Kids have different relationships with each of their parents, and that can become even more pronounced after a divorce.

What would you do if your daughter made up a brand new language that she only spoke to you, but then her mom got upset and demanded to learn the language?

That is the situation the dad in this story is in, and he isn’t sure if he is doing the right thing by refusing to teach the mom, who is his ex.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA For Not Telling My Daughter’s Mother Her “Secret Words”?

Cast:

•Me (M36)

•My Daughter Clara (F12)

•My Ex-Wife Sara (F37)

I’m sure this is all relevant to the story.

Few Backstory Details:

•Sarah and I got married when Clara was born, and separated when she was 6 years old.

•Clara spends her time 50/50 between us with 2 week splits.

•We both live in the same city so her friends and schooling are consistent, not constantly switching back and forth.

The Event in Question:

One of the best stories ever written.

This all started when I read The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien to Clara 2 years ago. We talked about how he was a Linguist and had actually created several languages from scratch for the story.

This captured my daughter’s imagination. She has been obsessed with linguistics ever since, and I have been happy to provide as many texts and information as I can.

Almost all of it is for higher level students, but I do my best to help her understand it. (I am definitely not a linguist and she definitely knows more than me at this point.)

Wow, this young lady is very impressive.

For about a year she has been creating her own language which she calls Nista (I think that’s the spelling, it is only verbal), this language isn’t just English with different sounds for the different words. It is actually a new language, she has created different conjugations, syntax, and grammar.

Just one example is a bunch of different suffixes to indicate emotion that can be attached to any word.

This is very heartwarming.

Clara and I speak Nista together for probably about 60% of our conversations.

It is the highlight of my entire life, I cannot believe how creative my daughter is.

Kids go through times when they prefer one parent over the other.

Sara remarried 5 years ago, and I haven’t been in a relationship since we divorced.

Clara prefers her time at mine, something I definitely don’t encourage. I want her to be happy at both, but she has never been comfortable around her stepdad and step brother (I think he is around the same age as her, but I’m not positive.)

I knew that Clara had never taught Sara any Nista, which I was selfishly kind of happy about.

It isn’t his to share, if his daughter wants to tell her mom, that is up to her.

I loved having this language that only me, my daughter, and her friends shared.

However when Sara dropped Clara off this week, she informed me that she hadn’t spoken anything but that “goblydy gook” for the entire 2 weeks she was with her.

Mom needs to fix her relationship with Clara, not try to force dad to get in the middle.

Sara then demanded that I teach her the “secret words.”

I refused and explained that if Sarah wanted her to know any NISTA (I stressed it’s name because Sara kept disparaging it), she would have taught her it.

I then closed the door in her face.

Come on Mom, it’s not like Clara CAN’T speak English.

Sara texted me saying there could be an emergency and she would need to know.

I said that she still knows English if there is an emergency.

I have talked to her teachers at school. Her English teacher said that Clara has shown her the language, but only briefly. In all of her classes, including English, she speaks English.

Mom trying to force herself into it will only cause problems.

Thinking it over, I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. This is a massive part of our daughter’s life, and one that she isn’t letting her mother into.

She has told me that she wants to go to college for linguistics, so this isn’t anything temporary.

So Reddit, should I teach her mom?

No, that would risk the daughter not wanting to include dad in it either. Not to mention that it would take countless hours to teach it to mom, if she is even willing to put in the effort.

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit  have to say about it.

He is clearly a great father.

I think he should talk to her about not speaking it at mom’s.

This is a good question.

He knew the basic age of her step-sibling.

I think this commenter is exactly right.

Are there deeper issues at mom’s?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.