My Son Answers Me In English

You ask him in one and he answers you in the other, and it happens about forty times a day.

You have done it since he was born. Every meal, every bedtime, every time he comes in from somewhere. And somewhere around four he started answering in English, and he is nine now, and it has been every single time for five years.

He understands you perfectly. That is not in doubt. He answers the question, correctly, immediately, in English.

And there is something in it that you have never been able to say to anybody, including your husband.

It feels like being refused.

Not dramatically. A very small no, forty times a day, delivered by a nine year old who loves you and is not refusing anything, and who would be genuinely baffled if anybody suggested he was.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

You are being answered and you are not being joined, and those are two different things and only one of them is happening.

So I am not going to tell you he will come back to it as a teenager. He might. Nobody knows and it is not a promise anybody can make. And I am not going to tell you to make him answer in it, because you have tried a version of that and it turned a meal into a negotiation and you stopped, correctly.

The heart of the fathers to the children

There is a line at the very end of the Old Testament about what a turning between generations looks like.

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers. (Malachi 4:6, King James Version)

Both directions.

Now the striking thing is that it runs twice, and the fathers are listed first. A verse about generational healing could easily have been about getting the children to come round, and it opens with the older ones turning toward the younger.

You have a verse that turns the older one first, and a parent moving toward a child has never once been the weaker half of a turning. Malachi 4:6 puts the fathers at the front of the sentence, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with a woman who has been answered in English for five years.

Now notice what the verse does not describe, because people load it up with things.

It does not describe obedience. It does not say the children shall do what the fathers say, or that the children shall take up the fathers' practices. It says hearts turn toward each other, which is about direction and attention rather than about compliance.

And a boy who answers every question you ask him, immediately, correctly, has his heart turned toward you.

You have been getting the thing the verse actually promises and calling it a refusal, and an answer given straight away has never once been a heart facing the other way. The Holy Spirit is the one who can tell the difference between compliance and a turned heart, and Malachi 4:6 asks for the second and never once for the first.

And here is the third thing, which is who does the turning in that sentence.

He shall turn. It is not the fathers turning themselves and it is not the children being persuaded. The verse hands the whole operation to somebody else, which is the only reason a mother can put down the negotiating at a dinner table.

You were never the one responsible for turning that boy, and a work assigned to God has never once been a mother's to force at a meal. Malachi 4:6 puts the turning in God's hands twice in the same line, and the Spirit of God is the one at that table forty times a day.

He is not choosing between you

Here is the practical half, and it is about what is happening in a nine year old.

He is not choosing. That is the first thing and it is worth being technical about, because the whole feeling depends on it being a choice.

Children answer in whichever language is fastest for them at that second. Nothing about identity, nothing about loyalty, and no decision at all. English is the language of his school, his friends, the thing he watched this morning and the argument he had at lunch, so English is what is loaded and ready.

He is answering with what is nearest to hand.

You have never once been chosen against, and a child reaching for the nearest word has never once been making a decision about his mother. The Spirit of God is the one with a woman hearing a small no forty times a day, and Malachi 4:6 describes hearts turning rather than children complying.

Now here is the thing that is actually happening, and it is not nothing.

He is understanding all of it. Every question put to him in that language for nine years has landed. He has a complete ear, which is the expensive half of a language and the half that cannot be built later, and it got built by exactly what has been happening at that table.

You have not failed at this. You have completed the part that had to happen before ten.

You have already built the half of this that cannot be built later, and a complete ear has never once been the same thing as nothing. Malachi 4:6 puts the turning in God's hands and asks the parent only to be facing the right way, and the Holy Spirit is the one who knows what nine years of questions put into a boy.

And here is the thing about pressing him, said plainly, because you already know it and it is worth confirming.

Stopping was right. Requiring the answer turns the language into a rule, and a rule about language is one a child can refuse later with real force, and then you would have a teenager with a position rather than a boy with an ear.

What you have now is better than what that would have produced.

You are holding something that a negotiation would have spent, and a boy with no position on this has never once been further away than one with a grievance. The Spirit of God is the one who stopped a mother at a dinner table before it became a rule, and the written word gives the turning to God rather than to a parent.

Say it again tomorrow, the same way

So here is the assignment, and it is almost exactly what has been happening already.

Try again with the same person, in the same language, once more this week.

Him. Tomorrow. The same question at the same meal in the same language, exactly as it has gone for five years.

Nothing changes in the doing. What changes is what you are listening for.

You have been doing the right thing and hearing it wrongly, and five years of the same question has never once been five years of being refused. Malachi 4:6 turns hearts rather than tongues, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that table with a woman asking in one language for the ten thousandth time.

And here is the one small addition, which is for him rather than for you.

Ask him a question he cannot answer with a fact. Not what do you want, or did you wash your hands. Something that needs him to think for a second, because a thinking pause is the only gap where a second language ever gets reached for.

He may still answer in English. Probably will. But the pause is where it can happen, and a fast question guarantees the fast language every time. Then stop, because one question is the assignment and nobody owes anybody an answer in any particular language tonight.

You have permission to keep asking in it and let him answer how he answers, and a question asked in one language has never once needed a reply in the same one to have counted. The Spirit of God is the one at that table when a boy pauses before he answers, and Malachi 4:6 hands the whole turning to somebody other than the mother.