To speak my own language to my child despite what my PIL think

[imnotfromroundhere]

I'm from Country X but I moved here when I was 14 so effectively speak fluent English and I'm fully bilingual. I realise what a privilege it is and want my children to be bilingual too.

I've got 2 DDs - 2.5yrs and 7mo. The youngest one doesn't speak, the older one speaks X language better (says mini phrases in X but only single words in English). We've committed to doing one parent one language so I speak only X to them and my husband speaks only English. I'm a SAHM, neither goes to nursery, DH works full time so mostly they're just around me.

DH is close to his family so we see them about once a month. Every time I speak to either of my DDs in X they give me a look as if to say "huh?" or "you doing it again?" (Ie speaking in a language we don't understand) or they'll stop their own conversation and stare at me if for example they're talking and I say something to her like "let's put a jumper on" or "don't touch that" etc. Obviously my children's abilities and making them bilingual is far more important than making PILs comfortable. But still makes me feel horrible like they're all judging me and hate me.

DH says he doesn't notice it. Definitely there though. He's quite close to his family and scared to offend them.

I've only read OP's posts and the first couple of pages, but I think the priority is absolutely the kids and not PIL's feelings or the feelings of random people online who say things like "you should speak the language of the country you live in". I agree that you should be able (eventually) to speak the language of the country you live in, but not that it needs to be your first or only language. I don't know loads about OPOL but if the research says that it's better for the kids to hear only OP's language from her when she's speaking directly to them, then that's absolutely what she should do. PIL should be so happy that their grandkids have this incredible opportunity to be bilingual. They should be supportive and proud.

A point that has not been made enough on this thread is that if the kids lose their minority language that will directly impact their relationship with their other grandparents, OP's parents. Personally if my kids married someone from another culture I would take an interest in the language long before kids came along.

A point that has not been made enough on this thread is that if the kids lose their minority language that will directly impact their relationship with their othergrandparents, OP's parents. Personally if my kids married someone from another culture I would take an interest in the language long before kids came along.

This is such an important point. And the reality is that maintaining a language-other-than-English in an English-speaking country is really hard, compared to doing it the other way round (we are a bilingual family in Japan and do English as well as Japanese, maintaining English as a home/minority language is pretty easy by comparison). In English-speaking countries, English tends to overwhelm the other, minority language and it's really easy for the kids to gradually stop speaking it.

This makes it harder for them to have a close relationship with other relatives overseas, and can affect the power dynamics of the household in a weird way.

In the OP's case, she is actually a native speaker of English as well, so it's a bit different. But when you have immigrant parents who are not native speakers of English, it can do odd things if the kids end up speaking only English and the parents end up speaking it to them all the time.

It's hard to discipline someone seriously or really lay down the law in your non-native language, esp if your grasp is tenuous, so it makes it harder for the immigrant parent to discipline their child appropriately or have control over the household.

The kids will rapidly acquire completely fluent, native-level language that is far better than their parents, and during the "arsehole teenager" phase may use this to their advantage - deliberately talking too fast or at too high a level for the parent to understand, talking to each other in ways the parents can't follow.

If the immigrant parent can't talk to their kids at a "high" level, this creates gaps as the kids get older; the family is less likely to have interesting or stimulating conversations around the table about books or current affairs or the wider world, and conversation is likely to be more desultory and limited in nature.

Often the kids (who are fully native speakers) may start to dominate the conversation as they get older - discussions may start to consist largely of the kids pinging the conversation back and forth among each other at fast native speed, while the parents turn this way and that, trying to understand them and not really being able to. It's not good for the dynamics of a household when the household language is the one where the kids/teens have the upper hand over the parents.

Finally, sometime dementia causes older people to lose their "non-native" language. If, as an immigrant, you don't teach your native language to your kids, you may end up literally unable to communicate with them at the end of your life.

All these are reasons why many parents are really protective about their language and teaching it to their kids. Having a more flexible language policy when kids are much older is one thing. But when kids are little, many parents prioritize making sure that their kids get a secure base in their language, and with good reason.

Everyone seems to agree that being bilingual is wonderful. I think people largely get that. It’s very true that the link with the other side of the family, and a connection to half of the child’s cultural heritage, benefits greatly from the child having the language. The problem here is a misunderstanding that “it won’t hurt” for OP to be inconsistent with OPOL when she’s with the English speaking grandparents. People keep posting this same comment despite knowing nothing about OPOL and how important consistency is particularly in the early years before English dominates most of their experiences (nursery, school, friends etc). There also seems to be a concern that if they don’t prioritise, or at least balance, English at this point then the child will fall behind and suffer in an English speaking society. The reality is that the child will very quickly become fluent in English, that part almost takes care of itself, whereas the minority language has to be protected, taught, and guided until established or it will likely be lost. It is also true that bilingual children tend to outperform peers academically and have huge advantages cognitively, so there is no need to worry about them falling behind. Once in nursery, playing with outside friends more etc, they’ll be fluent in English very quickly. Consistency with the minority language really is key in the early years.

Sounds like your parents in law don't understand that you are not trying to exclude them. In all honesty it depends how much time you spend with them. If its infrequent you could be more accomodating but if all the time then clearly that will wffect your childrens understandjng. Does your husband speak your native language.

Having read the comments, I think there is a misunderstanding about the term bilingual from some people commenting.

It is not simply being fluent in another language - that can be achieved through studying the language at school. Bilingual means speaking two languages as a native, which is something, that can only be truly achieved in childhood and OPOL is the recognised way to go.

I am commenting as someone, who messed-up raising my trilingual children by caving in to the environment. They are fully bilingual, but their 'third' language (mine), went from fluent to basic due to me being lax at imposing it consistently. They are now taking lessons, but will never have the same effortless fluency they had as toddlers.

@honoldbrist these points have been discussed earlier in the thread. It’s not frequent - once a month or so. However, the One Person One Language approach - which is accepted as the best way to ensure children will be bilingual - requires absolute consistency in order to develop true fluency in both languages. This is particularly important for the minority language. In this case the OP speaks to her children only in the minority language. She must be consistent with this, especially in these early years before English inevitably dominates most of the child’s interactions. The husband consistently speaks English to the children, though he has some of OP’s language too.

English should be used when in the presence of others who cannot speak your native language.

By all means, teach your children and use it in your home etc but I do find it rude when around company of those who do not speak the language.

My ex MIL is Brazilian and she's teaching our son Portuguese. They often had relatives that visited when I was with exH and constantly spoke Portuguese in my presence which made me feel very awkward and excluded.

So many people in other countries are used to living and working in a multi-lingual environment, where different combinations of people will have different languages in common and not others. So hearing other languages spoken in front of you or in your general vicinity is completely and utterly normal. As is slipping from one language into another. Even in many of the other countries where there is really only one native language, people are often used to also hearing and seeing English everywhere.

It is only in England that I have encountered this deep suspicion of, and hostility to, people speaking a language they don't understand. It seems that people regard it as either rude or actually malicious and deliberately excluding. There is nothing wrong with using the most appropriate shared language to communicate with a specific person, if what you're saying is directed to them and nobody else needs to hear it. E.g. if the OP is chatting with her inlaws, but then turns to the dc to ask them to go to bed in her language.

It's not about you, it's about your son.

@ellie09 your MIL is giving your son a tremendous gift with lifelong benefits and she’s doing it as it should be done. You shouldn’t feel excluded, rather understand that your son is benefitting greatly. Of course there may be other elements to your story that we are unaware of here, reasons for you to think she was being malicious, but the blanket rule of “speak only English around people who only speak English” greatly harms the child’s chances of becoming truly bilingual. I think that’s more important than adult social sensitivities. As other posters have stated, it is common in many other countries to hear people speaking other languages in company and mixing it up etc. I think it is culturally considered rude in England, but it isn’t elsewhere. In any case this shouldn’t apply to a mum speaking simple sentences to a two year old. She won’t be gossiping or excluding other adults from anything interesting really and it greatly benefits the child.

Why would you not learn the language yourself? Just a little bit to least understand?

Imagine a grandmother wanting to communicate with her own grandchild in her mother tongue. Disgraceful. 🙄

Surely that's wildly confusing for the child. I know someone who did this, they struggled socially as their English was not very good.

A proven method used all over the world is wildly confusing, why?

Would this grandmother be someone living abroad?

There is so much ignorance displayed on this thread about bilinguality and childhood language acquisition.

Bilingual children have a huge life advantage and it is proven that they often have better language acquisition skills in later life for additional languages too. But as so many other posters have said it’s really hard to achieve in the UK as English is so dominant.

yes, bilingual kids often speak later than mono lingual ones but when they do they do so in two languages. Their English may not be as good at school entry if the parent they spend most time with pre-school is the non English speaker. But by mid primary this is normally ironed out unless there are other learning difficulties.

One Parent one language is a proven technique to achieve bilinguality and all these comments about it being “rude” just make it more difficult for families to achieve.

Other posters have already highlighted how important speaking an other language is for children going forward. it wasn’t fashionable in the 1970s to bring your kids up speaking other languages (especially if you were not white) so I have lots of friends who can’t speak their parents languages at all and have been unable to communicate well with their wider family as a result.

interestingly many have their kids enrolled in language school for their parents native language (e.g urdu/ mandarin/ Tamil) at the weekends and are encouraging their parents to talk in their native tongue to the grandchildren.

I'm shocked at the number of people out there who can't bear to hear a parent talk to a toddler and not understand what they are saying?

You really do not need to be able to listen in to other people's conversations so badly that you think it is rude for them to talk in another language.

OP, my dd and I talk to my dgd in English nearly all the time, as she hears and speaks Spanish everywhere she goes, including school. When we are with other people we sometimes speak to her in English and sometimes in Spanish. So it is a different technique to yours, but it has worked.

My sil is French, she speaks perfect English, but will mostly speak to her dc in French, therefore the dc now speak perfect English and French at the ages of 4 and 7, and easily flip between them both.
She doesn't have long conversations with them in French when in company, but will speak a little French, no one has ever been offended by this, just carry on ilas you want to .

There is a rather unpleasant assumption here that an entire family of other people should shoulder the cognitive labour of speaking in a second language all the time rather than an English speaker learn the rudiments of another language.

My DH (born in South Africa) and our oldest DS (most summers spent in Netherlands with cousins, 2 years of school there) speak Dutch fluently. They generally use it in social situations where they want to say something in private. Whenever I hear them speaking it I suspect something is wrong, but I don't know what. It's almost a secret code for them!

I speak x language to DD at all times including when other people around and nobody has ever commented on it. Sometimes just to be polite I repeat in English. All of my friends are foreigners and they do one parent one language, and the kids learn English in the nursery and from other people around them. My DD had no issues of learning/understanding English at her nursery though she was mostly exposed to x language at home.

Why would you not learn your spouse's language, at least to basic competency? Why should they give up their language and all their family do the work of functioning in one partner's language instead of both sharing the work and the benefits?

Your level of education is irrelevant to the basic facts of language acquisition in multi lingual children.

Why do you assume your mother's academic struggles were related to bilingualism? That appalling advice in the past given to the families of migrant children with minority languages was stopped precisely because it caused educational disadvantage and semi lingualism.

You are confusing cause and effect.

Mind you, it was notably lower status immigrant groups given that advice, I don't think too many families at the Kensington Lycee were told to abandon French speaking at home.

That does sound difficult and I think is in a different category to a mother like OP giving simple instructions to very young children.

It's not okay to exclude people! I do think it's rude no matter what the languages spoken. (There is good reason with OPOL but the reasoning does need to be explained to avoid hurting people.)
A group of relatives chatting together in a language one of the party can't understand isn't anywhere near OPOL anyway.

However, were all the relations fluent in English? I assume you don't speak Portuguese as you were feeling left out.
If they weren't all fluent English speakers (which is perhaps unlikely?) I think it would have been better for a member of the group (your DH maybe) to act as interpreter so you weren't excluded from the conversation.

I'm not British by the way and speak two languages in case people think my opinion is one of a monoglot English speaker. I am extremely aware of how precious minority languages are. But there is still such a thing as rudeness and letting one person out of a group conversation is simply not on.
I can't believe the number of people dismissing it as okay.