose to speak to their kids in their mother tongue has gotten through to you. You don't sound very imaginative or able to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Seems to be your or the byway. Have you actually read what people are saying?

Original poster
livingintheeast · 31/10/2012 23:30

Yes I have read them all. Even the ones from foreign mums who do it differently to the majority of posters. I'm not sure where lack of imagination comes in to it and i have shed loads of empathy. But as you don't know me I wouldn't expect you to know that.

OP posts:
Asamumnonsense · 31/10/2012 23:46

Where have you been OP?? How can you be so shocked in this day and age? where we live in such a multicultural society. I am french, my husband german. My DD is 5 and I only speak french to her, in all circumstances and places. She has been at school for 2 years and has plenty of play dates and no one finds it strange or rude. I did explain in the beginning and parents totally understand and even think it is great that she is bilingual. I am not rude to the point of having long conversations but I will instruct DD in french. It would be rude to do it between adults.

BegoniaBampot · 31/10/2012 23:50

But you keep saying you can't see the harm in the mum speaking English for that hour or so even though some mums have said at that young age they feel the child benefits from communicating with their mum in her mother tongue or that it then becomes a creeping thing, the hour with you, the hour the next day with someone else or then when ever anyone else is with them. They have also said that they feel strange or uncomfortable speaking to their little one in a different language and that often the child doesn't like it either.

You just keep seeming to ignore all this or just brush it aside as unimportant compared to what would suit you. I think that is quite unimaginative or worse intolerant and arrogant.

OpheliasWeepingWillow · 01/11/2012 02:08

Complicated but YABU. My DH speaks English with his DM but Germans with his siblings. He speaks German with my DD which I don't even speak very well. God, if he had to translate every word for me it would be a) time consuming b) crackers. Plus the nanny speaks Chinese with my DD which I don't speak. The point is that exposing children to language is amazing and nothing to get upset about. I doubt your friend is snickering about you with her dd.

I think your friendship has bigger issues TBH

Swipe left for the next trending thread