AITA for speaking a foreign language with my kids that upsets my wife because she can’t understand?
In a household woven with love and cultural threads, a father’s desire to share his heritage through language sparks silent tension.
His children, eager yet hesitant to speak Japanese, find themselves caught between two worlds, while their mother, feeling left out and misunderstood, sees the language as a barrier rather than a bridge. This quiet struggle reveals the fragile balance of ident*ty and belonging within a family.
What begins as a simple practice of words becomes a profound challenge to unity, as the family grapples with the pain of exclusion and the yearning for connection.
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The original poster (OP) is caught between supporting their children's language development, which is tied to their personal heritage, and respecting their wife's strong feelings of exclusion and threat to family unity.
The conflict centers on the OP's use of Japanese for brief practice sessions with their older children versus the wife's demand for a complete ban on the language in the home.
Was the wife justified in implementing a strict, house-wide ban on Japanese, enforced by threats regarding tuition, because she felt excluded, or was the OP justified in continuing language practice in secret due to the wife offering no flexibility on a shared family goal?
Where should the balance lie between cultural heritage/child development and maintaining immediate spousal comfort?
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