[Danielle F.]

They meant well—but their fondness may have gone too far. What happened?​

AIBU, which stands for 'Am I Being Unreasonable', is the perfect platform for sharing your thoughts and opinions! So, for today's AIBU discussion, we have this story from Reddit/Future_Corner4869:

'My husband and I have a three year old. After he turned one we started asking everyone to start enunciating their words correctly when talking to our son. We hadn’t had a problem with anyone except my husbands mum's side of the family (mother-in-law (MIL) and 2 sisters). Sometimes when we would say something to them they would just say “okay” correct themselves a couple times then go right back to not enunciating. Other times they would just pretend they didn’t hear us, say “whatever”, or one time MIL rolled her eyes at my husband when he told her to stop. The couple times I’ve said something I’ve gotten a blank stare and they walk away.

It not just one or two words wrong it’s almost every other sentence they say wrong. For example our son with say “ne ne” for candy and they’ll repeat that instead of saying candy and so on for all the mispronounced words and sentences he says. Other than my husband and I they were the ones that saw him the most. There was time it was almost everyday they would see him (they live 30 seconds away from us) so we really wanted them to talk normally with him to help with his speech.

We stopped for a while asking them to stop because we were getting tired of repeating ourselves to them until a few months ago we started asking again because his speech wasn’t getting better.

Our son ended up having to start speech therapy about a month ago for his enunciation because most people can’t understand what he’s saying unless my husband or I translate for him.

A couple days ago we found out through a friend that the in-laws have a running joke and has been making fun of us and our three year old when we are not around. They have been lying to others and saying they’ve only baby talked once to him and they say baby talk is not mispronouncing words and sentences. After we found this out my husband sent his mum a not so nice text saying we knew about what they’ve been saying and that they can do dinners without us (we were supposed to go over that night for dinner).

After that text was sent my husbands step dad was waiting at our house when my husband pulled in and started yelling in my husbands face that they “do everything for us and to find someone else for a ride next time” (My husbands a farmer and sometimes needs rides to his truck or tractor so his siblings will give him a ride otherwise we don’t like to ask for favours from them because they have said some offhanded comments before). My husband got in his face as well and said he won’t ask again but what does rides have to do with respecting what we want for our kids? Along with some swearing from both of them.

After that, FIL didn’t say anything and just walked back to his truck and left.

Our kids are the 1st and only grandkids.

So…are we being unreasonable?'

 

[Dynomite]

Your really shouldn't have child speech problems caused by thoughtless relatives. They need to chill out for a while.

 

[waggadragon]

Yep

 

[Cairn]

No I don't think so. I too don't believe in baby talking to children, it's like they have to learn to talk twice. Do it properly once and you don't have to do it again. I would be very angry.

 

[Wendy]

I'm an MIL and I used to look after my grandson when he was little, twice a week. His speech wasn't very good as his sister always spoke for him. DIL took him to a speech therapist and she said to ask him small questions that he good answer easily. She took him back a few weeks later and the speech therapist said she was really pleased, said he was doing so much better. DIL said yes thanks to MIL she talks to him all the time and he has to answer each time. He's now in his 20's and training to be a primary school teacher.

 

[Kman]

No. Absolutely not.

 

[Jennymollie]

l think you are doing the right thing theres nothing worse than a child in kinder or school who cant speak properly ,he will suffer because of stupidity

 

[natalielocket]

I always spoke to my Children, both in their 50`s, in proper English. I was lucky as both sets of Grandparents, and Family and Friends respected this and did the same. Both sides of the Family, the younger siblings, when they had children followed suit. All our kids and Grandkids have carried on doing the same.