to not teach my DS any English

[DewinDoeth]

Ok, moved from another thread as it seems to have got people going!

DS is two and speaks quite a lot, but only in Welsh.

I live in a Welsh-speaking community, I'm a native speaker and Welsh is my first language (in fact I'm a lecturer in Welsh lang&lit), my entire family are Welsh. DS attends a Welsh medium nursery 2 days a week, and is cared for by my mother 2 days a week. And me the other days! None of the carers speak English with him.
My DH has learnt Welsh to near-fluency, and only speaks Welsh with DS: it gives DH a chance to improve (slowly, with an nonjudgmental speaker ) and has given him a massive confidence boost when it comes to it.
I am not teaching DS any English at all, and I never speak English with him. DS will learn English quite naturally, mainly from the television, or from hearing it around when there are people who don't speak Welsh. It's how it was with me and my English is of a very high standard (no doubt there will be grammatical errors in this post now - but I have an Oxbridge PhD so it can't be all bad).

PILs are not Welsh, live 250 miles away, and have expressed sadness that 'they can't communicate with him'.
They learnt to say hello and thank you in Nepalese when they went on holiday, but despite knowing me for 10 years and my family for 6, they have never learnt any words of Welsh at all, not please or thank you, and say it's pointless because it's a dead language, and it's not an useful language.

That's nice hmc.

OP YABU. I find it bizarre that your husband does not speak to his child in his native tongue but i suspect taht the whole language issue is more to do with you exerting control over your child and the relationship with his grand parents, which is very sad. But as I don't have a PHd, I'm probably not qualified to comment natch ? Although I do have 2 bilingual god sons who are lucky enough to have parents sans 'chips on shoulders'

Gee, thanks

This thread is riling me too, but it's many of the responses rather than the OP which is causing it.

The idea that it would be possible for the OP's DS to be brought up devoid of English culture!

I think there are loads of issues here some where YANBU at all, some where your approach differs from received 'wisdom' and some where YABU.

AIBU to speak L1, my MT, to my DC? No
Is my DH BU to speak L1, his L2, to our DC? No, as long as he's happy with that (which is a totally personal choice)
AIBU to want to promote L1, which is a minority language? No
AIBU to not actively 'teach' insofar as one teaches a small child, L2 yet? No
AIBU to not enable my DC to communicate with his GPs who only speak L2? Yes.

Are my PILs BU in their attitude? Yes
Are my PILs BU to want to communicate with my DC in their MT? No

It's not really about the language at all.

see ... MIL thread!

SIL is Welsh. She speaks fluently. DB isn't and doesn't (not fluently anyway). Their DC speak English and Welsh - it simply doesn't seem to be an issue. If SIL decided that the problem lay with my mum and dad and DH and I for being unable to communicate with them in Welsh I'd be a little miffed I think. My niece is slowly teaching DD to speak Welsh - very slowly - phrase by phrase. Could take years.

But it seems irrelevant whether or not the OP teaches her son English - he will learn it anyway and sooner rather than later (in a similar situation, I never met one Catalan speaker who couldn't also speak Spanish by the time they started school).

It's about how irritated she is with her in-laws for not learning Welsh. Not letting them look after her son by themselves seems like a petty retort at best and a punishment at its worst.

OP,I am afraid it is you that is stupid,dear. You have shown that clearly through your actions re your son and his grandparents..There is obviously a lot more to this. You are not doing your son any favours, and your DH should stand up to you and your cruel behaviour. If you are so convinced you are doing the right thing, why post in AIBU? Oh, and speaking a language around a child IS teaching them. You ARE withholding English from him, you say this in the title of your OP! Silly woman.

Of course helyg I would just argue that the wider American-English culture (which proliferates even through a Welsh lens) with a big C is less important than dh's personal experience of it which isnt being shared.

Thanks dreams, helyg and jamie - no, I do not use it to be superior and I had an inferiority complex the whole time I was there. But the fact I even said it meant that people made (hugely negative and hurtful) assumptions about me and my attitude. And that's far too personal and below-the-belt for me.

Forgot, must never mention my (good) education because people will be horrid to me.

To be totally honest I think your attitude is quite odd and controlling.

Your son should be learning both Welsh and English. Why totally exclude his English heritage?

You are deliberately making it impossible for your son's grandparents to have a proper relationship with him and that is not fair on anybody.

"Is my DH BU to speak L1, his L2, to our DC? No, as long as he's happy with that (which is a totally personal choice)"

See, I know it's a personal choice so I won't say HIBU, but I do think it's a shame.

My DP is French and there are many childhood cultural things (books, nursery rhymes etc.) that he will be able to give to our DC that I can't, despite being fluent in French.

However, I can give my future DC the childhood culture in English.

If OP's DH wants to improve his Welsh, why can't he talk to OP in Welsh?

some of you seem to imply that the OP's DH doesn't have any choice as to which language to use when talking to his son. He has made his own choice, as the OP has clarified on several occasions. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean the OP must have bullied him into it

Stupid? Cruel?

Mamasparkle, you seem to be a bit irate. Dear.

Fluffy, I agree with you FWIW. I think it's a shame that shared experience of childhood expressed through language isn't being passed on but that's up to the OPs DH.

OP I couldn't care less where you got your PhD from, but I do care what it's in if you're trying to make a point with it (which I don't think you are). There are plenty of Oxbridge postgrads with not-fabulous English who are extremely talented in their field.

OP - other people have previously commented on your attitude ? You DO surprise me

"Forgot, must never mention my (good) education because people will be horrid to me. "

Oh boo hoo , I wouldn't even have mentioned it if you hadn't been so patronising and rude to another poster about their spelling. Have you apologised yet btw?

And if your son speaks English, maybe he can spend a nice afternoon with his grandparents at the zoo?

Have to say to the poster who says teaching Welsh alone to their dcs is to defend the language.....is writing in English...

Just thinking outside the box for a moment...

Why can't the OP's DH's culture be shared with their DS through Welsh?

As a child I read all of Roald Dahl's novels in English. I don't think there were Welsh translations of them then. Now, my DS is working his way through them in Welsh (he can read some English, but his Welsh reading is far better). So I am sharing stories which I enjoyed as a child... but in a different language.

My mum, who doesn't speak Welsh, sang nursery rhymes to me in Welsh when I was a child which she had learnt from her Welsh speaking grandmother whilst growing up in Nottinghamshire.

Culture is not necessarily language.

'I don't speak English to him because I don't speak English to anyone who speaks Welsh: friends, family, shop assistants, gym teacher, colleagues.'

I very much hope that what goes around comes around and that OP's DS marries a Dutch woman and goes to live in The Netherlands. DIL speaks perfectly good English because she was working in England when she met the DS. However in the Netherlands she speaks Dutch to everyone who speaks Dutch and since she speaks Dutch to her DC he comes under the umbrella of 'speaks Dutch'. She thinks that it is nice that he has Welsh/English parents and wouldn't dream of denying his culture. He will learn English at school, they all do in Holland, and he will be able to communicate with the other half of his family them -meanwhile he isn't missing out because he has loving Dutch grandparents who he sees at least twice a week. The Welsh ones come over but they can't do something simple like read him a story and they certainly can't take him out without DIL because how would he ask to go to the toilet-have a drink etc? DIL wouldn't dream of letting him stay with PIL unaccompanied because of the same problem.
Easy-don't get on with the PIL-make sure they can't communicate with their grandchildren!
OP ought to ask how she would feel if her mother was excluded in such a way?
If OP had to make an effort I could see the difficulty, but she speaks English with ease. I know a French woman and a German woman and they switch languages with ease with their toddlers-even mid sentence.
If OP didn't see it as a problem then it wouldn't have occurred to her to ask if she was unreasonable-in her heart of hearts she must know that it is unfair to treat grandparents as first class and second class-rather than equals.

I think this must be an English thing

where I am from there are similar issues with minority language speakers, who like the Welsh are like an island surrounded on all sides by a much greater sea that is the dominant language/culture

no special measure need to be taken to teach children the dominant culture, as it is dominant, only living in an isolated shack away from all media could keep children ignorant

rather because of the dominant culture's penetration, parents have to actively ensure that their language and culture is preserved

op you are doing right by your son

if anyone needs to speak English to your son it is your dh, and frankly that's his lookout

you may or may not have issues with your ils but that is a side issue and not relevant to which language you speak at home