Care & Feeding: I Don't Want My Husband To Teach Our Child Creole

[minoanmiss]

I am currently pregnant. My husband who is American and born to Haitian parents wants to teach our son Haitian Creole. I am apprehensive about this because Creole is not even an official language and it almost seems regressive for our son to learn Creole. The fact is French is the official language of Haiti, but only 5 percent of the population speak French because of limited education of the country. There are three dialects of Creole and my husband doesn’t even know which one he speaks. Additionally, he cannot even read or write in Creole. Creole is not a real language and I feel as though it’s not worth it for him to teach our son. I suggested he teach our son French instead. I’d prefer it over Creole. He says he won’t, and wants to teach him Creole. Am I wrong to think this way? We live in America, and we are both American. I want to focus on teaching our son English and mastering the English language first. What should I do?

—Language Differences

Dear Language Differences,

Why is it so difficult for you to accept that your husband wants to share what he knows about his own culture with your child? What’s at the root of your discomfort with raising a multilingual child? What’s stopping you from teaching your child English and French while your husband teaches him a Creole dialect? What’s driving this (erroneous) preoccupation you have with “real” and “official” language?

I want you to really sit with your answers to these questions. Take some time considering why you’re harboring such strong resistance to your husband imparting lessons on his (and your child’s) shared cultural identity. You married someone Haitian American. Your child, the grandchild of Haitian grandparents, will have and should learn about his Haitian heritage. Get comfortable with that reality.

One of the reasons languages and dialects are lost (or become categorized as “unofficial” by people living outside their lands of origin) is those languages are not passed down from one generation to the next. Their nuances are gradually ceded to the assimilation native speakers have deemed necessary to survive. It’s no coincidence that your husband doesn’t read or write in the Creole dialect he learned. He is trying to prevent what spoken dialect he knows from being lost to his child. He wants to pass down what he and his family have worked hard to retain. There’s nothing at all objectionable about that.

You asked if you’re “wrong to think this way,” and the answer is yes, Language Differences. Your attitude in this letter reads as not just wrong but xenophobic and racist. Despite that, I do hope you’re all able to reach an agreement on this issue that works in the best interests of your child.

—Stacia

Comments

[cimorene]

I weep for children like this. And I hope the LW listens, but they might not. Most people don't know linguistics or childhood development. The fact is that there are no downsides to learning more languages, but racist, nationalistic and xenophobic junk science was pushed on people as propaganda for decades causing so many parents to raise their children without their native languages, thinking they were doing what was best for them, and causing a lot of grief for second generation immigrants all over the world. This notion of "pure" or "official" or "legitimate" languages and varieties is unfortunately a common sort of poison spread in colonized and conquered nations, and in the US, where prescriptivism and ignorant pronouncements often still equate non standard dialects with lack of fluency.

My wife had a coworker who shared only 1 language with her husband that neither was fluent in and it's all they were speaking to their toddler, and that's a surprisingly common occurrence in the world, considering the evidence of bi- (tri-, etc) lingualism has been clearly available at least in many parts of the world for, no doubt, all of recorded history.