While I’m still trying to process the impressions from my unplanned trip to Serbia, I remembered that a thematically connected and very important text about last year’s trip back home has been sitting unpublished for a while.

It was clearly waiting for the right moment – and the right moment is now, as an introduction to the texts that follow.

Yes, I know too much time has passed since my first post about our trip to Serbia after 5 years. But so much has happened in the meantime that writing about it not only felt like a chore, but irrelevant too.

As I’ve already mentioned, Sofia travelled to the country her parents come from for the first time at just under three years old – the country of her wider and closer family. Many people were meeting her for the first time, and just as importantly, she was meeting many people for the first time too.

For her the whole experience was an adventure – her first flight, another language, another culture, different people from everything she’d known until then.

Cautious as she is, there were moments when we feared it would all be too much for her, that she’d simply be overwhelmed by everything. She was – and she wasn’t.

The best part of everything was meeting and spending time with her many cousins, because that was above all the whole point of the trip – for the children to get to know each other and grow closer (as much as that’s possible in such a short time).

Children being the sincere and uncomplicated creatures they are, they caused no problems and asked no silly questions.

But the adults… they’re a whole other story.

There are those who know Sofia and who generally understand what three-year-olds are like – people who don’t expect her to leap into their arms on first sight and tell them everything she knows. She’s still a child, and a child for whom everything happening around her right now is completely new. Imagine – she’s not going to start communicating straight away with a person she doesn’t know, or follow them to the next room, let alone anywhere further. We understood that, we know our child, and we didn’t force her into anything.

But many people didn’t – and so the question most frequently asked was: “Does she even know Serbian?!”

You won’t believe how many times we heard that question in just two weeks of being back home. Yes, I was genuinely stunned.

At the beginning we explained: of course she does, but she’s shy and needs time to get to know someone and trust them (which is perfectly normal, isn’t it?).

And then I started getting snippy too – because I began to take this question as a provocation.

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Cold German?!

What does that even mean? Why do people feel the need to mock in such a bizarre way?

The moment you don’t live in Serbia anymore but in, say, Germany, you’re immediately a cold German, your child “doesn’t know the language of her ancestors” – and you owe everyone a mountain of presents or even financial support, because you’re over there and therefore automatically have everything and are obligated to everyone for that reason alone. Excuse me?! I’ve had enough of this.

My child speaks Serbian and German – and God willing, she’ll learn at least one more foreign language, because language is the greatest treasure that no one can ever take away from a person.

Language Is the Greatest Treasure.

Secondly: cutting remarks have always been rude and repulsive, never funny – whatever they happen to be about.

And thirdly: don’t expect me to stay smiling and pleasant after other people’s rudeness. I won’t insult anyone, I won’t argue – but I will not tolerate verbal aggression either, especially when it concerns my child.

In the end I started responding with: No, she doesn’t know Serbian – you’ll have to speak exclusively in Latin with her, since she is after all the child of academically educated parents. And that worked. The rude interlocutor would suddenly back off – and even look a little ashamed.

If You Have Nothing Kind to Say – Say Nothing at All.

It’s perfectly fine if people no longer have things in common with us, or if they don’t know how to behave around a small child. What’s not fine is being rude because of it.

It doesn’t matter what the topic is – many people simply lack any sense of basic courtesy. And when children are involved, everything takes on a whole new dimension.

So: if you have nothing nice and decent to say to a child or its parents – don’t ask it “who do you love more, mummy or daddy”, and don’t ask the parents “why is she so spoiled”, “when’s the next one coming” or “does she even know Serbian.”

Easier for you. And easier for us.

S-Mama