Re: CHAT: You Know You're A Conlanging Mom/Dad When...

On 6/29/07, Amanda Babcock Furrow <langs@...> wrote:
>
>
> 3. You have given serious consideration to whether it would be unethical
> to raise your child bilingual in your conlang
> 3a. ...and concluded reluctantly that it would be (you are a parent)
> 3b. ...and concluded tentatively that it would not be (you are an
> expectant
> parent)

3c. ...and concluded that it would not be, but you don't have enough fluency
in your conlangs to talk to even an infant for more than 45 consecutive
seconds.

I don't really think there's much of an ethical issue, if you don't do it at
the expense of the majority language and don't insist on it stubbornly. The
majority language almost always wins anyway, unless you take extraordinary
measures, and any attempt to raise a child speaking a conlang as a second
language are probably doomed to turn into "a cute game we played when the
kid was little" due to a lack of opportunities to hear and use it in the
real world. Heck, when my 2 year old hears me speaking Spanish (to anyone,
ever!), she says, "No, Mommy! No!" and she hears Spanish on TV and in the
real world all the time. She's heard me speaking English, and there's no
fooling her. (LOL)

So, to add to the list as a parent of older kids...

Your kids borrow your conlang dictionary/notebook to name video game
characters.
You've had someone criticize your conlang for its lack of skateboarding
terminology.