The monolingual family problem

In our own little pleasant bubble at home being bilingual, and learning a third language, isn’t a problem. Within the family we have reached an agreement without really ever discussing it, that speaking Norwegian and English works for us. We don’t have a strict OPOL deal, seeing as none of us are native speakers, although I speak a lot of English with the kids and DH speaks mainly Norwegian but will also speak some English when it feels natural. In fact whenever someone speaks English around him he tends to just flip over without thinking about it. In our world there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it is normal. If no-one ever spoke a different language it would seem strange.

In addition to our two main languages there is now also Spanish. We are still at a stage where it is more of a hobby. We are learning together. I will admit that the whole thing was my idea, and still it is I who is the most motivated and who is racing ahead. Still, I meant to share this with the children in particular, and I didn’t even (wrong as it may be) ask my husband what he thought of it. He just came home from work to a house full of Spanish labels and a wife who would ask his children what they wanted for breakfast in Spanish. He didn’t make a fuss. Maybe he thought it would blow over. Maybe he was genuinely interested to see where this would take us. He did make it clear, however, that he had no intention of learning Spanish. I said fine. A month later I asked him a few questions:

Me: How do you say kitchen in Spanish?
Him: Cocina
Me: And living room?
Him: Sala. (pause) Taza is toilet because I’m always staring at that label. Is lavabo soap or sink?
Me: Sink… Soap is jabón.
Him: Oh, I see. It’s just the label was next to the soap and I thought the drawing on it was a soap dispenser.

So much for not learning Spanish! And apparently I teach Spanish (even subliminally) better than I draw. The point is that at our house it’s normal to play around with languages, learning new ones and using them. The problems lie with the extended family.

My family might think I’m slightly weird for raising the children bilingually, but they are very supportive of the idea of sending them to English immersion school. - Now as for the other side... not so much. But there is a good reason for this. My husband’s parents do not speak English, while mine do. They can read a few words but they are not able to read a longer text or follow a conversation, let alone be part of one. We were visiting them over the half term break and I/we got told off for speaking English. It was not so much a “would you please refrain from speaking a language I don’t understand” as an accusation that we no longer knew how to talk Norwegian.

I kind of understand how it could come across a bit rude to speak in a language my MIL didn’t understand but at the same time this conversation, between me and Christi, took place in a different room when she just happened to walk in. I wouldn’t sit down in front of them and chatter away in English, although if the kids ask me a question in English I will usually answer back in English before switching to Norwegian. To me this is just how we speak in our family, but to them it is akin to an insult, something we do deliberately to keep them in the dark. I don’t quite know what to do about this now. I would like to just keep doing it like we do it at home, but curtailing it a bit during meal times when we are all together. Or we could simply speak Norwegian for the whole time while we are here. It’s not like the kids will forget English within 4 days. I’m sure that would be the best thing to do, but I would like them to know that our desire to have our kids grow up as bilinguals doesn’t grow out of a wish to be better than others, which is what it seems to imply to them.