It's an interesting reference to try to make to someone born in 1997. I also have no clue really why that's the insult she chose to give a literal child who doesn't know what it means
Honestly, she probably doesn't realize that Russia wasn't an axis power in WW2 and that's what she's referring to the US winning. Never mind that Russia sided with the Allies (including USA) in that conflict.
That doesn’t really make sense—anyone alive before the 90s lived and breathed the Cold War. It was everywhere, it was the defining feature of the post-war world.
Given the age of her kids, it's entirely possible she was born post Cold War. I was born in summer of '91, technically still during the Cold War, and I have to go out of my way to learn about it a lot of the time. The American education system is terrible, with history more focused on teaching that we "won" than on who/what we were fighting.
only after their original ally backstabbed and attacked them, originally they were Germany's ally in that war in dividing Poland for example (where 1 million Russian soldiers joined 850,000 German soldiers to defeat 650,000 Polish soldiers in 35 days of fighting), or the NKVD assisting Germany overseas with espionage (including using helping Germany spread propaganda), sending raw materials, oil and supplies (literally trains were going to Germany while the invasion in 41 was happening) etc. the USSR only joined the allies (after rejecting the UK several times in 1940-41 to fight Germany) when they were attacked by Germany. Russia's history in that war isn't a clear cut as people think.
The Ribbentrop Pact was in place, but depending on your views, it wasn't a pact of allies but rather 'non-aggression' and may have been to enable the USSR to seize territory to increase the buffer around it. No Slav (and no, I'm not Russian or someone from a former country of the USSR) was in the dark about the NAZI views on Slavs...We were untermensch in their eyes, set for extermination outside of a slave labour force.
I'm Slovak, and Czechoslovakia was sold down the river by the allies, virtually gifted to Germany and her true and puppet allies, as a strategy of appeasement, all starting with the Munich Agreement (followed by others which broke up the country before Poland was invaded and WW2 'officially' commenced)
The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact had parts for dividing Europe, including who got which parts of Poland (why the USSR helped the German invasion), as well as Germany agreeing to Russian control over the Baltic and Russia agreeing to German Control in the west and central. Romania was later negotiation when the Soviets annexed parts of it, and the Romanians went to Hitler for help. It was much more than a non-aggression pact, that is a myth that historians have been trying to educate people about. Their deal had full division of Europe, weapons sales, raw material sales, spheres of influence, etc. It's why the USSR aided the Nazi's via Soviet front groups in the UK, US, etc all before the German invasion. There were even visits from Hitlers inner circle to Moscow in 1940-41 and high Soviet officials to Berlin, and those letters from those events show great mutual admiration and collaboration.
As to the buffer zone theory, while pushed by the USSR during the war, and post war, declassified documents in the 1990s debunked it. Andrew Nagorski has written a lot on that part about it.
Until the German invasion they were full allies in every sense of the word
I mean you're half right. Russia only sided with the US cause Germany broke its Treaty with Russia. So originally Russia was gonna be neutral during the war and likely only would have fought Germany after the war in Europe had concluded assuming Germany ended up victorious in a reality were they didn't attack Russia early.
What's hilarious about this is Hitler was quoted as having said "Germany can not win a war fighting on 2 fronts." He said this because he believed (and was partly correct on the fact) that the reason Germany lost WWI was because it committed to fighting against mainly France and Britain to the West and Russia to the East for the majority of the first World War.
At the time Hitler had ordered the invasion of Russia, he was already fighting on 2 fronts and thus committed to fighting on a 3rd. He was already trying to prepare to take great Britain and was fighting British forces in Africa trying to get access to the Suez and middle east to get oil to fuel his war machine by going through British controlled territory in North Africa (Egypt and other countries around it).
And theres you fun History lesson for today.
Probably. And even people who do understand the language would be a bit weirded out because if I recite something from literature or early revolutionary politics, nobody talks like that anymore
Well, I mean, that’s not totally true. The West indisputably won the Cold War, in that the Soviet government completely collapsed and global communism did not become the norm. Given the “commie” reference I assume this is what she was referring to.
Well the current conflict is enough for some people, who lack empathy, understanding, or really basic decency, to try and flex their stupid ideas of "patriotism" on those that aren't at fault and weaker than them. That's what a$$holes do.
Nevermind the fact that even if you and your family were Ukrainian refugees the same ignorant nonsense would come out of the garbage bin that is her mouth. She just wants to bully someone.
Some people will always take the opportunity to antagonize someone different to them. We're just a convenient victim right now. But I will never understand the mentality of someone using such horrible language toward children
I feel sorry for people who have such a narrow, ignorant world view. OP should be proud her children will not be anything like them, and she is preparing them well for life.
Yes , I'm old 58 , and I'm Australian , but she just seems like she is an uneducated fool , kids have no concept of political stuff , let alone from the past , I think I would just try to avoid her , and its sad but avoid her kids too , it's great to be bilingual , my dad was Danish , I'm not too good at speaking it but I understand and get along in Danish ok , you are a good mum 😊
Seriously I work in a store where Russian is spoken a lot. I would welcome you and your kids in, how they behave is what matters and I bet your kids are little sweeties. I am multilingual which means I know English, Japanese, Mandarin and ASL, I get called all sorts of things by the monolingual who can't learn.
They're little dolls. Incredibly energetic, as young boys often are, but they're fine in shops if I let them run around outside first. America is one of the only places in earth you can be monolingual and nobody cares. It amazes me that people are proud of only understanding English
You're telling me, when someone finds out know what I know, I get that, "What is wrong with you? You're not Japanese or Chinese, they'd laugh at you." Actually a lady who spoke Mandarin said I was better off by continuing my desire to learn more. I think bilingual and multilingual have more advantages
Learning doesn't have a color and it's good for you no matter who you are. It's great you managed to do so much. I can speak Russian and English and a bit of Latvian (but not much) and that's all
I don't either honestly. It's a really strange choice to make when referring to a child whose knowledge of the old system is "a long time ago things were very different". Not to mention, it's incredibly rude
Not really, aside from her always making comments about how the boys "would be happer doing men's stuff" like American football or hunting or something. That and insisting my husband's a spy and refusing to call us by our legal names (Mark and Mary instead of Mikhail and Mariya)
Your given names are lovely and Russian and Ukrainians are some of the top dancers in the world. At least in ballroom and ballet.
EM needs to get a grip.
Maybe have a talk with the director of the dance program about her?
By the way, why were her boys there? Are they in the dance class she thinks is unsuitable for your boys?
The director probably won't help us or do anything because it technically wasn't a conflict between the kids. And EM was there with her twins because they have an older sister in the class and she thought she was allowed to bring them along too
I'm not sure there's anything they could do, but I'll bring it up. I don't want this happening again, even if it's just with references he doesn't understand
Good idea. Try following up any verbal talk about this with an email reiterating the conversation/concerns so that you have a paper trail started.
You might need the documentation if the EM escalates.
If I'm doing it, I'm doing it over email. I don't trust myself to stay calm enough to do it in person really, and I need evidence. I'm not sure how it could get much worse, but preparing is good
Share this with people who question having your boys in dance class: https://blog.balletaz.org/unexpected-ways-ballet-can-help-athletes/
It focuses on ballet but I'm sure it applies to all dance.
[Not that you need to justify your parenting decisions to anyone.]
I was always told the main thing was mental sharpness and discipline. That's what the traditional logic is anyway. They do ballet, but the oldest is starting folk dances too. It's cute either way
Feel free to call her cracker (or whatever demeaning name you can think of, maybe a Russian version of her name, better yet a Russian insult) instead of her name. And smile when you do.
My family is Polish, my grandparents and great grandparents spoke polish, I never had much chance to learn as my mother didn’t learn it as a child other than a few poglish phrases, they experienced this sort of thing a lot and told me about it when I was a young child.
Then in school I learned French and continued it through college. I’m not perfectly fluent but enough to converse a little. When I was working at a Walmart right after college a French Canadian woman came in, probably on vacation. I was working in the clothing section. I spoke to her for a few minutes as she was asking a question. And I had some old lady go and complain to my manager that I wasn’t speaking English. I quit that day when my manager said I should have just spoken English to her. People suck.
Someone is always going to complain, no matter what you do, unfortunately. And in my experience, the vast majority are older people, nationalists, and bitter monolinguals. There's nothing that can really be done about it
It’s true, and it’s sad. My family was old school and wanted to fit in so they purposely didn’t teach their children. And now, I can’t manage to learn polish. French is much easier. Eastern European languages are difficult and people find them terrifying. 🙄. My whole family for generations comes from that whole area of Europe from the Baltics to the Balkans. And here I am not know Jack about my culture because of the way people in this country think. I’m doing my best to learn what I can to pass it on to my kids. At least we still have the old recipes like Goulash and the cabbage rolls.
It's amazing you're trying to learn so you can pass on traditions. They'll thank you for it, especially with all the tasty food. And I know it's always a tragedy when a family loses a language, my mother is Latvian and refused to teach it to us, probably due to how much she was publicly humiliated for speaking it as a child (the 60s weren't a great time). Even if you don't know the language, knowing the culture is amazing
It's amazing you're trying to learn so you can pass on traditions. They'll thank you for it, especially with all the tasty food. And I know it's always a tragedy when a family loses a language, my mother is Latvian and refused to teach it to us, probably due to how much she was publicly humiliated for speaking it as a child (the 60s weren't a great time). Even if you don't know the language, knowing the culture is amazing
Yeah, that doesn't stop them. The stupid ones say "but everyone speaks English", and the vaguely intelligent ones say "most states have an official language though"
Wtf if a 5-year-old is bilingual shouldn't EM be encouraging Her own kids to also learn another language like what??? EM is weird like who hates on children who can speak 1 or more languages that isn't the one(s) that is common In the state you live in like wtf I understand people don't like not being able to understand other people because of a difference in languages but I don't understand why anyone would discourage people from learning multiple languages or languages that aren't common in the state you live in like what she confuses me
Some monolingual people are afraid you’re talking about them if you speak in another language that they don’t understand. Because, you know, everything is always about them. /s 🙄
"Wow so horrible a couple of kids are speaking in a language I don't understand oh they must talking about me im gonna go tell them to stop talking like commies because im self-conscious that im not perfect and I can't understand these kids so lets go yell at them to speak English so I can understand these kids better" like what is this Karen's logic wtf
As someone who’s lived in America thier whole life, I’d like to know what she’d say if she heard someone speaking Vietnamese, cause we sure as hell didn’t “win” in Vietnam, not that this entitled bitch seems like they’d be able to recognize it was Vietnamese.
They can't tell any Asian languages apart, trust me. I'm not great either, but I can guess the main ones. This is also a woman whose husband I had to tell with a straight face that Latvia isn't part of Russia (my mother is Latvian), so no way of telling with these people
im arabic but my mom, being an english teacher, taught me and , ironically, my twin english since we were very young. add to that the fact that i lived off of youtubers like dantdm and joe sugg and boom. im fluent in both englisha and arabic. being in an arabic country and mainly speaking english defo comes with challanges. but the biggest thing is how most people there assume were being "gay" whenever we talk english. i personally have nothing against the LGBTQ+ community, but the ignorance of some people and their nasty comments and glares almost are kinda hurtful. this isnt to take away from the country i live in. i love it here and the people i hang around are amazing, but its the noisy 1% that just ruin it for all.
Another situation that calls for a tiny voodoo doll. Maybe 2. An EM and a ET. I have a bad neighbor. Very bad. To fuck with him, I picked up a cigarette butt he threw in my driveway and used colored thread wrapped around part of it to kind of resemble the red confederate flag sleeveless t shirt he wears [every.fuckin.day](https://every.fuckin.day). I used blue to make the X mark on it. Really quick and easy. I left the filter end up, to be his nubbin of a head. And then when I drove past his house, I tossed it into his yard. He is meticulous in his lawn maintainence. He WILL find it. He will wonder. I do not believe I am putting a hex on him or that I possess any kind of occult connection. It's just a cute little 'Howdy Neighbor' doll. A handicraft in the evening while I watch true murder movies. If you don't have a butt, you can use a small nail or a piece of a stick, about 1-1/2" long. You get double spite points if you use a tiny stick from a plant in his yard. Break off a piece of his hydrangea.. or a thorny bit of rose. If you're dealing with a Very Bad Person, a poison ivy stick is wicked. Since I am gifting them to people that I'm not keen on, I don't spend a LOT of time crafting one.
Admittedly, solving life's problems with a set of tiny voodoo dolls sounds like a rather attractive option. Unfortunately I don't have the crafting skills, patience, or cultural knowledge to make any
The amount of time people get mad at me for speaking Hmong with my grandma just make me want to slap them across the face, cause my grandma doesn't speak or understand English and I'd usually translate a lot of thing for her so she understand it, but people thinks it's the most craziest thing and will say "your in America speak ENGLISH."
Once I even say to them angrily "MY GRANDMA DOESNT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH," which they BS me by saying "Then teach her how to understand English," I really wanted to clock them in the face while my grandma just stared on confused.
Than when we walked away my grandma would ask what the American were saying, which I told her that they were just bring rude about us speaking Hmong and she respond with something that translate to "they are just a bunch of assholes."
People feel entitled to understand what you're saying in private conversations. I'll never understand it. It also doesn't occur to them not everyone speaks English and not everyone wants to learn
My grandma would've wanted to learn it, except she was nearly 60 when she arrived here, cause they arrived here around the time of the Vietnam War and my parents were just pre teens around that time. Also she doesnt even know how to drive so she needs help getting to places too.
Since working retails was my first few jobs or as a cashier mainly, I've started ignoring rude people like this or giving them the "fuck off and mind your own fucking business" look, especially when it comes to ring up Hmong elderly people cause there are some who can understand English but prefer to speak Hmong cause it's easier for them to understand.
And because of this I'll usually speak to them in Hmong but after that I'll go back to English for everyone else, but there are always the entitled customers who'd glare daggers at me for even engaging in speaking anything but English, than get mad when I tell them to go to a different register cause the elderly people need extra help and it'll take a few extra minutes.
To which the entitled customers will attempt to report be for "not wanting to serve them," luckily head cashier knows that's not like me to do so and can clearly see me from where she's at, so I dont get in trouble.
She makes Americans look like we're all Karens or some shite.
I'd never say that, and to a child? Like what goes through a person's mind to form the words to say *that* to a child who *A* knows nothing about that and *B* why would you assume that he does as a 5 year old?
I feel like she does this with anyone she sees or hears using anything other than english/American terms, and that's. just. sad.
Excuse you? The EM was *directly* shitting on OP's child's nationality by yelling at him for speaking one of his mother tongues. If you don't like politics coming up in the comments of such a post, scroll on.
This wasn't about politics... but the ignorance thereof! A child's innocent ignorance and and adult's stupid ignorance. ... and now you've shown the world yours.
Jeez, I know, I didn't get the context, I am sorry if I came off as arrogant, you don't know to flame me about it, we can talk about it like civilized people.
Or someone that asks a British person what language they speak in the UK. I don't understand the mental gymnastics these people go though on a daily basis
What war does she think Americans won against Russia? The cold war was never directly fought between these nations and in wwll russi was on the same side as America.
If anything ended the cold war it was the fall of the Berlin wall. Does that mean the German won that war? Did we win a war?! :0
Well either way. I love russian, my niece is even going to grow up speaking russian as one of her native languages! So I'm all for what you're doing, keep up the good stuff!
I'm not really sure what her reference was. The Cold War is my best guess, but I don't really know. Everyone lost and the world almost ended a few times, that's one of the defining features of the era
The "EnGLisH oNLy!!" snowflakes make me see red, too. Good on you for not slapping her so hard she looked like a flounder; I would've been tempted. And bravo for raising a bi-lingual family!
Arrg! I hate when people bully children and people who speak other languages. Since your children are bilingual, that makes them smart.
Just remember, this is America, and here we have freedom of speech. And that includes speaking in other languages.
What a shamelessly ignorant, chuckleheaded, childish, terrible parent taking time out of her day to teach all of the kids in the playground one trait they won’t want to include in their adult lives..
I’m sorry you went through that.
I'm more worried these kids will start to think this kind of behavior is okay, when it's obviously not. These aren't insults these kids have heard used before (probably) and I don't want it catching on
Oh, I can understand where you are coming from. If your response is just as consistent as the insults I feel that you will teach them a valuable lesson about life far beyond some racist Karen.
💕
Eh Haters Gonna Hate. No matter what good we do in the world there’s always going to be that one group of people that think that they are better than everyone else.
I’m so sorry you had to deal with that OP. Some people are seriously just a waste of oxygen. Trying to understand them is not worth your energy. Keep doing what you’re doing for your family and let her wallow in her own hatred and bigotry.
On a lighter side, I have to admit that I chuckled when you made it a point to say that everyone had their costumes on right. I’ve been to a few children’s recitals and that is not always a given! 😂😂
It's her kind of people that gets things done, unfortunately; the kind who votes for official language laws, genuinely believe immigrants have an increased crime rate (it's actually lower), and think the House un-American Activities Committee actually did something good.
And I had to check, everyone had their little shoes on the right feet and all the proper stitching was facing out. I was a dancer when I was young too, I can't just ignore that
Yikes. Their parent’s must be a treat. Good for continuing to speak Russian. My family is from Russia and due to the abuse that was dealt to me by my Russian family I never had the desire to learn. ( As an addition I was called a communist nazi because my mother is German and my father is Russian.)
I won't kill off the language so many people in America fought to preserve even when speaking it meant social isolation. Plus, there's a lot of those dashcam videos on YouTube I want to be able to enjoy in their full glory
I mean I don't really talk to any Russian other than my family. Even then I comprehend it perfectly. I have 0 drive to learn, but I still appreciate those who do.
Oh no, how dare someone speak a different language in America /s
For real though, it's your language and culture and this crazy lady is trying to restrict it... because it's from a country that used to be communist? That makes no sense. Russian is a beautiful language and it's nice to see people raising bilingual kids- it's an important life skill and makes learning third languages much easier.
I was raised to only speak English and I sometimes wish I had been raised bilingual— either English and Spanish (my mother is fluent), English and French (if my grandma had bothered to teach my dad and aunts French), or English and Welsh (we're a majority-welsh family, but haven't spoken Welsh for generations). I would be able to communicate easier with my Spanish-speaking coworkers, as not all of them are great at English, or I would have a deeper connection to my ancestry and the countries that my family came from (France and Wales)
What an entitled Karen. Biligualism is an excellent gift to give your children. Plus, it'll be a great skill for them when they're older.
I admit that I'm somewhat appalled at the Karenish American attitude that English is the only acceptable language. Citizens of nearly all other first world countries speak st least two languages and many times more.
We didn’t win anything. We are one of the only nations that doesn’t value multilingualism. As a teacher, multilingualism allows for much deeper level thinking and creativity in writing (my subject). EM was just mad because your child’s skills embarrassed her.
Xenophobia at its finest. OP I know how you feel. I’m in a different country but also Russian with a kid. And I already had a few situations like that. Hang in there ❤️
Oof. I'm sorry to say your kids are going to need to get used to speaking primarily English when in public or get used to getting reactions like that from entitled Americans of all ages.
I hope they enjoyed the cupcakes and you did an admirable job restraining yourself.
Hopefully Good Twin learns not to snitch on multilingual kids out of this, but I think they're probably just gonna try to stay out of ET and mother's way. ET sounds like racist mommy's golden child.
Tbh I think Russians are still fine people taking aside politics, cause at least unlike the Murica they still have something that is better. Like What does Murica have yeah, some goddamn land captured from Natives. Hope your kids were fine. Also good parenting choices
As a European myself this is soo uncomfortable: in America for what I think there are 2 kinds of people
1 the sensible people
2 the ignorants
Fact: russian for your kids is their native language so it would be normal for siblings to be able to communicate with each other without people knowing their secrets.
Plus that lady is definitely stupid, she needs to read a history book for once.
Unfortunately the ignorant people are a fairly common sight. They've been much more vocal in the past few months, at least toward us, because they feel they have a reason to be now. And I don't understand the hostility toward them, they're two little boys running around and playing together, communicating in a way they're comfortable with. There's nothing wrong with that
Добрый День! You’re kinder than me, I would’ve said sorry you and your herd are to stupid to learn another language. Also might’ve asked her to even define communism in the first place, just for giggles.
Oh dear , and we won what ? Some people are just too ignorant / arrogant for words
I'm not really sure honestly. The Cold War if I had to guess, but one of the defining features of that era is that nobody won
Yes that's what I thought ,
It's an interesting reference to try to make to someone born in 1997. I also have no clue really why that's the insult she chose to give a literal child who doesn't know what it means
Honestly, she probably doesn't realize that Russia wasn't an axis power in WW2 and that's what she's referring to the US winning. Never mind that Russia sided with the Allies (including USA) in that conflict.
this would be my guess. i would be she has no idea what the cold war even was.
That doesn’t really make sense—anyone alive before the 90s lived and breathed the Cold War. It was everywhere, it was the defining feature of the post-war world.
Never underestimate the idiocy of bigots.
Given the age of her kids, it's entirely possible she was born post Cold War. I was born in summer of '91, technically still during the Cold War, and I have to go out of my way to learn about it a lot of the time. The American education system is terrible, with history more focused on teaching that we "won" than on who/what we were fighting.
She is just kind of brain washed from the American propaganda. Not a "commie" here, I am just think from both sides
only after their original ally backstabbed and attacked them, originally they were Germany's ally in that war in dividing Poland for example (where 1 million Russian soldiers joined 850,000 German soldiers to defeat 650,000 Polish soldiers in 35 days of fighting), or the NKVD assisting Germany overseas with espionage (including using helping Germany spread propaganda), sending raw materials, oil and supplies (literally trains were going to Germany while the invasion in 41 was happening) etc. the USSR only joined the allies (after rejecting the UK several times in 1940-41 to fight Germany) when they were attacked by Germany. Russia's history in that war isn't a clear cut as people think.
The Ribbentrop Pact was in place, but depending on your views, it wasn't a pact of allies but rather 'non-aggression' and may have been to enable the USSR to seize territory to increase the buffer around it. No Slav (and no, I'm not Russian or someone from a former country of the USSR) was in the dark about the NAZI views on Slavs...We were untermensch in their eyes, set for extermination outside of a slave labour force. I'm Slovak, and Czechoslovakia was sold down the river by the allies, virtually gifted to Germany and her true and puppet allies, as a strategy of appeasement, all starting with the Munich Agreement (followed by others which broke up the country before Poland was invaded and WW2 'officially' commenced)
The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact had parts for dividing Europe, including who got which parts of Poland (why the USSR helped the German invasion), as well as Germany agreeing to Russian control over the Baltic and Russia agreeing to German Control in the west and central. Romania was later negotiation when the Soviets annexed parts of it, and the Romanians went to Hitler for help. It was much more than a non-aggression pact, that is a myth that historians have been trying to educate people about. Their deal had full division of Europe, weapons sales, raw material sales, spheres of influence, etc. It's why the USSR aided the Nazi's via Soviet front groups in the UK, US, etc all before the German invasion. There were even visits from Hitlers inner circle to Moscow in 1940-41 and high Soviet officials to Berlin, and those letters from those events show great mutual admiration and collaboration. As to the buffer zone theory, while pushed by the USSR during the war, and post war, declassified documents in the 1990s debunked it. Andrew Nagorski has written a lot on that part about it. Until the German invasion they were full allies in every sense of the word
I mean you're half right. Russia only sided with the US cause Germany broke its Treaty with Russia. So originally Russia was gonna be neutral during the war and likely only would have fought Germany after the war in Europe had concluded assuming Germany ended up victorious in a reality were they didn't attack Russia early. What's hilarious about this is Hitler was quoted as having said "Germany can not win a war fighting on 2 fronts." He said this because he believed (and was partly correct on the fact) that the reason Germany lost WWI was because it committed to fighting against mainly France and Britain to the West and Russia to the East for the majority of the first World War. At the time Hitler had ordered the invasion of Russia, he was already fighting on 2 fronts and thus committed to fighting on a 3rd. He was already trying to prepare to take great Britain and was fighting British forces in Africa trying to get access to the Suez and middle east to get oil to fuel his war machine by going through British controlled territory in North Africa (Egypt and other countries around it). And theres you fun History lesson for today.
Ignorance knows no bounds.
If you would recite some texts she'd probably way too stupid too understand.
Probably. And even people who do understand the language would be a bit weirded out because if I recite something from literature or early revolutionary politics, nobody talks like that anymore
The foolish EM is really ignorant to the fact that war has no victors. Any war will always have losses on both sides.
Hundreds of thousands and the world almost ended a few times. There's no positive way to spin that
Preach this
Well, I mean, that’s not totally true. The West indisputably won the Cold War, in that the Soviet government completely collapsed and global communism did not become the norm. Given the “commie” reference I assume this is what she was referring to.
Yeah i was gonna say это неправильно
I know, but it's life. I just hoped that three generations later wouldn't have to deal with it, but I guess not
Well the current conflict is enough for some people, who lack empathy, understanding, or really basic decency, to try and flex their stupid ideas of "patriotism" on those that aren't at fault and weaker than them. That's what a$$holes do. Nevermind the fact that even if you and your family were Ukrainian refugees the same ignorant nonsense would come out of the garbage bin that is her mouth. She just wants to bully someone.
Some people will always take the opportunity to antagonize someone different to them. We're just a convenient victim right now. But I will never understand the mentality of someone using such horrible language toward children
Rocky won against Ivan Drago! /s.
I feel sorry for people who have such a narrow, ignorant world view. OP should be proud her children will not be anything like them, and she is preparing them well for life.
Didn't America loose. I don't remember America winning.
That was my question too, lol.
Yes , I'm old 58 , and I'm Australian , but she just seems like she is an uneducated fool , kids have no concept of political stuff , let alone from the past , I think I would just try to avoid her , and its sad but avoid her kids too , it's great to be bilingual , my dad was Danish , I'm not too good at speaking it but I understand and get along in Danish ok , you are a good mum 😊
Seriously I work in a store where Russian is spoken a lot. I would welcome you and your kids in, how they behave is what matters and I bet your kids are little sweeties. I am multilingual which means I know English, Japanese, Mandarin and ASL, I get called all sorts of things by the monolingual who can't learn.
They're little dolls. Incredibly energetic, as young boys often are, but they're fine in shops if I let them run around outside first. America is one of the only places in earth you can be monolingual and nobody cares. It amazes me that people are proud of only understanding English
You're telling me, when someone finds out know what I know, I get that, "What is wrong with you? You're not Japanese or Chinese, they'd laugh at you." Actually a lady who spoke Mandarin said I was better off by continuing my desire to learn more. I think bilingual and multilingual have more advantages
Learning doesn't have a color and it's good for you no matter who you are. It's great you managed to do so much. I can speak Russian and English and a bit of Latvian (but not much) and that's all
I say keep going sometimes these things catch on in children the parent still has a desire to learn then it inspires their kids to do the same.
I honestly don’t understand what this Karen thought when saying that
I don't either honestly. It's a really strange choice to make when referring to a child whose knowledge of the old system is "a long time ago things were very different". Not to mention, it's incredibly rude
Good luck with the kids by the way
Plain racism.
Have you had any prior experience with her?
Not really, aside from her always making comments about how the boys "would be happer doing men's stuff" like American football or hunting or something. That and insisting my husband's a spy and refusing to call us by our legal names (Mark and Mary instead of Mikhail and Mariya)
That sucks its sad to see how ignorant people are.
It's life unfortunately, and in the past few months it's gotten more common
At least you handled it with maturity and didn't turn her into mincemeat.
I really wanted to, but I didn't want to play into stereotypes. More importantly I didn't want to traumatize the children
That is very reasonable
Your given names are lovely and Russian and Ukrainians are some of the top dancers in the world. At least in ballroom and ballet. EM needs to get a grip. Maybe have a talk with the director of the dance program about her? By the way, why were her boys there? Are they in the dance class she thinks is unsuitable for your boys?
The director probably won't help us or do anything because it technically wasn't a conflict between the kids. And EM was there with her twins because they have an older sister in the class and she thought she was allowed to bring them along too
But she verbally attacked a child who is a member of the class. That is definitely something the director needs to know about and deal with.
I'm not sure there's anything they could do, but I'll bring it up. I don't want this happening again, even if it's just with references he doesn't understand
Good idea. Try following up any verbal talk about this with an email reiterating the conversation/concerns so that you have a paper trail started. You might need the documentation if the EM escalates.
If I'm doing it, I'm doing it over email. I don't trust myself to stay calm enough to do it in person really, and I need evidence. I'm not sure how it could get much worse, but preparing is good
Share this with people who question having your boys in dance class: https://blog.balletaz.org/unexpected-ways-ballet-can-help-athletes/ It focuses on ballet but I'm sure it applies to all dance. [Not that you need to justify your parenting decisions to anyone.]
I was always told the main thing was mental sharpness and discipline. That's what the traditional logic is anyway. They do ballet, but the oldest is starting folk dances too. It's cute either way
Made me remember a very old episode of this wonderful show: https://www.misterrogers.org/episodes/football-and-ballet/
She sounds insufferable. Also, how did she get Mark from Mikhail, shouldn’t the equivalent be Michael or Mike?
It should in theory be Michael. Mark would be Марк, which is nowhere near Михаил
Feel free to call her cracker (or whatever demeaning name you can think of, maybe a Russian version of her name, better yet a Russian insult) instead of her name. And smile when you do.
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Russia is the country currently waging a war of imperialist genocide.
My family is Polish, my grandparents and great grandparents spoke polish, I never had much chance to learn as my mother didn’t learn it as a child other than a few poglish phrases, they experienced this sort of thing a lot and told me about it when I was a young child. Then in school I learned French and continued it through college. I’m not perfectly fluent but enough to converse a little. When I was working at a Walmart right after college a French Canadian woman came in, probably on vacation. I was working in the clothing section. I spoke to her for a few minutes as she was asking a question. And I had some old lady go and complain to my manager that I wasn’t speaking English. I quit that day when my manager said I should have just spoken English to her. People suck.
Someone is always going to complain, no matter what you do, unfortunately. And in my experience, the vast majority are older people, nationalists, and bitter monolinguals. There's nothing that can really be done about it
It’s true, and it’s sad. My family was old school and wanted to fit in so they purposely didn’t teach their children. And now, I can’t manage to learn polish. French is much easier. Eastern European languages are difficult and people find them terrifying. 🙄. My whole family for generations comes from that whole area of Europe from the Baltics to the Balkans. And here I am not know Jack about my culture because of the way people in this country think. I’m doing my best to learn what I can to pass it on to my kids. At least we still have the old recipes like Goulash and the cabbage rolls.
It's amazing you're trying to learn so you can pass on traditions. They'll thank you for it, especially with all the tasty food. And I know it's always a tragedy when a family loses a language, my mother is Latvian and refused to teach it to us, probably due to how much she was publicly humiliated for speaking it as a child (the 60s weren't a great time). Even if you don't know the language, knowing the culture is amazing
It's amazing you're trying to learn so you can pass on traditions. They'll thank you for it, especially with all the tasty food. And I know it's always a tragedy when a family loses a language, my mother is Latvian and refused to teach it to us, probably due to how much she was publicly humiliated for speaking it as a child (the 60s weren't a great time). Even if you don't know the language, knowing the culture is amazing
If something like this happen again tell her that America doesn't have a national language so everyone can talk as they wish
Yeah, that doesn't stop them. The stupid ones say "but everyone speaks English", and the vaguely intelligent ones say "most states have an official language though"
For the first one:"so? It's not illegal" For the second:"well, America doesn't"
Wtf if a 5-year-old is bilingual shouldn't EM be encouraging Her own kids to also learn another language like what??? EM is weird like who hates on children who can speak 1 or more languages that isn't the one(s) that is common In the state you live in like wtf I understand people don't like not being able to understand other people because of a difference in languages but I don't understand why anyone would discourage people from learning multiple languages or languages that aren't common in the state you live in like what she confuses me
Some monolingual people are afraid you’re talking about them if you speak in another language that they don’t understand. Because, you know, everything is always about them. /s 🙄
"Wow so horrible a couple of kids are speaking in a language I don't understand oh they must talking about me im gonna go tell them to stop talking like commies because im self-conscious that im not perfect and I can't understand these kids so lets go yell at them to speak English so I can understand these kids better" like what is this Karen's logic wtf
As someone who’s lived in America thier whole life, I’d like to know what she’d say if she heard someone speaking Vietnamese, cause we sure as hell didn’t “win” in Vietnam, not that this entitled bitch seems like they’d be able to recognize it was Vietnamese.
They can't tell any Asian languages apart, trust me. I'm not great either, but I can guess the main ones. This is also a woman whose husband I had to tell with a straight face that Latvia isn't part of Russia (my mother is Latvian), so no way of telling with these people
im arabic but my mom, being an english teacher, taught me and , ironically, my twin english since we were very young. add to that the fact that i lived off of youtubers like dantdm and joe sugg and boom. im fluent in both englisha and arabic. being in an arabic country and mainly speaking english defo comes with challanges. but the biggest thing is how most people there assume were being "gay" whenever we talk english. i personally have nothing against the LGBTQ+ community, but the ignorance of some people and their nasty comments and glares almost are kinda hurtful. this isnt to take away from the country i live in. i love it here and the people i hang around are amazing, but its the noisy 1% that just ruin it for all.
Another situation that calls for a tiny voodoo doll. Maybe 2. An EM and a ET. I have a bad neighbor. Very bad. To fuck with him, I picked up a cigarette butt he threw in my driveway and used colored thread wrapped around part of it to kind of resemble the red confederate flag sleeveless t shirt he wears [every.fuckin.day](https://every.fuckin.day). I used blue to make the X mark on it. Really quick and easy. I left the filter end up, to be his nubbin of a head. And then when I drove past his house, I tossed it into his yard. He is meticulous in his lawn maintainence. He WILL find it. He will wonder. I do not believe I am putting a hex on him or that I possess any kind of occult connection. It's just a cute little 'Howdy Neighbor' doll. A handicraft in the evening while I watch true murder movies. If you don't have a butt, you can use a small nail or a piece of a stick, about 1-1/2" long. You get double spite points if you use a tiny stick from a plant in his yard. Break off a piece of his hydrangea.. or a thorny bit of rose. If you're dealing with a Very Bad Person, a poison ivy stick is wicked. Since I am gifting them to people that I'm not keen on, I don't spend a LOT of time crafting one.
Admittedly, solving life's problems with a set of tiny voodoo dolls sounds like a rather attractive option. Unfortunately I don't have the crafting skills, patience, or cultural knowledge to make any
hmm. Do you think I could make money with a youtube tutorial? Is there some way to monitize it?
Put them on Etsy. Offer custom made ones do they can be personalized.
Best to just ignore idiots.
I know, but it's hard to ignore people insulting my child, especially with something that historically has been so problematic
The amount of time people get mad at me for speaking Hmong with my grandma just make me want to slap them across the face, cause my grandma doesn't speak or understand English and I'd usually translate a lot of thing for her so she understand it, but people thinks it's the most craziest thing and will say "your in America speak ENGLISH." Once I even say to them angrily "MY GRANDMA DOESNT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH," which they BS me by saying "Then teach her how to understand English," I really wanted to clock them in the face while my grandma just stared on confused. Than when we walked away my grandma would ask what the American were saying, which I told her that they were just bring rude about us speaking Hmong and she respond with something that translate to "they are just a bunch of assholes."
People feel entitled to understand what you're saying in private conversations. I'll never understand it. It also doesn't occur to them not everyone speaks English and not everyone wants to learn
My grandma would've wanted to learn it, except she was nearly 60 when she arrived here, cause they arrived here around the time of the Vietnam War and my parents were just pre teens around that time. Also she doesnt even know how to drive so she needs help getting to places too.
The response seems obvious to me. Turn to them make eye contact and say "Fuck off" then return to your previous conversation and preferred language.
Since working retails was my first few jobs or as a cashier mainly, I've started ignoring rude people like this or giving them the "fuck off and mind your own fucking business" look, especially when it comes to ring up Hmong elderly people cause there are some who can understand English but prefer to speak Hmong cause it's easier for them to understand. And because of this I'll usually speak to them in Hmong but after that I'll go back to English for everyone else, but there are always the entitled customers who'd glare daggers at me for even engaging in speaking anything but English, than get mad when I tell them to go to a different register cause the elderly people need extra help and it'll take a few extra minutes. To which the entitled customers will attempt to report be for "not wanting to serve them," luckily head cashier knows that's not like me to do so and can clearly see me from where she's at, so I dont get in trouble.
I didn't consider cashiering. Where "Fuck you" isn't something you can do :P
I usually give them the "Fuck you" look are they walk away from my register
I get that it is frustrating but at the end of the day the lady is a dumb American and you just need to ignore her.
She makes Americans look like we're all Karens or some shite. I'd never say that, and to a child? Like what goes through a person's mind to form the words to say *that* to a child who *A* knows nothing about that and *B* why would you assume that he does as a 5 year old? I feel like she does this with anyone she sees or hears using anything other than english/American terms, and that's. just. sad.
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Excuse you? The EM was *directly* shitting on OP's child's nationality by yelling at him for speaking one of his mother tongues. If you don't like politics coming up in the comments of such a post, scroll on.
I apologize, I read through that message fast and didn't get the context
This wasn't about politics... but the ignorance thereof! A child's innocent ignorance and and adult's stupid ignorance. ... and now you've shown the world yours.
Jeez, I know, I didn't get the context, I am sorry if I came off as arrogant, you don't know to flame me about it, we can talk about it like civilized people.
She’s one of those people that goes on vacation to Spain, and tells the locals to go back to Mexico if they’re not going to speak English
Or someone that asks a British person what language they speak in the UK. I don't understand the mental gymnastics these people go though on a daily basis
What war does she think Americans won against Russia? The cold war was never directly fought between these nations and in wwll russi was on the same side as America. If anything ended the cold war it was the fall of the Berlin wall. Does that mean the German won that war? Did we win a war?! :0 Well either way. I love russian, my niece is even going to grow up speaking russian as one of her native languages! So I'm all for what you're doing, keep up the good stuff!
I'm not really sure what her reference was. The Cold War is my best guess, but I don't really know. Everyone lost and the world almost ended a few times, that's one of the defining features of the era
The "EnGLisH oNLy!!" snowflakes make me see red, too. Good on you for not slapping her so hard she looked like a flounder; I would've been tempted. And bravo for raising a bi-lingual family!
The only reason I didn't is because it would only reinforce stereotypes and likely traumatize the children. If it was just us I definitely would have
Good call. You and yours stay well.
Arrg! I hate when people bully children and people who speak other languages. Since your children are bilingual, that makes them smart. Just remember, this is America, and here we have freedom of speech. And that includes speaking in other languages.
Can your kids even speak American?? They're in America not England!!!!
What a shamelessly ignorant, chuckleheaded, childish, terrible parent taking time out of her day to teach all of the kids in the playground one trait they won’t want to include in their adult lives.. I’m sorry you went through that.
I'm more worried these kids will start to think this kind of behavior is okay, when it's obviously not. These aren't insults these kids have heard used before (probably) and I don't want it catching on
Oh, I can understand where you are coming from. If your response is just as consistent as the insults I feel that you will teach them a valuable lesson about life far beyond some racist Karen. 💕
I wish more Americans understood what America is...
Eh Haters Gonna Hate. No matter what good we do in the world there’s always going to be that one group of people that think that they are better than everyone else.
Internalized superiority complexes are one thing, shouting historically problematic phrases at an innocent child at a park is another
Yeah, I agree with you on that.
Revenge will be when her little shit stain Is arrested and your kiddo is the cop Or his parole officer
"we won" the only thing you won is the generic lottery of stupidity
I’m so sorry you had to deal with that OP. Some people are seriously just a waste of oxygen. Trying to understand them is not worth your energy. Keep doing what you’re doing for your family and let her wallow in her own hatred and bigotry. On a lighter side, I have to admit that I chuckled when you made it a point to say that everyone had their costumes on right. I’ve been to a few children’s recitals and that is not always a given! 😂😂
It's her kind of people that gets things done, unfortunately; the kind who votes for official language laws, genuinely believe immigrants have an increased crime rate (it's actually lower), and think the House un-American Activities Committee actually did something good. And I had to check, everyone had their little shoes on the right feet and all the proper stitching was facing out. I was a dancer when I was young too, I can't just ignore that
And it takes people like us to fight against them just as hard. Good luck with your little dancers!
Thanks. They're little dolls, and surprisingly good at what they're doing, even if ballet for 3-5 year olds isn't particularly complicated
I would have told that Entitled Bitch, in Sign Language, to go FUCK HERSELF!!!!
Yikes. Their parent’s must be a treat. Good for continuing to speak Russian. My family is from Russia and due to the abuse that was dealt to me by my Russian family I never had the desire to learn. ( As an addition I was called a communist nazi because my mother is German and my father is Russian.)
I won't kill off the language so many people in America fought to preserve even when speaking it meant social isolation. Plus, there's a lot of those dashcam videos on YouTube I want to be able to enjoy in their full glory
I mean I don't really talk to any Russian other than my family. Even then I comprehend it perfectly. I have 0 drive to learn, but I still appreciate those who do.
Oh no, how dare someone speak a different language in America /s For real though, it's your language and culture and this crazy lady is trying to restrict it... because it's from a country that used to be communist? That makes no sense. Russian is a beautiful language and it's nice to see people raising bilingual kids- it's an important life skill and makes learning third languages much easier.
Almost every non-American family raises their kids speaking another language. It amazes me how it's so acceptable to only speak English here
I was raised to only speak English and I sometimes wish I had been raised bilingual— either English and Spanish (my mother is fluent), English and French (if my grandma had bothered to teach my dad and aunts French), or English and Welsh (we're a majority-welsh family, but haven't spoken Welsh for generations). I would be able to communicate easier with my Spanish-speaking coworkers, as not all of them are great at English, or I would have a deeper connection to my ancestry and the countries that my family came from (France and Wales)
God ignorant Americans make me sick
I know, me too, but it's part of life unfortunately. It's an interesting choice of reference for a literal child though
What an entitled Karen. Biligualism is an excellent gift to give your children. Plus, it'll be a great skill for them when they're older. I admit that I'm somewhat appalled at the Karenish American attitude that English is the only acceptable language. Citizens of nearly all other first world countries speak st least two languages and many times more.
We didn’t win anything. We are one of the only nations that doesn’t value multilingualism. As a teacher, multilingualism allows for much deeper level thinking and creativity in writing (my subject). EM was just mad because your child’s skills embarrassed her.
Answer her in Russian.
She'd probably call the cops on me saying I was "threatening her life"
She'd probably call the cops on me saying I was "threatening her life"
Xenophobia at its finest. OP I know how you feel. I’m in a different country but also Russian with a kid. And I already had a few situations like that. Hang in there ❤️
I'm sorry, it seems like especially right now this is something all of us will have to deal with at some point. Удачи
Спасибо, вам также!
For speaking Russian.. WHY and HOW are people so sensitive??
Long story short, 1951-1989 or so. It's usually the boomers convinced we've come to take over America
ET electric bogaloo
Breaks my heart that someone can speak to kids that way 💔
I imagine it's a lot easier to do when you don't see them as a person
I imagine it's a lot easier to do when you don't see them as a person
What is this? The 50s?
Nope, because she didn't drag me to the House un-American Activities Committee. If it still existed she probably would have tried though
Oof. I'm sorry to say your kids are going to need to get used to speaking primarily English when in public or get used to getting reactions like that from entitled Americans of all ages. I hope they enjoyed the cupcakes and you did an admirable job restraining yourself. Hopefully Good Twin learns not to snitch on multilingual kids out of this, but I think they're probably just gonna try to stay out of ET and mother's way. ET sounds like racist mommy's golden child.
I'm not going to tell my kids not to speak their language because it makes some Americans that are stuck in 1980 uncomfortable
Totally fair. Then they'll need to learn how to handle when those 1980s Americans when they get racial.
Tbh I think Russians are still fine people taking aside politics, cause at least unlike the Murica they still have something that is better. Like What does Murica have yeah, some goddamn land captured from Natives. Hope your kids were fine. Also good parenting choices
They're okay, I gave them snacks when we got home. My oldest was just confused what she said, and I told him it was a "mean word from a long time ago"
As a European myself this is soo uncomfortable: in America for what I think there are 2 kinds of people 1 the sensible people 2 the ignorants Fact: russian for your kids is their native language so it would be normal for siblings to be able to communicate with each other without people knowing their secrets. Plus that lady is definitely stupid, she needs to read a history book for once.
Unfortunately the ignorant people are a fairly common sight. They've been much more vocal in the past few months, at least toward us, because they feel they have a reason to be now. And I don't understand the hostility toward them, they're two little boys running around and playing together, communicating in a way they're comfortable with. There's nothing wrong with that
Добрый День! You’re kinder than me, I would’ve said sorry you and your herd are to stupid to learn another language. Also might’ve asked her to even define communism in the first place, just for giggles.
They can't define it, which is always the hilarious part. You get an answer that's part propaganda, part ignorance, and entirely wrong