Teacher Forbids Child from Speaking Native Language because It Sounds Like Swearing

When I was a kid I was all sorts of nervous going to my first day of school. I spoke a mix of English and Albanian, which wasn't a problem because everyone I cared about and saw on a daily basis, more or less, got the gist of what I was saying.

Then I found out the hard way that people weren't really well-versed in the finer nuances of the Albanian language. I was ridiculed pretty early by kids who thought I was weird. In their defense, I was.

So I know where this little girl is coming from.

It's a pretty tough situation growing up in a dual-language home, as your mind is constantly working to either translate something for yourself or one of your family members who maybe don't know enough English as you.

One day of teasing from kids was enough for me to wanna tap out from ever speaking Albanian again. I dedicated myself to learning "Bugs Bunny's Language" (what I called English as a kid) and had a very distinct, cartoon-esque accent that took years to shake.

It needs to be stated, however, that none of my teachers ever had a problem with the fact that I was speaking a quasi-English/Albanian hybrid tongue. They'd be patient with me and wait until I explained myself using other English words, or just understood what I was trying to convey using context clues. Or maybe they just didn't care, I don't know, what I do know is that I came up with the idea to speak only English all by myself.

This woman's young daughter, however, may have been nudged toward being a single language speaker at the behest of her teacher. The mom couldn't believe that her child returned home from school one day and straight-up refused to speak in her native tongue, something that was really important for her daughter to know.

It turns out that the teacher thought her daughter was cursing when, instead of saying "is" she kept saying "ahs." In the small, non-English speaking country's language that OP is from, ahs = is. So whenever her daughter was trying to use the word "is" the teacher thought she was calling other students an "ass" over and over.

So no big deal, right? Just a simple matter of explaining to the teacher the little mix-up and everyone would be on their merry way.

Well, things get worse. The teacher not only "punished" OP's daughter by not allowing her to go to recess for saying bad words, but told OP that she shouldn't be speaking her native language at home with her child.

This, understandably made Mom very upset. She went off on the teacher and threatened to speak with the principal because she couldn't believe an educator would tell her that raising her child as bilingual was a bad idea and saying the little girl was "getting confused" as a result.

As a parent of two children who pretty much only speak only English, I can attest to the fact that they still confuse words and a second or third language has nothing to do with it.

Although Mom was sure she was in the right, she wanted to know if she was being angry for no reason so she submitted her story to Reddit's AITA sub to get the bottom of whether or not she was in the wrong. 

No one thought she was. Commenter after commenter couldn't believe that the teacher would make such a suggestion and they strongly urged her to not only continuing to speak her native language at home, but to make the principal aware of the situation.

OP thanked everyone for their support and expressed that not learning her native language was ever on the table, but she did speak to the matter with her husband and they both agreed to have a meeting with the principal about it.

Her primary concern was with her daughter feeling comfortable with speaking their native language again, and she's hopeful that her child will. I am too, because speaking another language is awesome. All I speak now is English and random grunts.