OP, Rule #1 for being a successful adult and a successful parent: Care exactly 0% about what anyone else thinks of you.

Tell them they are @ssholes. Its neither you nor your husband's first language.

This is so strange to me because in this area, so many Chinese American kids go to weekend Chinese school. Totally normal to get some mandarin help. Even for chinese people

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I don’t understand. Nobody speaks Mandarin fluently in your home so it’s unlikely DC will ever be fluent. They had a chance to be fluent in Cantonese but you gave up.

Why don’t you cram it? You are the worst kind of poster here, a grimy, smug, truly mean-spirited jerk. You’re a bad person. Nasty, enjoying leaving little turd comments designed to wear on an OPs admitted tender spots. Go screw. Go away. No one wants you here.

And to other naysayers, it seems clear supplemental language study is often a very good thing for anyone. I started French in my 30s and took to it with an excellent accent. The point? I was an adult learner. Who knows what her kids are capable of? All we know is that her friends who made these comments are losers. OP, you deserve better friends. If you can handle it, just cut the biggest jerk off. This kind of picking at you is by design to make you feel awful, as if you’ve failed in your identity and parenting. But you haven’t. Many parents can’t teach their kids how to bike ride, or how to get through math. This isn’t different, no matter how many Dr. Moms claim otherwise because they read something on parents.com in 2009. Ignore!

As an Asian immigrant, I also want to add that Chinese and Cantonese speakers are super judgmental when it comes to identity and if your child doesn't speak those languages well, it's like an insult to the community and they'll think of your child as a banana. There was so much flak against the Asian-American Winter Olympics athletes when not all of them could converse in Mandarin and that was really sad.

Anonymous wrote:every immigrant I know (and I am one) complains how difficult it is to teach children their parents' language. speaking to them is not enough. once kids start school, the quickly lose vocabulary in their parents' language. it is ok to pay someone to help. good luck!

+1. DD is only 5 and I can already see her losing it :-/

Anonymous wrote:I guess I don’t understand. Nobody speaks Mandarin fluently in your home so it’s unlikely DC will ever be fluent. They had a chance to be fluent in Cantonese but you gave up.

Why don’t you cram it? You are the worst kind of poster here, a grimy, smug, truly mean-spirited jerk. You’re a bad person. Nasty, enjoying leaving little turd comments designed to wear on an OPs admitted tender spots. Go screw. Go away. No one wants you here.

And to other naysayers, it seems clear supplemental language study is often a very good thing for anyone. I started French in my 30s and took to it with an excellent accent. The point? I was an adult learner. Who knows what her kids are capable of? All we know is that her friends who made these comments are losers. OP, you deserve better friends. If you can handle it, just cut the biggest jerk off. This kind of picking at you is by design to make you feel awful, as if you’ve failed in your identity and parenting. But you haven’t. Many parents can’t teach their kids how to bike ride, or how to get through math. This isn’t different, no matter how many Dr. Moms claim otherwise because they read something on parents.com in 2009. Ignore!

You know why Eileen Gu managed to be fluent in Mandarin? She lives with her grandma. Language learning is about the natural environment and forcing a few lessons here and there isn't going to help. I studied a second language- my ancestral language in my home country for over 10 years and guess what? I cannot speak a lick of it. 2-3 hours of daily lessons isn't helpful, plus if the child's heart isn't open to it because it's being imposed, you won't have any success. Now, I'm studying a new language that I've chosen and I'm happy and impressed by what I've picked up although I'm still far from native fluency. Does learning this language bring your son any joy? If not, don't bother.

Stop telling others what you are doing for tutoring

Don't worry about what people think. They can go jump in a lake. Do what is right for you.

The best approach I've seen is one parent only speaks t the child in his/her language. If the child wants something from their parent, they have to speak it.

Derided—You get derided, not despised, when you share this with friends. Deride means to ridicule someone.

You don’t get “despised on.” There’s no such phrasing.

Who cares? Your kid. Your money.

It seems like you should’ve paid someone to help you teach them Cantonese, and when your friends ask why just explain your DH can’t help so you paid someone to do it. At least if they learn Cantonese, they have one parent who speaks it fluently to help them practice.

I guess I don’t understand. Nobody speaks Mandarin fluently in your home so it’s unlikely DC will ever be fluent. They had a chance to be fluent in Cantonese but you gave up.

every immigrant I know (and I am one) complains how difficult it is to teach children their parents' language. speaking to them is not enough. once kids start school, the quickly lose vocabulary in their parents' language. it is ok to pay someone to help. good luck!

My kids do not speak my home language (cantonese). I tried and gave up a few times over the last few years, and I decide to give it a try again.

I decide to drop my home language (Cantonese) idea because DH could not help (he can't speak or understand). We have made a final choice which is to teach them a foreign language (Mandarin) which is my 3rd language & my DH's second language. I can read and write, but I can't speak or understand well. DH cannot read or write, but he can speak and understand some (worse than me). At least, team work works better than working solo in my eyes. Well, it still does not go well, so we decide to pay someone to teach them.

I get despised on when I share that with others. They don't understand why we have to pay someone, that is wasting money to pay someone to do that. They say that all of their children speak their native tongue without paying a dime because they speak to them when they were small. I told them that I knew a few friends did the same things paying professional teacher to teach mandarin, and it worked well. And, those few friends are chinese that speak Mandarin as first language. I feel sad that they laughed at me, and what jerks they were.