My mother-in-law has confronted me that I speak English in her house...

[GraceAlicia]

I live in Spain with my husband who is from here. We have a one and a half year old son who is learning both languages as he develops. With his grandparents, he is speaking in Spanish and with his mum and dad, we are speaking in English.

When we go to our parents-in-laws' house, naturally I speak to my son in English but all interactions with my parents-in-law are in Spanish. Naturally, I often speak to my husband in English when it comes to our son (as this is the language we "met in" and as I said, it is the language we speak in with our son) and this has always been the case.

As I moved here three years ago, in the beginning I wasn't able to speak Spanish so my husband would have to interpret everything but now I have grasped the language very well and I am able to converse with them with no problems.

Now fast forward until today (three years later after I have been apart of this family), and my husband has been having problems with his sister recently (as she has been excluding me from the family - this is worth another chat to explain!!!) and I have not gotten myself involved. Today at the table when we were eating, his sister was brought into conversation and the Mother started to get defensive and attack and suddenly she, out of nowhere, said, "and you won't speak in English in my house anymore. I am tired of English being spoken in my house".

Do you think it is right of her to ask/demand of such a thing? I can understand that if she doesn't understand things, she can get conscious. But since we don't have any problem between us (that I know of), she has absolutely no reason to feel this way. And like I said before, I speak to them both (my parents-in-law) in Spanish and only with my son and sometimes with my husband in English. I never speak to my husband in English about serious topics but things like, "Can you help out with Jack?" or "What time are you home?" Never topics that would make somebody feel conscious or insecure.

What do you think about it? Should I be more conscious and only speak in Spanish in her house? I feel like I want to stand my ground because if I don't speak in English with my son, nobody else will. I want to maintain this with him as its my first language and its how I express myself the best. And also I want my son to speak English here in Spain.

Let me know what you think!!!

I am bilingual. I would be fuming if someone said I could not speak in my mother tongue.
From your post it is clear that “English being spoken” isn’t the issue. Something else has bothered her.

This is totally inaccurate. OPOL works for some children and it doesn't work for others. There is no magic formula for bilingualism, but the most important factors are 1) positive associations with speaking the language and 2) good quality input. Children's 'brains aren't wired' to only speak one language to their parents.

I understand that a lot of people are very ignorant on this topic as they are not bilingual or trilingual and have never experienced this situation. It is very different when it is every day and not just at a family gathering or a party.

I have never come across anybody multilingual who has any issue with someone occasionally speaking a language they do not understand. Especially to their own child!

OP,

You are absolutely reasonable.

My sons have two friends from school from the same family whose mum is Spanish an similarly wanted them raised to have her native language.

I never heard her speak english to her boys, even though she is 100% fluent, when they were younger and in primary school.

They went to her family in Madrid/San Sebastian every summer for holidays, to cement the language.

Fortunately her husbands family were always very supportive and thought how lucky there were.

Do not allow their views to over ride this great opportunity your son has.

OPOL only works if you stick to it. I've been first hand with this experience.

Speak to DS in English and repeat in Catalan/Spanish for Abuela to understand if it's that concerning for her.

I brought up a trilingual child who speaks Catalan, Spanish and English.

Maybe your husband could have a word with his mum and explain again what you're trying to do wrt yr son's language development? Maybe you could all find ways to try to reduce the possible 'rudeness' element? Perhaps you could all get involved in it somehow so no one feels excluded? Or maybe you could host more?

I do agree with pp though that there is something else going on here, so I'd try to get to the bottom of that and find out what a good compromise is. Because people really shouldn't feel awkward in their own home.

I read again my post and didn't express what I meant very well. I met many families like ours where one parent is Irish and the other Spanish, maybe around forty families.
In all cases one parent always speaks English and the other Spanish (at school etc it's all English). All those kids can speak Spanish now, even though it's easier for them to revert to English.
I know only a few families (one the mother is Chinese, another Spanish and another Italian) who speak their child mainly in English and only sometimes and when nobody is present, their mother tong. Their children can only speak English.

I agree. I know a family who live in the UK, have a Swedish father and a Spanish mother. They all speak all three languages and use them interchangeably. It's wonderful to hear. It's a question of persistence, not OPOL. I also know a German guy who predominantly spoke to his son in German. But when we were going in the car together, spoke English to him. It's just good manners.

Maybe in your case the children where older. The op's child is 1.5 years old. Until the child has a grasp of the language 1p1l is the best way to achieve bilingual children as quoted by all the people on the thread with bilingual children. Of course when the child is older this can change.

Rather than persistence, I’d say it’s a question of amount of time spent speaking the language.
What the OPOL does is ensuring that that time isn’t eaten up and that all opportunities for speaking that language is used.
Its also ensuring that speaking that langauge with the child is automatic. Since I’ve stopped always using French with my own dcs, I’ve noticed that I use English because it’s easier for me. After more than 20 years in the U.K., French isn’t always coming that easily to me anymore too. Now it’s dc1 who is telling me to speak French! Lol.

All of those are good enough reasons for me to use the OPOL tbh.

I'd agree with this, OPOL is a good way of ensuring there's enough input. But so many people talk about it like it's a complete necessity and that anyone who doesn't use it is destined to raise monolingual children. That's really not the case. A lot of studies show that positive associations and emotions regarding using a language are much more important factors than whether a parent only uses their native language or not, as long as the input is there.

I'd also argue it's pretty much impossible to ensure 100% OPOL anyway. If I'm in my DPs home country with my boy and my non English nephew, for example, I'll usually end up using the other language to my son at some point, even if it's addressing them both. Again, though it works for a lot of people, OPOL dogma puts unnecessary pressure on parents IMO in a situation that's already quite tense, especially when abuelas start asking why the kid is speaking English 🙄

It depends on how often you see said grand parents and the effect it has both in the parent and on the child.

I know some children who have refused to speak the minority language ‘because you can clearly speak to me in the majority language when X and Y are here’.
Ive even seen it happening with children when what was the majority language became the minority language (following a move for example).

I personally found it easier to always stick to one language than changing depending on who was there. It made it easier with my dcs too. There was never any discussion about the language they should use to speak with me.
Some people like yourself preferred to avoid the pressure on having to stick with it all the time.
I think it’s just preference iyswim and neither are better than the other. But everyone should chose what works for themselves and their child (and their personal circumstances eg how often you can go back to your home country, any cousins to play with etc…)