Wife speaking her native language to our kids and I feel alienated

ShamNNspace · 01-10-2020 12:37PM

My opinion, Im older but was in the same boat. From what I see your wife has already made a great sacrifice to opt to live in a country in which the first language is not hers, she has done this for Love and I believe its a small thing to let her speak her language with her children, after all how great it will be in years to come when your children can converse freely with their cousins, granny etc when they go over on holidays, its lovely to see and imv you should aim to improve your own language skills, you have a great chance as you can learn alongside your own children. I think we sometimes forget the sacrifices people make to uproot and make their lives in a society which doesn't communicate in their own language. It can be lonely sometimes no matter how proficient one is in a second language.. I know this from my own life experience. Imv this is not a problem but an opportunity, a great one and you should embrace it you will be happier for it..... My tuppence worth

keano25 · 01-10-2020 12:44PM

Don't worry about it, encourage it.

There's two kids who are friends on our road who's parents are from Lithuania. I often here them speaking, for example Girl A "bla bla bla" saying something in Lithuanian, girl B answering her in English "ya I know"

I think it's fantastic when I hear them, I would love if my kids could speak 2 languages at 10 years of age.

English will take over once they start attending school and everyday life in Ireland.

Tork · 01-10-2020 01:06PM

Do you distrust your wife or think she might want to move back home, by any chance?

sammyjo90 · 01-10-2020 01:27PM

ShamNNspace wrote: »

My opinion, Im older but was in the same boat. From what I see your wife has already made a great sacrifice to opt to live in a country in which the first language is not hers, she has done this for Love and I believe its a small thing to let her speak her language with her children, after all how great it will be in years to come when your children can converse freely with their cousins, granny etc when they go over on holidays, its lovely to see and imv you should aim to improve your own language skills, you have a great chance as you can learn alongside your own children. I think we sometimes forget the sacrifices people make to uproot and make their lives in a society which doesn't communicate in their own language. It can be lonely sometimes no matter how proficient one is in a second language.. I know this from my own life experience. Imv this is not a problem but an opportunity, a great one and you should embrace it you will be happier for it..... My tuppence worth

She did not uproot her life for him and stay in this country for love. It says in the OP she has lived here for many years and so does her family.

ShaShaBear · 01-10-2020 01:28PM

I would definitely back down and re-evaluate, OP. Unless you are actually concerned about the "what" your wife is communicating to them (as opposed to the "how"), there are simply nothing but heaps and heaps of benefits!

Myself and my husband are Irish with only English as a language. We put both our girls into the local Irish school purely to at least attempt to reap some of the rewards of being bilingual (even though I know they won't get the use out of Irish that they might out of French, Polish, Japanese etc). I had a horrific experience with the Irish language in school and wanted better for my kids. They (6 and almost 5) can converse entirely with each other in Irish and will switch on a sixpence to English when speaking to us. When they hit Secondary School, Irish will be easy-peasy and a guaranteed good result in exams, and hopefully the mastering of a second language (and a subject that they don't need to work hard at) will mean they can take a third language that will be easier!

Thelonious Monk · 01-10-2020 02:06PM

:pac:

ShaShaBear wrote: »

I would definitely back down and re-evaluate, OP. Unless you are actually concerned about the "what" your wife is communicating to them (as opposed to the "how"), there are simply nothing but heaps and heaps of benefits!

Myself and my husband are Irish with only English as a language. We put both our girls into the local Irish school purely to at least attempt to reap some of the rewards of being bilingual (even though I know they won't get the use out of Irish that they might out of French, Polish, Japanese etc). I had a horrific experience with the Irish language in school and wanted better for my kids. They (6 and almost 5) can converse entirely with each other in Irish and will switch on a sixpence to English when speaking to us. When they hit Secondary School, Irish will be easy-peasy and a guaranteed good result in exams, and hopefully the mastering of a second language (and a subject that they don't need to work hard at) will mean they can take a third language that will be easier!

Yes I went to an Irish school and was fluent back in the day, it really makes languages easier to learn as you get older as you have this innate understanding of language and how it works.
The OP's kids are lucky that they'll be bilingual.

bobbyy gee · 01-10-2020 02:09PM

Learn the language as well

ShamNNspace · 01-10-2020 02:12PM

sammyjo90 wrote: »

She did not uproot her life for him and stay in this country for love. It says in the OP she has lived here for many years and so does her family.

I probably should have worded it better but what I said was she opted to stay here and make her life here, up to that point the option was there to return. While her immediate family may be here I doubt her extended family all live here

Thelonious Monk · 01-10-2020 02:29PM

bobbyy gee wrote: »

Learn the language as well

Asking someone to learn Polish at that stage in his life is too much

LegacyUser · 01-10-2020 02:50PM

Amazing for your kids to have two languages already, it will only benefit them in the long term.

Your wife may live here and speak English but she wants her kids to know and love her culture as well as their Irish culture. If her family don't speak English as well as her I can understand her wanting the kids to learn the language and also if you go visit her country in the future or your kids go when they are older its nice for them to know the language and have a connection to the country. I wish more Irish people felt the same about learning Irish. Have you considered learning the language yourself OP? Even just some basic words so you can chat to your in-laws more? I get feeling left out but there are going to be activities you do in Ireland as the kids grow that your wife won't have grown up with as a child that she might feel she can't connect to and you will find that you share different things with your kids. My mum use to get annoyed at me and my dad laughing over jokes we made up together that she didn't get

My friend is German and married to Pole living in Ireland and he has a child from another relationship with a Danish girl so couple that with speaking English and going to a Gealscoil his kids are speaking so many languages it would make your head spin.

sammyjo90 · 01-10-2020 02:51PM

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Asking someone to learn Polish at that stage in his life is too much

And he has tried! I tried a few years ago and got absolutely nowhere and I was great at language in school.

As i said before..if the OP is feeling left out of conversation with his kids as a whole family i think he is perfectly ok to raise it with his wife.
He shouldnt stop them learning it but i think it's unfair of his wife to expect the kids to talk in a language around him he cant understand.
Would people be ok if everytime your whole family sits down to dinner you can't understand anyone?

strandroad · 01-10-2020 03:29PM

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Asking someone to learn Polish at that stage in his life is too much

He's going to miss out on half of his childrens' lives if he doesn't!

TheBlackPill · 01-10-2020 03:40PM

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Asking someone to learn Polish at that stage in his life is too much

would love to read and appreciate Stanislaw Lem in the mother tongue. Translations are excellent

Thelonious Monk · 01-10-2020 03:40PM

strandroad wrote: »

He's going to miss out on half of his childrens' lives if he doesn't!

He's not, and no one ever learns Polish, and even if he did learn it it would take probably 5 or 10 years to speak it properly.
Europeans are immersed in English from a very young age nowadays, all popular culture is in English, for an English speaker to learn Polish properly would be very unheard of, it's nigh impossible without dedicating yourself totally. This is coming from someone who has been learning Spanish on and off for about 15 years and I would still only have a basic enough level of speaking and understanding.

screamer · 01-10-2020 03:45PM

strandroad wrote: »

He's going to miss out on half of his childrens' lives if he doesn't!

Oh what bull, he’ll only miss out if this mammy only speaks in her language, daddy only speaks in his. OP I think everyone is full of ideals in this thread, but really I don’t think it’s the language spoken but the fact that you feel excluded. That’s not right and it’s not sustainable or justifiable just so the kids are bi-lingual. There definitely needs to be some rules around what language is spoken when at home, nothing is worth feeling alienated in your own home over.

Dial Hard · 01-10-2020 03:51PM

screamer wrote: »

There definitely needs to be some rules around what language is spoken when at home, nothing is worth feeling alienated in your own home over.

If I was living in a foreign country, married to someone from that country and raising kids in that country and my partner tried to implement 'rules' about speaking my native tongue to my children at home, I would be having serious words with them about their misplaced sense of entitlement.

sammyjo90 · 01-10-2020 04:22PM

Dial Hard wrote: »

If I was living in a foreign country, married to someone from that country and raising kids in that country and my partner tried to implement 'rules' about speaking my native tongue to my children at home, I would be having serious words with them about their misplaced sense of entitlement.

I wouldnt call it a rule as such. A compromise at best.

Every time his child speaks to him now she replies in another language that he cant understand. He essentially is left out of all conversations when they are all together as a family. I dont see how asking for him to be included in conversations is asking for too much. Would you not want to bond with your kids as a whole unit? Not just when the other parent isnt there?

CelticRambler · 01-10-2020 05:39PM

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Asking someone to learn Polish at that stage in his life is too much

How old is too old? :eek: The biggest impediment to learning another language is attitude and lack of opportunity to hear and speak it in daily life. This is the main reason why the continentals have so much of an advantage in learning English compared to those reared in an anglophone country - they can access spoken and written English so much more easily in even remote parts of their countries than someone in Cork or Dublin can tune in to [insert any foreign language here]

@OP : I understand your position, having been the other parent in that situation. In our case, it wasn't the fact that the children's mother and I spoke different languages - we're both native English speakers - but we moved to France, the children rapidly took their very limited vocab to new levels, and me being the competitive parent refused to let them overtake me, so we were all speaking French to each other ... except for MrsCR, who just couldn't get into it and felt excluded from what I was doing with the children.

There is, however, only one way for you to resolve this constructively, and that's the one that's been pointed out by so many other posters: improve your own understanding of the language. Use the children's books, get your wife to explain the sentences to you in exactly the same way that she teaches the children. Don't try to learn it, just use it - mistakes and all - and take advantage of the presence of three native speakers in the house to tune your ear to the sounds of the words and phrases.

MissShihTzu · 01-10-2020 05:40PM

I do understand, OP. But this will be beneficial to your children. Why deny them the opportunity to learn another language? And who better to teach them than Mum??

My godson's a good case in point. He's English with a French dad. His grandfather is Greek Cypriot. Guess what? We spoke to him in English, his father in French and his Grandad in Greek. He was a bit slow to speak as he understood all three but couldn't really communicate in any of them.

The result? Bi-lingual in French and English. Good working knowledge of Greek. It's really helped his job prospects. The same with his brother too!

I'd let it go, OP. Oh - and get a decent language course and practice speaking the language with your wife. Get the kids involved too - It'll be fun for all of you!

01-10-2020 05:44PM

NewFatherHere wrote: »

Hello Good People,

I know I should be speaking with my Wife about these things rather than posting about it online but I needed to get my thoughts down on paper first and perhaps get some advice and perspective, which would be greatly appriciated.

My ( late twenties ) wife ( early twenties ) of 3 years and I have two girls together, a 3 year old and a newborn. I am Irish, she is from eastern Europe.

It was a whirlwind romance. Married after barely two years, first kid after 3 and now another. I have always wanted a Family and couldn't be happier on that front, becoming and being a Husband and Father is the best thing to every happen to me.

Naturally I always understood that my Wife's native language is not English. However, she has lived here a lof of her life so is completely fluent in English. Her family live here too. She always speaks her native language around them though as they still struggle with it.

My issue ? ( I hate using the word issue ); She speaks her native language to both our kids constantly. Not just a little bit, it's the entire time. I feel alienated and an outsider as a Parent when she does this. I have no idea what shes saying or what they are saying back. In principle and back in the early days I was thinking this would be great, my kids learning two languages natively growing up. They are like sponges at this age. Fast forward 3 years and my Daughter answers me in her Mothers native language even if I speak in English to her. I have made every effort to learn the language and can understand some sentences and most words but it's not an easy language to learn. I have been as opened minded and patient as possible. Put myself in her shoes. Understanding she wants to maintain her heritage with our kids, I am totally ok with that but I had hoped we'd take a hybrid approach. 50/50. That's not the case.

I talk to my kids in English all of the time. I read them Bed time stories, she reads them stories in her language. They call out for the books in my wifes language more than they do with English which then means she's reading to them more.

I just feel a little lost and not entirely included in the parenting of my girls.

I have brought it up a few times, she says she'll try speak English more but it never lasts. I have not brought it up too often because I honestly feel like an ass.

Advice welcomed, thank you

Eldest will be in school in two years and it will be the reverse

01-10-2020 06:48PM

Folks are getting carried away here. Its pretty simple, daddy speaks to everyone in English, mammy speaks to children in Polish, a group conversation during dinner for example is in English as that is the language they all speak.

Its not a rule, its just a bit of common sense. Maybe some Polish comes out from mammy directly to a child but is that a big deal? I dont understand all the Spanish that pops out during dinner but its good for me as well to hear the simple words that kids use.

Dial Hard · 01-10-2020 06:55PM

I'm also quite curious as to what kind of edifying dinner conversation the OP seems to be expecting from a 3-year-old and a newborn.

This is a complete non-issue. The 3-year-old could flip to 100% English tomorrow according to the well-documented vagaries of a toddler's will and the newborn is, well, a newborn.

Anyway. I suspect this will be one of those threads where the OP is never heard from again.

LegacyUser · 01-10-2020 07:10PM

Dial Hard wrote: »

Anyway. I suspect this will be one of those threads where the OP is never heard from again.

I’m here, reading the mostly-helpful replies which offer me some good learning points and perspective, of which your post is not one of them. Thanks for your input nonetheless. Perhaps you missed the point of my post. It’s not the lack of content of the conversations that I have with my toddler it’s the fact that I feel left out as my wife parents our children in her native language. I don’t feel like a part of the team, I feel like an outsider.

Do I need to get over myself here ? Very possibly. The post has helped me see things from the outside and from people not so personally close to things as I am.

lainey_d_123 · 01-10-2020 08:21PM

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

He's not, and no one ever learns Polish, and even if he did learn it it would take probably 5 or 10 years to speak it properly.
Europeans are immersed in English from a very young age nowadays, all popular culture is in English, for an English speaker to learn Polish properly would be very unheard of, it's nigh impossible without dedicating yourself totally. This is coming from someone who has been learning Spanish on and off for about 15 years and I would still only have a basic enough level of speaking and understanding.

You would be very unusual in only having a basic level of speaking and understanding of Spanish after 15 years of learning. Most people would be fairly proficient after about a year or two of study if they were focused and motivated. Polish is obviously much harder to learn but having a wife who is a native speaker is a massive advantage. Most people struggle to learn languages because they don't have anyone to practise with - he has someone right there at home! And presumably all her family and probably friends too.

He could have an alright level (enough to understand the gist of conversations with young children) within a year if he were really motivated to try hard, and what better motivation than to be able to understand your own children?! I have to say I struggle to understand people who marry and have kids with people without even trying to learn their language.

It's not as if they're sitting talking about astrophysics around the dinner table...what would they be saying? 'Mammy, I don't like this', 'Mammy, I need a fork', 'This is tasty', 'Eat all your food!', 'Stop messing'. It's hardly difficult to learn this sort of everyday vocabulary (which tends to be extremely limited with such young children) and it's a bit weird that OP hasn't even tried. Would you not have the curiosity to ask 'what was that word she just said back to you? 'Ziemniak'? What's that in English?' instead of having the attitude that foreign words are just too hard?

LegacyUser · 01-10-2020 09:41PM

The man feels excluded from his own family by another language being the dominant language of the home. That's not acceptable. For a family to work, both parents need to feel included. Loneliness and isolation for one will result otherwise. Separate lives will emerge. We know where that's going. This emotional issue of loneliness is patently the issue here so all the fine sentiments about multilingualism are academic. The man has a natural need to feel part of his own family unit.

That said, this is transparently a passing phase - once the kids are in school they'll be coming back with more English and more desire to improve it. This is obviously where you'll be back in favour. Presumably your wife is conscious of this impending linguistic challenge and wants to build their foundation up in her language now. That, too, is understandable and reasonable.

In the meantime, 90% of communication is non-verbal and your kids badly need a dad/hugs/love/kindness so just continue talking to them in English and if they answer you in the other language they can't get what they want, etc. They'll soon stop responding to you in that language. Meanwhile, sit down with herself and explain, respectfully, how you feel isolated and you will both come up with a better understanding and modus operandi based on love.

Thelonious Monk · 01-10-2020 09:59PM

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

You would be very unusual in only having a basic level of speaking and understanding of Spanish after 15 years of learning

it's self learning and I don't get to speak it that often, I'd have a large vocabulary but I rarely get to practice talking with people. I could certainly partake in the conversations the OP is talking about but I wouldn't be able to speak fluently. I don't know anyone who is proficient after a year or two in any language, or maybe I have high standards!
Anyway Spanish is a totally different ball game to Polish, which would be far more difficult.
But you're right a basic understanding wouldn't be too hard to get to grips with.
If DuoLingo does Polish, that's where I'd start OP, it's fun and a really excellent free app.

01-10-2020 10:05PM

lainey_d_123 wrote: »

You would be very unusual in only having a basic level of speaking and understanding of Spanish after 15 years of learning. Most people would be fairly proficient after about a year or two of study if they were focused and motivated. Polish is obviously much harder to learn but having a wife who is a native speaker is a massive advantage. Most people struggle to learn languages because they don't have anyone to practise with - he has someone right there at home! And presumably all her family and probably friends too.

He could have an alright level (enough to understand the gist of conversations with young children) within a year if he were really motivated to try hard, and what better motivation than to be able to understand your own children?! I have to say I struggle to understand people who marry and have kids with people without even trying to learn their language.

It's not as if they're sitting talking about astrophysics around the dinner table...what would they be saying? 'Mammy, I don't like this', 'Mammy, I need a fork', 'This is tasty', 'Eat all your food!', 'Stop messing'. It's hardly difficult to learn this sort of everyday vocabulary (which tends to be extremely limited with such young children) and it's a bit weird that OP hasn't even tried. Would you not have the curiosity to ask 'what was that word she just said back to you? 'Ziemniak'? What's that in English?' instead of having the attitude that foreign words are just too hard?

I have a degree in art. Sit down and I will do your portrait. A pretty dang good job I will do to.

Does that mean everyone can learn to paint portraits? No, because it's a skill and it requires natural talent.

Languages, maths, physics............... They are all skills that can be built on but an aptitude for the topic must exist.

Edit to clarify, I'm not arguing against trying. I agree on that but my inability to speak Spanish is most certainly not as a result of a lack of desire or effort. It sucks being out of the loop.

01-10-2020 10:07PM

Did the op close his account?

LegacyUser · 01-10-2020 10:14PM

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Did the op close his account?

Nope, I just posted anonymously.

Airyfairy12 · 01-10-2020 11:20PM

Can you learn the language? Duolingo is a great source for learning languages, your wife can help you along and it might be a good idea to look up language courses.
English is one of the hardest languages to learn, if your wife can learn English surely you can learn her language.

Wife speaking her native language to our kids and I feel alienated

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