This is one of those r/AmItheA**hole posts where it just seems like a crappy situation all around, but one person is reacting to it in the crappiest manner of all.
The story was posted by a Redditor using the handle u/aitathrowacc612 under the title, “Am I the a—hole for telling my husband that I won’t punish my daughter for speaking another language in the house because it upsets his son?”
It’s a bit complicated, but the OP and her 11-year-old daughter Anya moved from India to the U.S. five years ago. Soon after she started dating her now-husband. He has a kid named Ben who is ten years old. Ben’s mom and her husband always had split custody and everyone got along pretty well. But then, very tragically, Ben’s mom passed away about six months ago. Ben has moved in with his father and step-mom full time, he’s in therapy, and they’re doing everything they can to help him adjust to this enormous loss.
Except an unexpected issue has come up. Anya and the OP’s native language is Hindi, and the OP says that her daughter has a tendency to speak in it when she gets excited. Her mom reminds her to speak in English when other people are around, to be polite, I assume. It was never a problem until this happened:
“A week ago, Ben walked in when me and Anya were cooking and we were talking in Hindi and he started crying. He told me he is feeling bad that he can’t understand what we are saying. I hugged him and consoled him and assured him that we didn’t do it to exclude him purposefully. And then Anya started crying and apologised. The whole thing was just heartbreaking.”
The OP says that since then, Anya has been making a conscious effort to speak only in English. Then, the day before this post was written, she slipped up and started talking about her school work in Hindi to her mom in the living room, while Ben and his dad were in the kitchen. They overheard.
“Later that night, my husband told me how he thinks we must start thinking about giving punishments whenever she speaks in Hindi unconsciously until Ben starts feeling better.
I was horrified at this suggession. I have never pulled the ‘She is my daughter, not yours’ card. But this is the hill I am willing to die on and use that card if necessary.
Whether he likes it or not, it’s her first language. Expecting her to always converse in her second language, even when she is feeling some extreme emotions is just cruel. Especially after she is genuinely making an effort to make Ben feel more comfortable. It’s almost like punishing for her heritage or for her being Indian.
Of course, this is a huge point of conflict between me and my husband. I think it’s unfair to do this to Anya, even temporarily. He thinks me and Anya are unnecessarily making feel Ben bad while he is mourning his mother, while we can try and prevent it.
Both of us are conflicted here. Who is the asshole here?”
This is clearly a tough situation, but introducing “punishment” into it will only go badly. No one seemed to think that the OP was the a—hole here, even if they sympathized with Ben’s feelings.
Many suggested Ben learn Hindi as well, which the OP said in other comments was the “long term plan” for when he is more recovered. I don’t understand how that could possibly be after months or perhaps even years of punishment towards Anya, forcing her to lose her own native language.
Whatever the eventual plan is, everyone agreed that doing this would just fast-track Anya to trauma, especially because she is obviously a sensitive girl who is already being incredibly accommodating to her step-brother’s feelings:
What not many people said, but Redditor EX_Tenn finally did, was that this request is pretty racist. Even if it is tied up with real loss on Ben’s part, his dad trying to silence or limit a young girl of color from using her native language is extremely messed up. Especially in the context of colonial history, white supremacy, and basically everything people are talking about more and more across the world. It is a truly outrageous request:
There is no easy way to deal with Ben’s feelings in this situation, but building up more resentment and shame in the family will not help anyone.