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 mum and dad are Northern Irish, me and my sister grew up down south and my kids have been brought up in Merseyside! We have a right mixture and it’s great, they love laughing at my southern accent and we all do a good job of broad Belfast too!!

You joke about shuddering when you hear one but I feel like a bit like people think that when I speak when I call my child in public etc and feel sad I’m not at “home home”. I don’t get to take my kids to places I went every day, my partner does. It feels unfamiliar to me and less like family that places I went and the chat etc. I guess I do just want to go hone even though I’ve been here 10 years I still feel very English and the odd one out, especially when people say you’re not from around here etc…

I don’t get to take my kids to places I went every day, my partner does. It feels unfamiliar to me and less like family that places I went and the chat etc.

I have some sympathy for that and locations sometime had to really push to get to them and few never managed.

We've never really lived where DH grew up - though had long stop between houses and kids go up every year at least once or twice. So they hear the stories and see the locations. Thing is though they make new memories at those locations and if your part of those it all helps.

The issue for me less location more my own family and lack of interest. There's even a few non valauble items fully of family history promised me - have one and family have tried to take from me - and another a family bible - got told no-one to pass it on to as no-one interested in history - literally have a child studying a histroy related subject at uni . I can't change it though - so I tell the stories and I try to get to the locations as part of family vists.

I agree that there absolutely are class associations with accent in Scotland, and there is also an important dividing line between dialect and bad grammar. My own background is interesting because my SNP Granny came from a very poor mining family but went to the equivalent of a grammar school in the 1930s where she was taught to “speak nicely” and she even sent my Dad to elocution lessons in the 50s. Neither of them was coached to sound English but they were both very very strict about enunciation and grammar. My Gran was an elected SNP councillor and magistrate in the 80s. And my Dad went on to be a radio newsreader (on Radio Clyde if anyone knows it)!

When I was growing up, I was surrounded by people at school who had exactly the same accent as me but used grammar like “I seen him cross the road” or “Youse have did that wrong” or “I done it yesterday”. That was never something I picked up as it was clearly explained to me at home that it was incorrect. My other Granny, from a similar socio-economic background to the SNP one, talked like that and I have a feeling that my Mum “poshed up” her grammar a bit when she met my Dad.

However, all of us used all sorts of dialect words, particularly my SNP Granny.

And a final twist in the tale- I went to university in England and met a girl with what sounded to me like an English accent (no trace of the rhotic “r”). She told me she was from Edinburgh and I asked when she had moved there from England. She said her family had lived there for generations! I had grown up being called “posh” and a “snob” at school but it turns out that there was a whole other class of REALLY posh Scottish people who lived less than an hour from my town and all sounded like English people 🤣.

Ah, just saw this. Take a look at my last post, move to Edinburgh and if you can stretch the finances to private school you’ll be sorted!

Strong Glaswegian can have a lot of challenging features- bad grammar, talking very fast and not enunciating. But a good education should sort that out (and I was joking about the private school, teachers in Scottish state schools should promote speaking in a more neutral Scottish way. Think about Nicola Sturgeon, for example.)

Oh, also OP- there are a lot of very small-minded Scottish people who hate the English and use “posh” as a lazy insult for any English accent.

I was born in the north of England, married a man from Ireland. We lived for a time in the south of England and our DC were born there. We made the move to Ireland when the DC were in the early school years. The DC had 'naice' southern English accents picked up from local friends and preschool, but thanks to mixing with their Irish cousins and starting school they were speaking like locals within a few weeks of the move. To be honest, I much prefer them having Irish accents as they sound like their dad and they blend in here. The slightly posh southern English accents they'd picked up in the home counties didn't sound like either DH or me. They have a particularly nice, soft Irish accent too.

Just saw your comment about people saying “You’re not from round here”. I think that might be a bit tricky as it could either be a question disguised as a “go home English” barb or it could be genuine chattiness and curiosity about your origins from someone who is very happy that you are there.

(oh and the latter may well be an SNP voter, anti-Englishness and SNP affiliation do not go hand-in-hand)

Yeah and the recent football stuff hasn’t helped.

My husband and I are Americans but we immigrated to Scotland 20 years ago and our kids were born here. It’s a bit unsettling sometimes for sure. I think more about traditions and food and such - their comfort foods and schooling and all sorts of things are very different to how we grew up. We are in it together though which makes a huge difference.

Amusingly my daughter now has two accents - one for her family and a much more Scottish one for school. She switches back and forth instinctively

OK, I'll bite. 'Midlands accent' is like saying 'Northern accent'. There are about 20!

I find it nice to have a range of accents, but notice the boys in my family (talking whole extended family so quite a few) seem to keep their original accents longer than the girls. Wonder why? I've been told girls are generally more mature/get speech skills earlier, but I don't know.

Strong Glaswegian can have a lot of challenging features- bad grammar, talking very fast and not enunciating
Rather than 'bad grammar', forms considered 'wrong' in Standard English terms are often a relic of other language(s).

When we moved back to London after many years abroad it took presicely ond day at a sports camp for DC to acquire perfect South London accents. Children adapt!

Oh, absolutely! Some of which I like very much. And I’m not from the UK, anyway, so it was probably as much ‘Do I want my child to grow up somewhere deeply Brexitty and where there’s boggling prejudice towards our nationality?” as it was about accent. Though it was godawful.

Are you trying to tell me that “I seen it” and “I done it” are Gaelic? Awa and bile yer heid.

I hope you're joking with the Edinburgh suggestion? I take great offence to that. Our dialects in Scotland (and the UK) are rich & wonderful, & don't need to be ironed out to be psuedo-RP.

English teacher here, who encourages all the pupils in the East End of Glasgow to embrace their dialect- speak it, write it, love it- and also models clear, grammatically correct English so they can also speak it, write it, love it, & be able to switch registers in life whenever they need to. It's not about erasing your heritage, it's about embracing it.

I love an accent: half my family are in Devon/Cornwall, some in Donegal, DS1's gf is a Geordie, his flat-mate's a Liverpudlian, and hands down the sexiest accent on the planet on a man is a Belfast one.

10 years is a long time to still feel this way. DS1's gf has been here 4 years for uni & loves it. His flatmate is also keen to stay. I think there are other issues perhaps?

I, for one, have never really taken my children to all the places I went as a child. Some, yes, but it's not been a real driver for me. Perhaps it's because I moved to the city & forged new friends & found new places. DP grew up in a different area, so again not really a driver for him. You seem to be very connected to where you are from. That's okay, some people very much are, so maybe you need to find ways to reconnect- either long/ frequent holidays, or consider moving back. It's much easier when the kids are younger. You sound sad, & that's a shame.

PS Any chance of another family member joining you? My bestie from work is American (Scottish husband), been here 20+ years, & it's great for her as her sister made the move over 8 years after she did.

I think I was very clear that I have always embraced dialect and also speak clear, grammatically correct English with a very pronounced Scottish accent.

As for the Edinburgh private school comment, it’s based on my direct observation of my University friend and her St George’s schoolmates who all speak with no rhotic “r” and sound more English than Scottish to me. They even did A levels not Highers!

I was only offering a solution to OP’s statement that she preferred “Southern” accents but had to live in Scotland, not sure why that offends you?

You’re focusing on something that is just not a problem- at least as far as I’m concerned. My family have moved around a lot over the generations. I had a Welsh great grandfather who settled in Scotland. His son, my Grandfather, had a life- long Ayrshire accent so would have sounded nothing like his own father. He moved to Wirral and his DC sounded nothing like him. DH and I were brought up in Sheffield, He does sound like PIL, but I didn’t sound like my DM. My two were born in Liverpool and although not broad Scouse, again, they don’t sound like us.

This is part of the rich tapestry of life when people travel and settle in different places. No one in my family has ever thought it strange.

I’m sorry that you’re not happy where you are. Can you at least visit your home more? DH are regularly back in our home town and likely to be there more once DS18 has left home.

Well, Gaelic has no exact equivalent of the verb ‘to have’.

It was merely in response to the implication that an Edinburgh accent is somehow 'better', but from your response here you didn't mean that.

I also don't think it's as easy as just move to Edinburgh & privately school your children really 🤷.

OP seems upset, which is sad.

You could have it worse. My son has a strong American accent and speaks at standard US volume.
(I love his accent, because it is him, of course, but miss the days before he began nursery when he had my accent. The volume, however, I am constantly asking him to use his "inside voice").
I did try to coach him to say water with a T, rather than water with a D in the middle, but that entirely failed.

This is making me remember being in a bar in New Jersey in the 90s with a fascinated bunch of people asking me to say ‘water’.😀