I don't like Welsh people

[snowstone]

Said to me, a Welsh person born in Wales, married to a Welsh man, with two welsh children.

By my own father?!

He and my mum are looking at moving houses, I was asking about where and he mentioned they were a looking more at a specific county further away from me. I asked if they'd consider my county as we see them quite a bit. My dad said that my county is too Welsh, and the main draw of the other county is that it's much more English and he fits in better with English people, Welsh people are a bit odd and he doesn't like them and wants to be surrounded by English people.

Told him to move to fucking England then! My mum said I overreacted but it was just quite a grim thing to say to be honest, made me look at him a bit different. They were visiting for Christmas Day and the whole atmosphere turned a bit after that and they left earlier than planned. AIBU to be pissed off?!

I am from Scotland and there are different cultures on the east and west coast, highlands/islands and the borders. There is at least one of these areas I personally wouldn't choose to move to. I don't think what you dad said was wrong, just clumsily put.

Is he English ?
Yes, maybe point out the problems actual Welsh people in Sir Benfro are facing.

My family moved to North Wales from England when I was a baby. My DM was another one who claimed not to like "the Welsh". Both our immediate neighbours were born and bred in the town we lived in and she was friends with them. They even helped look after her in her old age after my DF died.
She lived in Wales for 53 years and never stopped moaning about it. I could never understand her attitude. OK, she didn't like some Welsh people who "deliberately " spoke their native language in front of her 🤔 but a) what's wrong with speaking the language of the country you are living in and b) it was only a tiny minority - not all Welsb people! There were 32 children in my class at Secondary school - only 2 spoke Welsh as a 1st language!

Your DF is as bonkers as my DM was.

Ditto to this. I wouldn’t say it out loud in that fashion & have friends from the area, but would never choose to live there.

When Greg Davies’s mother was in labour his dad drove her across the border to St Asaph so that Greg would be eligible to play rugby for Wales.

Is Welsh a race?

It wasn't a joke. I asked about whether it would be closer to us and he pulled a face and started ranting and raving about Pembrokeshire this, little England that, welsh people are odd and he doesn't like them, he feels more at home around English people. He's always had his moments, my parents refused to come to my sons school play because it was in welsh! Rather than being proud that he's only young and is near fluent in another language they saw it as a negative. But outright saying "I don't like welsh people" to my family who all class ourselves as welsh was quite hurtful. My parents are both English but moved to Wales decades ago, I was born here.

Did you point out to him that you’re Welsh?

Wanting your child to be born in Wales if you're Welsh isn't xenophobia necessarily: it's a positive choice for them to have a Welsh identity from birth, and for your grandchildren/great-grandchildren to be able to play rugby for Wales. I mean, I think it's a lunatic risk to take with a risky birth, but it's not xenophobic.

It's a perfectly normal thing to have a strong preference for, all else being equal; but depending on how high-risk the pregnancy was, if there was a strong possibility of either having your baby born in England and surviving or born in Wales and not surviving.... really?

Was it a very poor joke? Like a weird sense of humour?

I don't understand it, very strange

I’m South Wales with roots in west Wales, speak Welsh as my first language. In the past I have visited North Wales and had people be a bit funny with me despite the fact I spoke Welsh. It was like THEY considered themselves a better class of Welsh.

Well crossing the border is free. He need not stay 🤣 The Welsh are not holding him captive 🤷🏻‍♀️

DS has a Welsh mother and a English Father. He can play for either national team 😎

Born in Wales through and currently playing for a Welsh rugby club, but he has options...haha

That's quite funny

What a stupid comment

I'm sure there are loads off annoying welsh people and equally loads of annoying English, Scottish and Irish people.

Also depends what you class as annoying, I find small minded people like your dad annoying

@bigbluebus As someone from Gwynedd, I'm not surprised by this attitude.

OK, she didn't like some Welsh people who "deliberately " spoke their native language in front of her

🙄

Unfortunately there are some xenophobic types who move here because they want a piece of Little England as it was in the 1950s.....except it's not the 1950s.....and it's Wales. They tend to get really annoyed when native Welsh speakers don't doff their hats to their betters by switching to English....even if that English person is a total stranger, is not part of their conversation. The entitlement of that is unbelievable, but there are plenty of people here with that attitude.

OP - can't you push your Dad to live in Gloucestershire or Herefordshire. Both rural counties with plenty of beautiful places, and it sounds like he'd be happier there.

Simon Evans

It’s a ridiculous and prejudiced thing to say. The older people in my family seem to be getting less and less tolerant as they get older and I try to mostly ignore them otherwise we’d have unnecessary arguments all the time.

My godfather, my geography teacher, my Uncles FIL, my school friend, 3 of his brothers and his dad, and my dad's best friend all played international rugby. 🤣🤣🤣

The odds in Wales can be pretty good.

The cultural identity is very important to a lot of Welsh people though.

Are there counties in England that folks wouldn't want to live in preferring others . I've Yorkshire family and there's areas they wouldn't consider

There's nothing wrong with having a preference about where you want to live, of course, I wouldn't want to live in England as I am very happy in Wales. I wouldn't dream of saying I don't like English people?! That's clearly what the issue is here.

Ah, my Welsh husband wanted me to drive up the M4 and over the Severn Bridge into Wales on my due date for our first child so he'd have a Welsh birth certificate.
I set the midwife on him

Op, just shove your father up to Llandudno

Welsh people (well, the ones I’ve met) are absolutely wonderful.
Your dad is bonkers.

I love Wales and regularly holiday there. However I understand one reason why some people don’t like it, depending on the area.

One holiday we stayed near Porthmadog, and I definitely wouldn’t go back to that area as we were sometimes made to feel it was anti-tourism. In one shop we entered the shopkeeper was talking to someone at the counter in English. They then changed and started speaking in Welsh when they noticed us, which I felt was pretty rude, so we left without buying anything (shop lost out on my buying a lovely painting they had). Unfortunately this wasn’t an isolated instance and similar happened several other times too!

Now, when we holiday in Wales, it is in the Rhyl / Colwyn Bay areas and we don’t go much further afield than Llandudno/ Conway. We have always felt much more welcome in these areas, than we did further West or South.

Why did they move there in the first place OP?