In-law talk

My parents-in-law have, sadly, returned to Sweden. They’re wonderful people and Little Girl adores them and they have only a few annoying habits, especially now that my father-in-law has stopped smoking. Really my only beefs with them are the incessant crap TV (e.g. “World’s Stupidest Criminals” and their enduring special favorite, that station that tells you what’s on all the other stations), their strong distaste for anything from the legume or vegetable families, and their peculiar speech impediment which prevents them from speaking Swedish to Little Girl. It’s only English for her, though they talk to Husband in Swedish, naturally.

It’s a truly baffling situation not remedied by requests from Husband or me. Sure, Little Girl doesn’t speak much Swedish, unless you press her, but she understands it well enough, and would, of course–and this is what we’d like–communicate in it even more readily if people actually expected her to do so. Their visit would have been a great opportunity to prepare her Swedish for moving there, as were the two times we’ve seen them before, but each time, English English English. Do they not realize Husband speaks to her primarily in Swedish? Do they think she’ll like them better in her preferred language? Do they not think her learning Swedish now is important?

Maybe they just think it’s fun to break out their English? My mother-in-law is a native Finn who’s trilingual. Before she retired, she took orders for a Scandinavian clothing catalog company. My father-in-law, at age 15, ran off to become a merchant seaman, traveling around the States and Canada, and though he never went back to school, speaks great English. They do love their American TV. It’s not that big a deal, of course, that the loving, fun interactions they enjoyed with Little Girl were in one language rather than another. She’ll get plenty of Swedish immersion once we move. What’s important is that she got to enjoy them.