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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not teach my DS any English

702 replies

DewinDoeth · 07/06/2010 20:34

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.

OP posts:
minipie · 08/06/2010 15:07

First question: does the child have a need to learn English?

Answer: yes. He has English g/parents and lives in a predominantly English speaking country.

Second question: how should the child learn English?

Answer: Well, he could learn it from the media. Down side is, he won't pick it up very quickly or very well, and certainly not quickly enough to be able to communicate with his English GPs for a few years.

Or he could learn it from his father, who is a native English speaker. Down side is, he MIGHT not pick up Welsh as well (though his mother will speak Welsh to him anyway, he'll hear it at school and in the local community).

Seems pretty obvious to me that overall it's better for the child if his father speaks to him in English and his mother in Welsh.

Original poster
DewinDoeth · 08/06/2010 15:09

Phd was not in Welsh!

OP posts:
hobnobsaremyfavourite · 08/06/2010 15:10

My son is in Yr 3 and is already mastering the non phonetic spelling of English! Maybe he'd better not bother given that he's doomed anyway for receiving his education in welsh and living with a Welsh speaking mother! I haven't read such a depressingly hypocritical thread in ages. Seems making your child bilingual is brilliant in any language other than Welsh. Time to go and rescue my poor dammed children from the hellhole I send them to every day to learn in and stop speaking to them in such a backward pointless language eh

posieparker · 08/06/2010 15:13

hobnob....

What if the language was Spanish could you still pin some sort of discrimination on it? Or Urdu? Mandarin?

Anniebee65 · 08/06/2010 15:16

Just read this thread all the way through.

OP are you sure you're not using your native language as a stick to beat your PILs with?

You say they've made it clear you don't measure up. There's clearly issues there.

Can you not see that all of that is colouring all of this?

YANBU to speak Welsh at home, YABU to use it to exclude you PILs, because it seems to me that is what you are doing.

LetThereBeRock · 08/06/2010 15:17

Sorry Hobnobs but how on earth did you get that impression from the posts here?

The vast majority of posters here agree that the child should be raised bilingually,they have no problem with the OP speaking only Welsh to her son, as she herself is a native Welsh speaker.
What people don't understand is why the child isn't being raised with both languages,i.e English and Welsh, that is why the dh doesn't speak English with his son, when the OP's dh is a native English speaker.

That's true bilingualism surely? Not being raised with just one native language when there are two parental native languages,even if the child will be exposed to English in later life.

posieparker · 08/06/2010 15:18

Being bilingual improves the IQ and boosts more pathways and mapping in the brain...why would anyone deny this for their child?

scaredoflove · 08/06/2010 15:18

and my awareness of my own language - I work at a particularly high level within that language (have a PhD in it)

ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave · 08/06/2010 15:18

Can you point to a single poster who has suggested that it's a bad idea for Dewin's DS to be bilingual in English and Welsh, hobnobs?

The thrust of the argument has rather been that making your child bilingual (where one of the languages is Welsh) is brilliant, but making your child monolingual (by deliberately not using English to the child as well as Welsh even though one parent is English) is less brilliant.

As it happens in this case Dewin's DS is vanishingly unlikely to grow up monolingual, so the objections are more about becoming bilingual as early as possible vs. waiting until later to introduce the second language, and so hardly worth getting quite this worked up about. But there's no suggestion at all on this thread that he shouldn't be raised with Welsh as his first language.

pranma · 08/06/2010 15:19

I am very sad for your pil.My dgd[10] has a Turkish mum,lives in Turkey and goes to school there.Turkish is her first language.It hasnt been too much trouble for her to learn/pick up some English so we can chat on the phone or when we are together.I do think YABU.
However,I have learned some Turkish and try to use it when I am with the Turkish family.My dil has an English degree and speaks fluent English and we all manage very well.I think you are perhaps doing your ds a disservice and maybe being a little spiteful to your pil-sorry.

LetThereBeRock · 08/06/2010 15:19

If there were two native Welsh speaking parents it'd be a non issue but there aren't in this situation.
One is a native English speaker and it seems odd that he doesn't want to expose his child to both languages so that his ds is equally comfortable with both and benefits from both cultures from a young age.

belgo · 08/06/2010 15:19

I don't think anyone is saying that hobnob (but I haven't read whole thread).

I don't think anyone is saying the OP should speak in english to her ds; what many posters are saying is that the dh should speak his first language to his ds.

If the dh wants to improve his welsh, surely it would make more sense for him to speak it to his wife who can improve and correct his welsh?

piscesmoon · 08/06/2010 15:20

I don't think that anyone has suggested that he doesn't speak Welsh! Merely that half his family are English and that if you are going to pick up a language effortlessly, then birth is the time to start. This way just ensures that OP's PIL don't get a relationship with him until he is school age by which time OP will either be comfortable with spending time away from him-or she will think of a different excuse-most probably that he doesn't know them!!!

Original poster
DewinDoeth · 08/06/2010 15:24

Oh, ok - phd was written in English, but was a study of a certain medieval Welsh text (if I say too much I'll be outed and possibly murdered in RL ). I'm an historian: first degree in Welsh and History (joint hons). Currently at a Welsh university, but not much Welsh at Oxford.

OP posts:
piscesmoon · 08/06/2010 15:25

I still think that the language is a complete red herring! The DC spends 2 days a week with OP's mother and she is quite happy with that-but she doesn't even want her DHs mother to have one afternoon with him, without her in attendance, and because she feels uncomfortable saying so she makes quite sure that he can't communicate simple needs!

whatname · 08/06/2010 15:30

Oh FGS
you asked if you were being unreasonable. lots of people have said you are, but you are so clever you have to be right.
give it a rest

Original poster
DewinDoeth · 08/06/2010 15:35

No, the language was the issue of this thread.
I get on ok with my PIL - there are things they do/attitudes they have which I'm not happy with, and likewise I do things/have attitudes they're not happy with. My PILs are coming to stay with me next week (which is when the zoo trip should be happening) and my problem - on the other thread - was not mainly of them having time alone with him, but him going further away with them (i.e. 1 hour away) than he'd ever been with anyone else, and the practicalities: nappies, and language.

This thread was out of interest, really, and I've been surprised. The consensus seems to be:
bilingualism = ok; Welsh = ok.
But I'm surprised that my DH is seen as odd: he has learnt the language out of love and respect for me and our DS. (A technical point: it's easier to learn Welsh with a child than with an adult, which is why he speaks with DS and not me.) Neither DH nor I are excluding DS from English, his grandparents or future potential. He has a close relationship with his parents, and a good understanding of (a) the problems with a minority language next to a dominant and widely spoken one ('dominant' is seen as negative, but English is one of the major languages of the world, therefore dominant/large/powerful - all seem negative but they're facts surely?) and (b) bilingualism.
Learning Welsh first and then English as a toddler does not mean that Welsh will be better/stronger/etc than English. They are equal, and it still counts as fully bilingual.
DH, incidentally, is desperate to come on this thread but he's not on mumsnet.

OP posts:
MmeLindt · 08/06/2010 15:36

To those who are saying that the OP should bring up her DS bilingually because it is so easy for children to pick up two languages and they are like sponges (or words to that affect), it is just not true.

Believe me (and probably most of the parents of bilingual children) it is not easy. It is damn hard work. For the parents and for the children. Many people give up and stick to the dominant language - and in this case that will eventually be English.

There is not right and wrong method of bilingual upbringing.

It depends on the family and the circumstances.

Original poster
DewinDoeth · 08/06/2010 15:37

whatname quit being stupid. I was explaining in answer to two posts by Scaredoflove. You must seriously have some issue with people who have education.

Perhaps anything I say is just stoking the fire? (The fire burning the witch, probably.)

OP posts:
MmeLindt · 08/06/2010 15:38

Whatname
And a lot of people have said that she is not being unreasonable.

LetThereBeRock · 08/06/2010 15:40

I still think it's preferable to grow up with both languages from a young age,particuarly as it does create a distance between your ds and your in laws.Yes he may be able to speak English later but at the moment they're unable to communicate verbally.

And don't let your dp post please unless he intends to become a regular member.
It's awful when people get their husbands to back them up.

posieparker · 08/06/2010 15:41

he has learnt the language out of love and respect for me and our DS......he's done it for you, let's be honest. Like i said the children I know who have more than one language, mostly three languages... speak one with their mother, one with their father and another with 'staff'. I really don't know how you managed to convince your DH to speak to his child in a second language....he sounds weak and rather strange.

posieparker · 08/06/2010 15:43

Mmel.....majority say she is BU.

pleasechange · 08/06/2010 15:46

posieparker - I'm not sure you can try to take the moral highground on how bad OP is treating her PILs while calling her husband names because he does something you don't agree with

whatname · 08/06/2010 15:50

I wasn't being stupid, thank you. Flippant maybe. I certainly don't have a problem with educated people, I might have a problem with people mentioning it unnecessarily (IMO)

But MmeLindt, OP seems to be completely ignoring the people who are telling her she is being unreasonable. That's the way I read it anyway.