Re: Mother tongue.
you know what, my in laws are pretty good in English, and my Urdu medium mom loves the fact that because of her grand kids, she is forced to learn a new language at this age. SHe really takes it very positively as she likes to be independent and dont want an ‘interpreter’ to accompany her when she goes to her doctor or dentist or for grocery buying, so she sees this as an opportunity to get better in spoken english
Having said that, I want my kids (and they do to some bit and improving every day) to know Urdu. But we’ve seen extremes too. Just so they can communicate with grand parents, parents focus so much on urdu that when kid starts school, he faces a hard time because he just cannot understand what te4achers and other kids are talking about. We had one family almost moved back to India just because son was suffering from major social anxiety to the extent that he was developing a bad self esteem. I never wanted my kids to pay that price, just so they can speak with their grand parents properly.
I am sorry, I know I am very anal person and always keep challenging the conventional wisdom, especially when it comes to parenting.