Do Not Speak Spanish

I hate to come out as some kind of contrarian in this but this is pretty much standard operating procedure. When L kidnapped K and held her hostage one of the the traumatic parts of it, albeit only one small one, was that L spoke at great length to K in Russian. I had very little idea of what they spoke about. Fortunately at the time neither did K. She spoke some Russian at the time (she was 2) but not a lot. Now she wants to take Russian in school so when she meets her mom again someday she can speak Russian to her. But once we got to court the judge and DCFS made it quite clear that the only language we were allowed to speak to the child in was the langauge that we all shared. The idea being that the parent and child speaking a language the other parent doesn't understand puts the parent at a distinct disadvantage. Now obviously I don't know the details of this Nebraska case but it is completely standard to have all the parties to a divorce speaking the same language for the duration of the proceedings. Noone should be surprised and if you are try putting yourself in the shoes of someone listening to their child's other parent making plans to flee the coutry with the child speaking in a language you barely can follow much less understand.

UPDATE Some others have noticed this as well, here, here, here, & here.

Posted by filchyboy at October 22, 2003 08:50 AM | TrackBack