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.

Wow. Totally disagree. I live in France. I speak to my son in my mother tongue (not French). DH speaks to DS in his mother tongue (also not French). DS learns French at school and we obviously speak it out and about.

OP, keep doing what you're doing. Once your kids start school, your language will become the minority language and unless you reinforce it now with them, you'll find they'll increasingly start to prefer English.

Why didn't you learn Portuguese while you were with your ex? I couldn't imagine my child speaking a language I couldn't understand myself. I ensured I learned DH's language as quickly as possible so that I wasn't excluded from conversations.

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.

I have strong suspicion OP's language is not French or German but one of these barbaric ones, thus of not benefit to THEIR grandchildren.
I know people like that, they had no problem with a father of their daughter's child, but when his mother started to speak Polish to their grandchild they quickly became aware that the father is one of these people, you know...

My family is properly 'mulitculti' some of my family were refugees, some of my uncles married refugees, some of us migrated and there is 5 languages spoken to various children and another one that we all understand. We cope fine. However, I do not need to know why my aunt is mad at my cousins. Btw. said cousins speak three languages as native and are learning another two at school.
If a child can do that, grandparents can work on their acceptance for own grandchildren.

Agreed, @deragod. I was taken aback when I asked in a university seminar (institution with a very ethnically diverse intake, mostly second and third-generation Asian) who was multilingual, and everyone said no, because they’d grown up with the idea that ‘real’ other languages were French, German etc, not the Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi etc that most of them spoke at home.

I disagree @C8H10N4O2 I think that racism and the desire to get kids to fit in lies at the heart of historical language acquistion patterns.

It is my middle class asian friends whose parents were professionals (doctors, social workers etc) who grew up exclusively using English in the 1970s / 80s. My understanding is that their parents made this decision in an attempt to fit in better, and not be "different" in an often racist society. Another factor to consider is that the parents and other adults in their chosen family almost all spoke good English. They didn't see family "back home" much at all and socialised a lot with other diaspora immigrant families, who often did similar jobs so also spoke good English.

It is asian friends from more working class backgrounds who learnt the minority languages. Often a major driver was that their parents didn't have the option of simply switching to English as they themselves were still acquiring language skills and in order to have anything more than the most basic conversation the kids needed to speak the same language. Others had childcare provided by grandparents with little to no English, or the family lived in an area where their minority language was commonly spoken in shops etc. so not speaking it was harder.

However, I have several white middle class friends with a non-english parent. They were all taught the minority language at home with varying degrees of success and contrary to my asian friends this group none has ever suggested that they were worried about racism when speaking a language other than English while out and about in childhood. Not all of these languages are terribly useful in world terms e.g Danish but the acquisition of a second language was encouraged by the wider community. Most can still function in their second language although one friend complains she has arrested vocabulary - passes as a local during day to day chat, not so good at instructing builders or reading contracts.

I'm basically just super jealous that the best I got was starting to learn French at school aged 11.

I agree with you. We had a similar experience, except the marriage ended when DS was a toddler and then XH went back to his own country and was only in DS' life sporadically. Luckily DS has become very interested in languages and has taught himself his dad's language to a high standard, which gives them something to bond over when XH calls. Before that, they didn't have much in common.

Another one ☝️ it’s beyond rude to speak in language people don’t understand, especially if you are fluent in both .
i think idea of poster above is good one: say the sentence in English then in language x
surely to be bilingual tots would benefit from this simultaneous translation once in a while too.
but as they get older and can speak both , then op should be teaching them manners to speak the appropriate language so everyone can understand even if it’s op they’re conversing with

speaking a language that PIL can’t understand is so isolating and exclusionary - why would OP do that ? Do you really want to exclude your PIL form your children and your life …I don’t get why you can’t see that OP?

my son has partner from a different language country. He’s spent a lot of time on lessons for her language, but far form fluent. When he’s with her parents they speak English in front of him. Her sister speaks English in front of him. Her grandparents and him muddle through with good humour and signing, bits of broken english form them, and his far from perfect x language. But they respect each other and do not exclude him

I agree with you completely. I couldn't imagine speaking French with my kids, unless it was part of a group conversation with French speakers who weren't at ease in English. Some (monolingual and closed-minded) French people think we ought to speak only French in the home (!) but most people get it.

speaking a language that PIL can’t understand is so isolating and exclusionary - why would OP do that ? Do you really want to exclude your PIL form your children and your life …I don’t get why you can’t see that OP?

It can be quite isolating living in a foreign country. Wanting to speak your own language to ,,your own children is completely natural. For lots of immigrants their own children are the only people around them that share their language and culture. And you think the OP's in-laws will feel "so isolated and excluded"?

How about everyone that feels that foreign people speaking their own language around them are rude try to learn some of that language?

Omg, you can tell who’s an ignorant monoglot and who isn’t!

speaking another language is hard, requires a lot of effort and IS worth it, no matter what language it is.

OPOL is a commitment and the H needs to tell his parents that’s what your doing and that it has to be this way, but of course op uses English with the PIL and they too can help with the English.

@Appleofmyeye2023 I encourage you to at least skim the thread before weighing in loud and wrong. You’re plainly speaking without any knowledge or understanding of the OPOL approach. This approach is the recommended method of raising bilingual children and for good reason, it has great results. However it requires absolute consistency, particularly in the crucial early years before English (or whatever the majority language is) dominates via school, friends, etc. If you’re not totally consistent in these early years then chances are high that the minority language won’t be retained and will eventually be lost. This is a huge loss. The cognitive, social, academic benefits of bilingualism are massive and priceless.

IMO grandparents who feel sniffy about being “excluded” from the scintillating conversation a mum is having with her 2 year old are far more rude than the mum who is consistently following best practice in an effort to give her child the priceless gift of another language. They would be willing to sacrifice their own grandchild’s wonderful opportunity to be bilingual because they feel “excluded” from a convo with a literal baby? They feel slighted if a mum says “Put your jumper on” in a language they don’t know? So foolish. So ignorant. Why can’t they make some effort to learn the language themselves? Why can’t they spare a thought for the grandparents and relatives on the other side of the family who will actually be excluded from their grandchild’s life if they grow up unable to speak their language? It would be laughable if this ignorant attitude wasn’t so prevalent and so harmful, actively making life harder for OPOL parents doing their best for their children.

P.s: this conversation is not about adults navigating different languages in social settings. It’s about raising bilingual children. It’s about a mum working to establish her minority language with her toddler age child before it’s too late and following best practice to do so. Your example is not relevant. It’s a totally different situation.

This 100% OP. Don't confuse your kids by switching the language you speak to them.

A workaround would be not to have lengthy convos with your kids in your native language around PIL.

Also, I'd start nursery soon so that kids improve English too.

Just as an aside, it seems like there are lots of resources on youtube in all the languages of the world.

Continue exactly what you're doing!

Children raised in a bilingual home initially are a little "delayed" in their speech, but they quickly catch up around 3-4 years of age and will be more than fluent in your language and English!

There is lots of research and evidence regarding this that you can show your inlaws also!
As you know the benefits of being bilingual are fantastic! You're doing a fab job!

Such a shame for your ds that you feel like that.

From their point of view they may be worried they won’t be able to hold a conversation with their grandchildren. However at 2.5 they are still very little and wouldn’t be saying very much yet anyway. I’m guessing they will go to nursery at 3yo at which point they may not say much in English but will be absorbing it well enough to be fluent by the time they start school. Being bilingual from babyhood is a gift and will help them learn other languages in the future.

I'm so glad that my parents didn't take this narrow-minded view when DH was speaking to DD in a language that they couldn't understand. Thankfully, they were educated enough to understand that he wasn't being rude or exclusionary, he was simply trying to raise her bilingually in line with the evidence from extensive research. It would have been so difficult if my parents had taken offence at this.

I do hope that you can educate yourself on bilingualism before your ds and his partner have any children.

They will learn English anyway and I can guarantee that their English will be better than their other language. If they give to nursery and then school here then their English will be as fluent as yours or your kids. There has been a lot of research on this and it seems that the language spoken in nursery, school and the environment around them always becomes the first language for kids, who have lived here since this young age, and whatever else they speak at home becomes the second language. It seems that kids always prefer the language of their peers.

However, speaking a second language is very beneficial to kids and causes no harm.whatsoever to others in society unless you are xenophobic and just don't like hearing other languages.

Continue on OP, bilingualism is such a gift and it requires commitment. Telling your ds to put on his jumper is not excluding your ILs, the command wasn't for them in the first place. Perhaps as he gets older and you are having a proper conversation with him you could give them a summary of what you just, or suggest they start to learn new language so they can follow? I was part of a bilingual speech therapy group when mine were young, one of mine had global delays and the SLTs advice was always to keep OPOL.

MargotBamborough & laclochette

I was replying to a poster who said only "ignorant British" thought it was rude by giving examples of how it can be rude.

I would like to see languages taught from a much younger age, but good luck in finding teachers to do it.

It’s extremely rude to speak a language your PIL don’t understand in their presence, I don’t know how you don’t see that.

Most people on here, rightly, don't seem to think so. If PIL can't support the proven-to-work teaching method OP is using for their grandchildren, then I would say it's extremely rude that they have a problem with that.

As I said upthread, my parents never used OPOL, which would have mitigated a lot of confusion and helped me enormously if they had.

Your DS' partner's family are doing your DS no favours by speaking English to him. He won't learn if no one speaks the language to him! My DH family spoke no English .... I had to learn ASAP. If her family are coddling him by speaking English, he's never going to improve.

And it’s equally baffling to me why you would regard the OP saying ‘Put that down, sweetheart’ or ‘Would you like a biscuit?’ to a toddler and a baby to ensure fluent bilingualism as in any way rude.

@Berlinlover The lifelong benefits of bilingualism are so huge that it’s hard to fathom grandparents who wouldn’t want to support this. OP is talking to her 2 year old in her own language in a majority English speaking community in order to establish her minority language with the child before immersion in English via nursery, school, outside friends completely takes over and English becomes the child’s main language. She’s using a well evidenced and recommended approach all over the world - it’s called One Person One Language. It’s important within this approach for the parent who speaks the minority language to the child to consistently do so, particularly in these early years. It’s the accepted best way to establish bilingualism in the child.

It is also hard to balance your idea that it’s “rude” to speak a language in the presence of others who don’t speak it with the reality that this would be exactly what you’d be imposing on the other half of the family who do not speak English if the child grows up without fluency in the minority language. What about those grandparents? Wouldn’t you want your child to be able to communicate with both sets of grandparents? The PIL in this case could simply learn some of the language too, so they can follow along. She is not speaking in complex sentences to a 2 year old and a 7 month old anyway fgs. It is no more “rude” than it is for women to breastfeed, which some ignorant people also find “rude”. It is in the best interests of the child and that’s what matters most.