Feeling sad that my children have different accents and we cannot move back

[Namesnamesnames13]

Does anyone struggle with bringing up children in a different area/country and their children have different accents and feel sad they don’t sound like you?

and wanting to move back but knowing you can’t now ever due to children…

“Those differences are probably more pronounced if for example two British parents move to Spain, and have children, those children will grow up having a Spanish accent.”

No, they would grow up speaking Spanish but their English accent would not sound like a Spanish person speaking English. Their English accent would be either same accent as their parents or shaped by teachers or peers in international English-medium school if they went to one.

I haven’t experienced this but can understand it feeling nice to have commonality with your children. Though I bet there’s lots of other things you do share?

I agree with others that it’s likely the accent bothers you a lot is because you’re unhappy where you are. The accent makes them distinctly ‘of’ that place and maybe makes you feel both nostalgic for home and underlines their roots where you are now.

Is the country you’re in now very far from home? Can you visit more often to feel you can share more of your culture with your kids? I think this is a bigger deal than sharing an accent.

I’d never say never about things like moving, ok maybe not right now but if you can’t shake the feeling as the kids get older you could always move back. Though things could be very different (or disappointingly the same) as when you left.

I'll admit that it was a bit of a shock to 'northern but living in the southeast' me and my DH, when our young children started saying bahth and grahss! But I don't even notice it now.

If your children are very young, and you move, they'll quickly pick up the new accent @Namesnamesnames13

My in-laws are both Irish. They brought up their children in Yorkshire. They have very different accents to their parents. They’ve never mentioned being bothered by it.

My old neighbour is American (Texas…so has a real southern American accent). She met and married a southern English man. After they married, they relocated with work and now live in a ‘proper northern town’, which is where their children were born. They both assumed that the children would have a mix of their southern English/American accents, but no! They have a ‘reet northern accent’. It’s so pronounced that you genuinely wouldn’t believe that they belong to my friend and her husband 😂 The children went to nursery from around 6 months and of course go to the local school…so clearly this is where their their biggest influence has been 🤷‍♀️

I know that my friend’s parents are amused by this accent, but ‘not so secretly’ hopeful that it will change as they grow older. I doubt it will…those northern vowels are strong 😂

No, I'm so pleased my daughter doesn't sound like me. I have a broad Yorkshire accent but we were overseas when my daughter was growing up, in a school with many different accents, so she doesn't really have a particular accent at all.

I just find it amusing that my dc were all born and bred in the west country but they still sound like they come from London like me and their dad. Until my eldest went to uni in the north of England and everyone commented on his west country accent that none of us realised he had.

I'm from Scotland live in London. My kids have English accents. TBH i can't hear them or notice. Both can morph in to Scottish accent with ease . The eldest can take the absolute piss out of me! People here think they sound slightly Scottish, I can't really tell.

my worry and this is DUMB is that they speak with the English accent in the right way! Lol there seems to be a lot more class associations here with accents / words and they won't be learning any of this from us.

My kids have a different accent to me. Doesn’t bother me for a second - it’s very common. Unless you live your life in your hometown it’s almost inevitable.

My niece has the cutest American accent with random English pronunciation for certain words. I love listening to her speak (sister married an American and stayed there so makes sense 😂).

Some accents can be jarring to the ear though, Is it that you don’t like how they sound? Or just that it’s different to your accent?

I think accent is mostly influenced by the people they spend the most time with at school. It seems a bit extreme to move to change an accent. Hopefully they will get their values and influence from you, even if they sound different.

DH is a bit sad our DC don’t have his accent. He’s very proud of where he comes from and was always planning to move back. In fact he was planning to move back the same year we met, but he met me so plans changed.

It doesn’t genuinely bother him, just a bit of a “hmm, I wish they had my accent”.

I think it's good that we don't all sound the same. I get where you're coming from, but I'd worry less about someone's accent and more about how they speak.

It's the broken sentences and the use of some forms of non-standard English, such as "I don't got..." or double negatives like "I don't got no...", that irritate me.

It's fine for young people to talk that way when they're together. But I think they should also be able to switch to more standard English in the workplace or other formal settings. Being able to adapt the way you speak to suit your audience is an important life skill..

Normal immigrant experience. My DH and I are Aussies. Our kids are born and growing up in London and have English accents. My younger D S doesn’t even pronounce the word Australia the way we would “OzStrailya” but says it like the late Queen “Awwwstraaaliar”.

my two lads and their dad have a completely different regional accent. Our accents are poles apart.
It doesn’t bother me in the slightest and never thought to be sad about it.
Ds2 does take the piss a bit when I’ve had a bit to drink and my accent gets exaggerated!

My partner and I are Irish and live in Ireland. His daughters were born and raised in England so obviously have English accents. We don’t even notice they sound different to us, it’s just who they are.

I think it depends on the accent. DC has a very different accent to me and I'm not keen. Not from a snobbish perspective, but the sound.

I’m Scottish, in my home town there were/are definite class associations in dialect. At school in the fifties the kids who used the strongest local dialect were ‘discouraged’. I was brought up speaking more standard Scottish, like my parents. I’ve lived in the North of England for 50+ years, and my Scots origins are still obvious.

DH moved to Scotland from Southern England as a child, and for self preservation, he learnt the accent, but reverted after we moved. He sounds very different to his siblings who stayed. Although his accent is English, it’s not really specific, and he uses rhotic. A linguist could have fun identifying it!

Our DC have broadly Northern accents, but as non locals, they never really picked up the dialect, plus they’ve moved around quite a lot for uni, work etc. They sound more like their dad than me, although the older one can do a fair impression. The DGC sound like their parents.

My children speak a whole other language that I can’t speak nearly as well as them and I definitely have an accent in.
I find it really interesting when they speak English some things they say they sound just like me, sometime like some very well spoken English friends and some like some English friends from the north.
I don’t feel sad that they are not the same as me at all.

OP, everyone's understandably focusing on your question about accents, but really the issue here isn't about accents, it's about missing your home country, possible relationship breakdown, and not being able to move back home due to having young children. All of which sounds very hard ☹️

Are you in another country, or just a different part of the UK? Is your partner from the same place as you?

Why would it make you sad? I think it's lovely.

So without criticising your accent, (!), im in Scotland, and it’s the Glaswegian accent that is making me sad that my kids sound like. I have what people say a “posh” southern England accent and it sounds so different that I think about it all the time with talking with my children cos I sound so different….

I moved home when mine started developing a midlands accent.

Agree with pp that the accent thing is a red herring, and probably what’s actually bothering you is the realisation that once kids start school etc, it’s then difficult to move to another country unless you both really want to. If your DP is from this country and his parents are here, kids just increase the tie. But that feels unfair on you because your family are missing out.

my family member met an Aussie in Oz while she lived there. He came back with her here, and she always said they’d go back. But now with kids and jobs it’s never the right time, so they won’t. It’s tough on her DP. Not least because when his family visit it’s more intense as they’re guests in their house.

I have a north west accent and my parents are North Welsh and southern respectively.

None of us have ever been bothered by it but we're not really 'from' somewhere as a wider family so maybe it's different if you are? Ie if your whole family is born and bred Yorkshire and always has been, it may feel odd to have a child with a Cornish accent.

We live in the South and my child has a Southern accent. Except for some words which come out a bit Mancunian which I find hilarious!

If it's any consolation my Mum is from another country and I have never been able to hear her accent. To me she has the same RP accent that I have. She has lived back in her home country for the past 30 years and I now occasionally hear the odd word. Yet according to everyone else that know her in the UK, including my DH, she has a pronounced accent.

My sister also settled in DM's country. She and I were brought up together in the UK but her children were born in her adoptive country. Like me, my niece cannot hear her Mum's accent. To her she sounds the same as everyone around her, but her Mum's accent is actually the same as mine, it has never changed since she left the UK.