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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to be really sad and upset by this

96 replies

lonelyandangry · 20/01/2019 09:41

i can't stop crying about this as my dd has written in her french school book that she lives with the former OW and has called her 'mother' and said she lives with her father half brothers but she lives with me and always has done. i saw it when i checked her room for laundry and her school books were on her bed.

OP posts:
emwithme · 20/01/2019 12:50

Agree with PPs, it could just be for vocabulary.

(I honestly didn't want to be a magician when I grew up, but it was trotted out every time in French lessons. Made a change from lawyer/teacher/engineer/doctor/accountant!)

llangennith · 20/01/2019 12:53

I'd be upset too OP. It must've been a shock to find what she's written but as others have said, it probably means nothing at all. You're doing the right thing by not mentioning it to her.

Gina2012 · 20/01/2019 12:53

I’m not clear why you think she’s referring to the OW at all? It sounds to me that she’s editing her out

Exactly

Nothing to be upset about at all

Your DD has simply cut out OW altogether

LynetteScavo · 20/01/2019 13:02

One of my favourite jokes is:

I bumped into my old French teacher today. She asked me what I was up to these days. I told her I play football and go to the cinema. Grin

She probably thought she'd get extra marks for using the words step brothers or something.

Anyway, I know the boy in my class who put up his hand to ask the teacher what "annex" is in French definitely didn't have a bloody annex on his house. (We had to draw a plan of our house and label the rooms in French)

MitziK · 20/01/2019 13:18

I got fed up of the generic phrases you were supposed to learn at school for French and German - they all seemed to be about a perfect nuclear family with working parents, a car and they did loads of activities all the time - it's hard to answer the question 'what does your father do?' when you haven't got a fucking clue and would be in huge trouble if you asked.

Throughout my time at school when we had to do such things (oh, the fucking term on Draw Your Family Tree was an absolute joy), I had made up various versions of myself - and got into trouble for making things up.

By the time I was 13 and my Gradfather had died about two weeks beforehand, thus removing my plan for escape, as I'd wanted to go and live with him where it was clean, warm, quiet and in the countryside, I was belligerent enough to give them the full force of my teenaged wrath (but not enough to refuse to take part, as that would have been rude, in my little mind).

We had each language lesson on the same day, and I answered accurately on the test.

I live with my mother in a dirty house with five cats and a dog.
I don't have a Dad. I think he's dead, but I don't know.
All my Grandparents are dead.
My Mum does nothing (ie, doesn't work). No, she doesn't clean the house or cook, she watches television and shouts at me and the animals.
I stay in my room at the weekend.
We don't go out.

There was a pause from the teacher in the first lesson and I was told to go and sit back down. In the second lesson, my teacher was the head of languages. He asked (in German) if this was true and I replied it was. He apologised, gave me full marks and the lessons changed after that - no more talking about 'what is' - lessons were based upon what we wanted to happen/do/liked instead. And I learned far, far more that way.

Don't get hung up on what she's written in her book, OP, it's not wishful thinking, it's what she has to do to get decent marks these days.

Wanderlusting99 · 20/01/2019 14:11

I killed off my uncle once in a german oral test as I knew how to say he was dead, but couldn't remember the words for 'I have an uncle' - teacher spent the whole time consoling me and I was too embarrassed to admit he was very much alive! I also declared myself an only child when in fact I have brothers in french at the age of 11 as I thought I was saying I was a unique girl in my family (brothers, uncles, cousins but no other girls) rather than an only child!

ErickBroch · 20/01/2019 14:16

I totally understand why you are upset but in French we were always told to just use as many of these terms as possible so she probably just threw them together - it is definitely not her wishing she was her mum or living with them or anything at all - she probably thought it was just easier to say in French. Hope you are doing ok Flowers

Nonibaloni · 20/01/2019 14:21

I’m an only child and was told explicitly to say I had brothers and sisters and pets during writing exercises. I was a contrary child and asked why I couldn’t just say “Mary has a brother and 2 sisters etc” but the teacher wanted a specific thing. I also used to libe in a cottage by the sea, apparently.

lonelyandangry · 20/01/2019 14:21

ROFL I’ve been on holidays like that. Where no one speaks English and you can only order sausages or ham pizza until you manage to learn a few new words.

I have this problem when I go to France, I only know enough French to order wine to drink.

OP posts:
Armadillostoes · 20/01/2019 14:31

In the nicest possible way YABVU people make up all sorts of stuff in language exercises to use the vocabulary which they know/want to use, and depending on how confident they feel matching things gender/plurals etc. Taking anything in a French.exercise as a real/serious statement is bonkers. Try not to let your imagination run away with you-Ialthough I can see why it stung.

Ceejly · 20/01/2019 14:40

OP I am a secondary French and Spanish teacher. She may have been encouraged by the rubric in the lesson i.e green for this much detail, amber for this, red for this. Sometimes my pupils also make up things because they don't want me to know about their family or house or holidays and I always tell them it's fine to lie or say something silly as long as it's accurate. She may have wanted to add more detail or not have wanted to tell her teacher about her life outside school. Please do not take it personally.

Ceejly · 20/01/2019 14:47

Alos have you considered she feels sensitive about her dad and OW and hasn't told her pals at school. Maybe she has edited it out because she doean't want her classmates to know all about her family.

Catsandbootsandbootsandcats · 20/01/2019 15:05

I remember writing about my 11 brothers and sisters, pet dogs, cats, snakes etc at that age.

I really had one brother and a couple of cats.

I expect I gave my parents weird and wonderful jobs too rather than the, what I considered boring, jobs they actually did.

I might go and check my kids language books now and see what they've said about me.

Beansandcoffee · 20/01/2019 15:09

She is trying to write in French and use words she knows. According to my son he has many brothers, lives in grand house, his dad is a doctor and I’m a teacher. All completely untrue but easy to write a lot about.

Amanduh · 20/01/2019 15:42

For my brother’s RE homework years and years ago they asked for the saddest moment in his life - he wrote his grandma got shot.
Wtf???
She is alive and well and he loves her to pieces.
I wouldn’t worry OP but understand why you were upset!

Troels · 20/01/2019 15:56

My Dd wrote a load of rubbish in her french, My Family project. She showed me and we laughed. She lives with me and Dh and a cat.
She told the teacher that her adult brothers and her grandmother all live here too. We have a small three bed house. Grin

Zwischenwasser · 20/01/2019 16:16

I have this problem when I go to France, I only know enough French to order wine to drink.

Actually, that was what saved the holiday. I could also order beer!

It was a beautiful hotel in North Africa , I don’t speak any Arabic , but felt confident we’d get by. Turns out it was a hotspot for German tourists, so the staff all spoke Arabic, French (former French colony) and German but no English.

Had to quickly learn to say yes, no, please, thank you etc in Arabic and a combination of the most memorable French and German food names. :)

marcopront · 20/01/2019 16:17

I was that awkward student who wanted to be accurate. So I needed to know what a guinea pig was in German. My teacher had to check. It's meerschweinchen.

funmummy48 · 20/01/2019 21:45

My daughter made all sorts of stuff up just to use the vocabulary she knew. I wouldn't give it a seconds thought!

SevenMelon · 02/02/2019 19:10

In a Spanish oral I once said that I had eaten a cat on my birthday (‘gateau’ in french meaning ‘cake’, ‘gato’ in Spanish meaning ‘cat’)!

Always wondered if they marked my down because I could have eaten a cat... Grin

SevenMelon · 02/02/2019 19:11

Whoops didn’t realise I was so late to the thread! Apologies.

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