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

All our children are bilingual. We all speak English and our mother tongue is Gujarati. They were all early speakers and tend not to realise but switch between both languages mid sentence. They obviously speak English better but understand everything we and our elders say in Gujarati as well. They also read Arabic and speak and understand it at a basic level.
It's a great skill .
Now the older three are In High school they're all taking a language for GCSE so they'll be able to speak and understand between three and four languages.

Can someone explain how opol families ever have conversations if the native English speaker doesn't speak the foreign lanhusage. I am glad I was never forced to learn a foreign language

So what are the advantages of being forced to be bilingual.?

It's utter laziness on his part of he decides not to bother.

It seems strange he doesn’t want to speak to his children in his native language. There are very few disadvantages to being bilingual. Both my children are bilingual (English/Japanese) and there were no language delays or confusion. The human brain can handle as many languages as it’s exposed to. They code-switch when they don’t know a word for a certain thing in one language but as long as you model the correct words and grammar for both languages, they soon pick it up. All your husband has to do is chat to them in Italian and provide them with enough of an Italian environment (videos, books, etc.). It would be a shame not to.

I should add that we do OPOL because my DH doesn’t speak English. I speak to him in his language and speak to the DCs in English. Their nurseries are all completely Japanese. Their only English input is me and YouTube and even with that small amount of input my eldest DC is completely fluent. The baby is too young to speak in full sentences yet but I’m hoping for the same results.

In a previous career, I used to deal with joiners, and a surprising number were of Polish extraction, they would be aged between 50 and 70 now. Not one spoke Polish because back in the day, their 1st generation Polish immigrant parents

• were desperate for them to integrate and shared your husband’s belief that bilingual input would hold them back. Such a shame.

We now know the opposite is true. Many of my daughter school friends were British born but bilingual in English and a language from the Indian subcontinent. Not only are they all highly successful: research scientist, two doctors and one dentist, but they also excelled at the modern languages they learned at school. I think the brain gets hardwired for it. Billions of people are bilingual, in many countries it is the norm to speak two languages, often a local language and the national language. Italian is so beautiful too! I hope you can persuade him.

So sorry to hear of your negative experience re: bilingualism @Velveteenfruitbowl. As someone raised speaking three languages (English) simultaneously, I'm afraid I can't relate with what you've shared at all. My parents, like yours, banned English inside the home. We also lived in an area with other people from our culture so the two languages were always the ones we spoke when around these people but the minute we stepped away from this world, we were bona fide English speakers! Or it felt like it anyway- we definitely made mistakes along the way but it caused us no harm/trauma! @NewMumBGentle- my parents generation were told by 'experts' back in the day to ban their mother tongue at home and speak to their children in English only as otherwise we'd struggle and fall behind at school. I can hand on heart say, that didn't happen. I'm proud to say I work within the field of education in an academic role and haven't done too badly in life! If your DH doesn't make an effort to speak his mother tongue than that's his loss. I'd do my best though and sing songs or watch cartoons in Italian and keep the language alive that way.

Ps. I love that I can have open and fluent conversations in all three languages. Knowing the languages I do not only opens up my parents world/culture for me but also allows me to main some semblance of a bond with relatives I don't see very often.

My DP is Italian and he speaks to our baby in Italian only. He reads to her only in Italian and tries to have the radio/news on when he is with her in the mornings before going to work. She's only 6 months old so time will tell if she picks it up from him or if more effort is required. I am a native English speaker and we live in an English speaking country so I know she'll have no issue there.

We know another couple where the kids are all able to understand Italian but will refuse to speak in it..

OP I would be so sad for my baby if my partner refused to speak to her in Italian. It's such a great opportunity and seems relatively painless to me? Surely speaking his own language is easier for him?

I have a friend whose mother was a native Russian speaker. She's still bitter that her mother refused to teach her the language.

I'm hoping that your DH will reconsider.

He's making her miss out massively. Children don't get confused about this at all. I used to know a child who spoke Italian and German (parents), French (close family lived there) and English, All fluently. He was a very articulate little boy.

I am raising four bilingual children, it's absolutely wonderful that they have this opportunity which will serve them in good stead later in life. Please show your DH this thread!

My dc were raised bilingual. Children learn so easily and quickly, it would be selfish to deny them the opportunity.
Also, IME, they go on to easily learn more languages later on.
My dc have 5 languages between them.
They love travelling and their language skills are so helpful with that.
OP your dh is being selfish.

He's as Mad as a boiled frog.....

What a waste of an opportunity.

You're child won't be confused at all.

One of my friends at school had a french mother and was bilingual. It handed her an A grade A level on a plate pretty much, that in itself helped her with her higher education aspirations.

More importantly it helped her bond to her french family, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc but most importantly cousins because when they were little they had a shared language and are still very close as adults.

Bilingualism is a gift so it’s a shame your DP doesn’t even want to try. His child will come to realise they are being shortchanged. I knew many friends who felt sad they didn’t have a good grasp of their heritage language.

However, it is not without pitfalls. Some of those friends actually did have the chance but refused to speak it after a certain point, usually in later primary school. Sadly, they want to be just like their friends.

It’s a very strong pull. My friend is having a terrible time getting her son, mixed race white/Japanese, to speak to her in English. (They live in Japan). He understands of course, but he’s very stubborn about sticking to the language of the street. The girl is better but she is still quite young, and as the siblings speak the local language to each other, it might go the same way

I'm always amazed at parents who don't raise their children bilingual if they have different native languages.

It's such a gift you can give your child!

I was saying to DH last night being bilingual is one of the few things we haven't been able to give our children. They can all play an instrument and a sport proficiently and have many other skills, but language lessons at state schools are woeful and they can all only speak English.

If you research the benefits of being bilingual and show them to your DH you might be able to change his mind.

My nieces are half Spanish. They are spoken to in Spanish by mum and English by dad. They always reply to either parent in English. However during the holidays which they spend in Spain they chatter away in Spanish fluently. They wouldn't get very far if they didn't as the extended family don't speak English at all. Of course when they are older they have so much more opportunity due to being bilingual.

You are not being unreasonable. It’s an amazing gift to give a child. He’ll be able so speak to his Italian cousins. I grew up bilingual Welsh English, my nephew is growing up trilingual ( Welsh English and his mother’s mother tongue).

Both of my children are bilingual. My language is the secondary one and we speak that at home all of us, then they get their mother tongue everywhere else like at school/clubs/friend's houses etc. It's worked out very nicely! They were both slow to speak, not using full sentences until 3. My youngest still doesn't respond to me much in my language, but she clearly understands it all. My eldest didn't start using my language fluently until four but he's very solid now and will even translate for me if there's a word I'm not familiar with in his mother tongue (rare now, happily!).

I think it's a wonderful advantage to give a child to raise them bilingual.

An old friend is descended from Italians. They speak the Sicilian dialect at home, everyone from Nonna to grandchild. Outside their home they speak perfect English. I see the benefits. The family have lived in England for generations but still have roots in Italy. They still own property there and go back for holidays and business often. They are able to stay connected with their culture but take advantage of what the UK offers too.

In my job, customer service, we are crying out for multilingual people. Basically, if you have another language, you have a job. It truly is the best gift OPs DH can give his child.

My sister married an Italian and lives over there. They have two kids, 5 and 8. He speaks to them mainly in Italian and she speaks to them mainly in English. They are bilingual. Can converse easily in either language. Its amazing and it just happens naturally, they slip between languages so easily. They never found it confusing. I would speak to him again.

Definitely go bilingual
I'd have loved that for my children

He wouldn’t be the first to think that raising a child bilingually would be confusing to a child. However, that belief isn’t backed up by facts. There’s enough research out there that says bilingualism is a gift not a hindrance.

Get Googling and present him with facts, not conjecture.