To want to raise our child Bilingual

[NewMumBGentle]

Bit of background DP is Italian, born in Italy, family still live in Italy, Italian is his native language, we've very much made a home here and have no plans to live there, although e go over to visit his family.

I'm currently 32 weeks with our first child, a little girl and the conversation tonight turned to her meeting the family when shes first born, from that id mentioned that i'd like DD to be raised bilingual. DP disagrees, he says we'll be living in England and that his parents speak conversational English so will be able to communicate with her that way, he thinks theres no point confusing her with two languages at home and is adamant he will not teach her. His parents so speak some English but there's still what i'd consider a language barrier there, i'd teach her myself but my Italian isn't the best. I just about get by when I'm there.

AIBU to be annoyed by this? I feel like she has this connection to this beautiful language and culture and he's denying her that.
AIBU

@SendCoffeeASAP That's so sad. Have you thought about proactively learning it as an adult?

I’m aftaid I’ve noticed that with families where the dad is the foreign language speaker. Quite a lot of people round where I live in English-EU (mostly but not only) couples. If it’s a mum that speaks another language then the child will too. If it’s a dad who works that most certainly the child will only know few words.

It’s not confusing for a child. And it’s wonderful for him/her to communicate easily with their grandparents. Ask him if he wants to pss on his non-native English speaker mistakes to his child
My DD is bilingual (guess which parents is foreign ) and it’s great to see who her brain works between working out things between two languages.

but gave up when her son only spoke German back to her.

One of the children who used to be in the nursery I worked in is the same age as my son (14). Her mother is Swedish and her daughter used to always reply in English although she understood Swedish very well. They visited Sweden a lot but because her mother's family spoke English, she would speak back in English to them when they spoke Swedish to her. They moved to Sweden in year 6 and her mum was really worried that she would struggle in school where people arent as fluent in English but she was speaking fluently within weeks. Writing came a bit later but now she has learned all her secondary schooling in Swedish, I think she is the same as her peers.

No one ever regretted being bilingual. My kids are English mum, French dad.

Your DHs view is very outdated and quite common in immigrants. My Vietnamese brother-in-law has never spoken anything but French to his kids.

It also reduces the chance of Alzheimer's.

If you do it right, it's virtually giving her an Italian A-level for nothing!