Parents just don’t understand, errr…speak the same language…..

  So, the major disadvantage to living in a place where you don’t speak the language is my kids.  My kids, the oldest two at least are fluent in Romanian, and I’m not.  This has become a major obstacle for me, and an easy escape for my oldest, who quickly figured out that in this case mom really doesn’t understand.  In fact, I’m quite clueless.

  She can tell me that my mother in law said one thing, when she really didn’t say anything of the kind.  Her teacher said she needs money for this, when really she doesn’t need any.  I get it, kids are sneaky, but factor in a language barrier on my part, and it’s a whole new ballgame.  I don’t know anyone who can relate to me, as everyone I know is either back home in the U.S. or they are here and speak both English and Romanian, not to mention probably one to three more languages on top of these two!

  I’m slowly getting the hang of the language.  I mean I’m getting to where I can understand it more when I hear it spoken.  Speaking it back is  a horse of a different color.  The thing is though, I still am not good enough that my kids know that they can pull the wool over my eyes in a lot of cases.

  My oldest daughter is a sweet heart, but she’s 7, and since we’ve been here she’s been give a lot of independence, and maybe that is what missing link to her behavior lately.  I won’t go into details, but it isn't good!  Back home I would never have let her walk to the top of our neighborhood to go to the store there to buy some milk or loaf of bread.  Cause it just wasn’t safe, she could get kidnapped, hit by a car, attacked by a dog, etc. Here though, nobody messes with the kids, dogs are everywhere, and the only people they seem to attack are they gypsies, which although politically incorrect, is quite amusing!  Anyway, I can give her a few bucks and send her down the stairs, across a fairly busy street and into the store to buy me some bread or milk, or whatever I might need to finish what I’m cooking.  At her grandmother’s she can walk up the hill and across another street and go to the park.  She walks herself to and from school every day.  It takes about 5 minutes to walk there, if that gives you any ideas as to distance. 

  So is it the language barrier coupled with gotten too soon independence that is wrecking havoc in my domestic felicity, or just growing pains – part of growing up?  I think it’s the former.  In the States she was sheltered, didn’t go anywhere on her own, never out of my eye sight,  We didn’t live in a good school district, and the school she would have had to attend was a bad school, so we homeschooled.  Here she can come and go pretty much as she pleases [within reason], she goes to public school, seems to make friends easily, and makes good grades.    

  So why is this parent just not understanding???