“Mom, who will read me?” The daughter of the language ombudsman ran her social media in Russian

The Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, Olena Ivanovska, admitted that her daughter published posts on social networks in Russian because it is the language her friends use to communicate.

She said this in an interview with the publication Glavkom.

“Teenagers are read on social networks by the same teenagers as they are. I say to my daughter: ‘Sofia, how is this possible? Why are you doing this?’ And she says: ‘Mom, who will read me if they are all Russian-speaking?’ I answer her that she should become so interesting that people would both read and discuss her in Ukrainian,” Ivanovska said.

She said she told her daughter the story of her grandparents, who “were forced to demonstratively abandon their native language” in order to get an education.

According to the ombudsman, Ukrainian teenagers often speak Russian because they want “with each of their actions to manifest their belonging to a separate youth environment.”

“Your marginal position always awakens the spirit of contradiction. There is also a certain lack of critical thinking. That is why a teenager consumes from the internet, from TikTok, all this junk called Russian-language content, which falls on children’s heads without restraint or opposition. And Russian-language bloggers, apparently, are very well oriented in age psychology. It is no accident that they so skillfully hook our children,” Ivanovska stated.

In the same interview, she said that there will be no language patrols in Ukraine yet, because they could cause destabilization.

A year ago, the State Service for Education Quality recorded that Ukrainian schoolchildren had begun to use the state language less.