AITA for doing the same thing to my sister-in-law that she does to my son?

A Redditor shares a frustrating experience with her sister-in-law (SIL) over how to handle language development with her young son. While visiting family in England, the user noticed that her SIL had been rudely correcting her son’s mix of English and French instead of gently guiding him.

After a particularly upsetting incident where the SIL ignored the boy’s request for a drink, the user decided to turn the tables by ignoring her SIL when she spoke informally. This led to a tense dinner where the user’s actions prompted outrage from her brother and SIL. Now, the user is left wondering if her response was justified or if she should apologize for stooping to her SIL’s level.

‘ AITA for doing the same thing to my sister-in-law that she does to my son?’

So background: I (32f) have a brother, “Dave” (35m), who’s married to “Sarah” (29f). They don’t have children yet. I have a son who just turned four and a three-month-old daughter with my husband (39m). My husband and I live in Belgium most of the time, but we travel back to visit my family about once a month (in England).

At home, we speak both English and French to our children (my husband is Belgian), and right now, my son is in this very sweet phase where he’ll sometimes mix up the two languages and say a couple of words in English in a French sentence or vice-versa.

This has never posed a problem to us, and even the staff at his nursery have reassured us that it’s very common and they tend to grow out of it once they start at school.
My sister-in-law has decided that this is a problem, so when we’re visiting my parents and she notices my son doing this, she’ll correct him, but she does so really rudely, whereas my husband and I will just gently correct him.

Anyway, we’re visiting at the moment and she’s now decided that instead of correcting him, she’s just going to start ignoring him when he does this. I sort of noticed her doing it when we arrived, and I thought it was odd, but assumed maybe she was just stressed (her job is quite intense), but it only really became an issue yesterday.

My husband was talking to my dad outside and I was feeding my daughter in the other room, and I’d left Louis with Sarah and Dave. When I came back downstairs, Louis was crying, and I managed to understand that he’d tried to ask Sarah for a drink (he has a special cup he uses that he was holding, so it was obvious what he meant) but that she’d just ignored him.

I asked her why and she explained that she wasn’t going to reply to him unless he said the sentence correctly and that I shouldn’t be “ignoring my son’s obvious speech issues.” For context, it’s not that she didn’t know what he wanted. She told me that she understood exactly what he was asking for, but that she was deliberately refusing because he hadn’t asked correctly.

This really pissed me off, but luckily my husband came inside at that moment and pulled me away so we could calm down and settle Louis. That night at the dinner table, Sarah asked me to pass her something, but she said it in “bad” English (she IS English, I just mean that she asked for it in slang. Think, “Pass *us* the peas, will you”.

I had a bit of an epiphany and I just decided to totally ignore her. She asked again, and I did the same thing. My brother asked why I was ignoring his wife and I said that I’m not able to reply if she can’t speak English correctly and that it’s wrong of him to ignore her obvious issues with grammar. Everyone’s pretty pissed off with me and I admit it was incredibly childish, but she was needlessly being a d**khead to my baby.. Should I just apologise?

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

RyNoona −  NTA. You completely passive-aggressively defended your kid against a childish adult. Was it petty? Yes. Was it deserved? Hell yes.

SamSpayedPI −  NTA. I think it was a good way of making your point, actually. Your son is *four*, for Chrissake (I mean, “for Christ’s sake”). Of *course* he’s going to make a few grammatical and pronunciation errors. Gentle correction is the way to go, not ignoring the kid unless and until he gets the sentence right. How does he even *know* what’s right unless the adults in his life tell him?

RLuna911 −  NTA… this is genius and I love it. I speak 3 languages and grew up learning them. At age 3 I interspersed words of all the languages and got my lowest grade ever (in nursery school) because my nursery teacher was like Sarah. Years later this behavior is considered normal of a child becoming fluent in multiple languages and they do sort it out by the time they are school age. What’s Sarah’s excuse? Your reaction was perfection.

Far_Anteater_256 −  NTA. I wouldn’t apologize, given the fact that she refused to help a child & made him cry based on the same logic you’re using (which is actually *her* logic). If she can’t even meet her own standards, she has no business imposing them on a toddler.

BadBandit1970 −  NTA. That was deliciously petty and spiteful. Your SIL is the AH here and deserves to be treated accordingly. Despite your child being bilingual, children that age mix their words up no matter what language they speak.

When our kiddo was 4, she was calling a kid a daycare a “crouton”. When I asked her what she meant, she said it was a word I had used about someone. It took a few minutes, then it dawned a me…she meant “cretin”.

McflyThrowaway01 −  NTA. Tell your sister in law that until she shows you her qualifications in speech therapy, she should keep her opinions to herself on what is normal and what isn’t, especially when she doesn’t speak in perfect grammar in her own native language. That ignoring a 4 year old, refusing to get him a drink, resulting in him crying has now resulted in no unsupervised time with your child because that is borderline a**sive.

[Reddit User] −  NTA, but it’s time to stop inviting Sarah over (and Dave, if he doesn’t see the problem with her behavior). If she insists on correcting your kid when the people who are actually in a position to know have made it clear he’s not doing anything wrong, she doesn’t get to complain about being *completely* ignored.

KissItOnTheMouth −  Speech pathologist here – what your child is doing is called code switching and it’s an extremely common – and normal – stage of language development in bi or multilingual kids. There is absolutely nothing to worry about with this and your son’s code switching does not in any way indicate a “speech problem” like your SIL is claiming.

You are doing the correct thing by being receptive and responding to him in whatever way he communicates. If you do choose to correct him, just resay the sentence back to him all in one language. But keep fostering that it is not “wrong” and keep reinforcing his communication attempts by responding to the meaning normally.. You’re doing a great job – NTA

Logical-Parking-4231 −  NTA. Your son is 4. Even if he only knows one language, it would be understandable if he can’t form correct sentences every time. I have a 14 month old son and I hope I can help him be bilingual like me. If someone does this to him, they’re TA and I’ll treat them as such.

GeekyFreak07 −  I do hope that you will continue to make sure your SIL is speaking correctly in future especially around the children (eg “children auntie said this ….. is that the correct way to say that sentence?”) and when they kids are older that they will also assist their auntie on how to say sentences correctly. After all if she expects such high standards from a 4 year old bilingual child she should be speaking by example at a higher standards as she is much older than they are.

Was the user justified in mirroring her sister-in-law’s behavior to highlight how hurtful it can be, or did she take things too far? How should families handle differing opinions on child-rearing, especially when it comes to language development? Share your thoughts below!