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…

My child is of mixed Indian-EE heritage, he looks like dad, but having grown up in North London in vibrant immigrant community, and being bilingual himself, his English accent is not PR. When we moved to the countryside, he went to the local village primary and local kids could not identify his accent, so they asked him if he was American, and he said he is Polish and loves Lewandowski. They all believed him, lol.

My accent suits a comedian more than an academic. I know it’s other people’s problem if they don’t like it but it’s easier to have a neutral voice.

The answer is more academics speaking with regional accents.

I wonder if what hurts is knowing that for your children, it wouldn’t be moving back, it would be moving away. Their accents perhaps increase your sense of not belonging? It’s hard, I know. I’ve known people who move between north and south because each half of the couple comes from opposite ends of the earth. There’s no solution that doesn’t cause some pain unfortunately

You may find as they get older one or other may actually sound like you, one of my DD’s sounds like me, one like her dad despite living in a third place! In fact the one that didn’t sound like me is sounding more like me as she gets older (adult now) and moved south

I don't see why this is an issue. I love a Glasgow accent personally (although I do know you're saying you're not against that accent particularly).
My sister and I don't sound that similar as we grew up years apart and have lived in different places etc. My mum doesn't sound like her sister. My dad doesn't sound like his siblings. I don't sound much like either parent. I've loads of friends who don't sound like their parents or siblings.

I live in London now and there's a different accent every five paces
I like a variety of accents; I think it maps how interesting and varied people's lives are.

D lives in America, her h and c have American accents but she still has her English one after 7 years. Her h loves it she jokes it's like living with the queen.😀Where they are living there are very few English peeps so she draws a degree of interest.

I don't really have area I grew up accent more no accent/RP - apparently not unknown with ND people. DH accent now broaded that parents and people who still live in his area.

My Dad and DGP would when it was just them slip back into black country speak - different to usual cadence. DC have lived in several locations in UK - some words can sound vaugley welsh mostly still sound english despite 10 years with local accent - would also say they didn't have previous area local accent either.

Regional accents vary so widly in UK most don't bat an eyelid - I supposed a very different country accents could be more obvious but cousins and their kids and emigrating grandparents don't seem to mind.

He is such a poser, still fighting, somebody needs to tell him it is over, that war is over.😆

@Namesnamesnames13 , my mother was from a tiny village not far from the tiny village I grew up in. Because the area is rural, she went to a school in a different county to the one I went to. Our accents are different (think Merseyside not Greater Manchester kind of different).
You'd know instantly that we are mother and daughter because our voices are similar.

Your children will pick up words, phrases and intonation from you.

Even if you lived where you grew up, they'd probably sound a little bit different.

Yeah, chip on his shoulder or what. What did he expect? And I do wonder if he and his wife sent them to a private or posh state school too.

Also, first to line up to meet the King at premiers - why? To stand in front of the photographers, with his hands in his pockets - apparently some form of 100-year old political protest, they say. Same revolutionary as Peter Mullan - his children are at a private school in Glasgow, but Mullan is 'gonnae no dae that and down with privilege'!

Saw him doing that with Harry. God love the pair of them, I'm not sure Cillian realised that Harry is almost certainly too dim to have noticed or to be aware of why it's a political gesture

Sorry, this is what I meant - I don't know why I wrote King Charles, it was meeting Harry, mixed them up.

I don’t sound like either of my parents. DM is very distinct London/cockneyish, DF is Scottish. I was born, raised and educated in the South and have a very RP accent.

Oh, I presumed he did it to every royal

Why on earth does it matter? My parents and I all have different accents, my DH has a totally different one again 🤷‍♀️

I'm married to an expat, we lived in his country when they were little and the kids sounded like him initially, we live in the UK where I grew up at the moment (have done since they started school) and the kids sound near enough like I do, they lost their accents very quickly. They are tweens/teens now, so not sure how much it would change if we moved back now. There are kids from the US in the youngest's year at school and they still sound American having been here 3 years. It doesn't really bother me either way.

We’ve moved around over the years and our kids have different accents from each other, let alone from the people in the area. They tend to pick up the accent if they do the first part of primary school in a place. We’ve only had one instance where ours was picked on for sounding different, but he picked up the new accent very quickly and it stopped. It has never bothered me or them, but it sounds like this is more about homesickness for you, and I very much get that. We are now fixed in one place due to the ages and points of our kids’ education, and it is really hard when your heart belongs to somewhere else. You have to try and make the best of it, and hold out for ‘someday’.

My autistic DC 'imprinted' on their reception teacher and quickly learnt to emulate this (very lovely) teacher's dialect. Ten years later, she still speaks like it and doesn't sound a bit like either me or DP. Wild.

Gosh OP, you 'prefer' a southern accent? I, on the other hand, visibly shudder when I hear one.

Obviously not, because that would be ridiculous. I live in Glasgow, & there's not really a standard Glasgow accent: do you live in Easterhouse or Dowanhill, Bearsden or Drumchapel? Because they're WORLDS apart!!

I grew up just outside Glasgow & my 3 DC in Glasgow & we all have very nice accents. We do speak quite quickly, as is common, but have perfectly lovely accents. Is it all Scottish accents you have an aversion to? Invernesian has been crowned the 'purest' English in the UK, for example.

Glasgow is a fantastic city with so much to offer- culture, fashion, architecture, entertainment, access to outstanding nature- or so DS1's English flatmates/gf who all chose to be at university here say. I suggest you focus on that, & giving your DC all the best opportunities you can. I'm presently in the stunning Highlands, a mere 2.5 hours' drive away.

That's really interesting. I had two autistic undergraduates in separate year groups a few years ago who both spoke with strong American accents, despite not being American. I remember asking them both in one on ones at some point if they'd lived in the US or had an American parent. It was only when I actually Googled it, puzzled, that I found it it can be an autistic trait.

We do speak quite quickly, as is common

I speak quickly. Everyone where I'm from speaks quickly. The rest of the world is just going to have to keep up.