I grew up bilingual outside the US, and speak English with a hybrid British/Indian/Middle Eastern accent (with some of my personal quirks, and mixing increasing

I grew up bilingual outside the US, and speak English with a hybrid British/Indian/Middle Eastern accent (with some of my personal quirks, and mixing increasing amounts of Californian over time). I can understand English in nearly any accent (Singaporean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Nigerian) as long as the words involved are globally used and the grammar is passably queen's. Especially after hearing it for about an hour. And people who natively speak English with these various accents usually can understand my English better than they can an average American accent. Yet in this country, my accent is mocked, despite being perfectly understood and more versatile. Even by others who don't speak with the American accent! This is the problem of the "default accent" anywhere being referred to as "no accent", and therefore anything deviating is considered "having an accent". This makes "accent" a negative trait, scaling from 0-bad to heavy-bad. But if the vernacular were such that we said "American accent" instead of "no accent", then noone's accent is bad, just not used to. This isn't directed at parent in particular, but just voicing a pet peeve: It's extremely offensive to imply someone's command of a language is bad just because you aren't familiar with their accent. Most of my non-American peers who were raised on English have a better command of the language than my American ones, yet they are mocked for their accents as if they don't know the language, when in reality it's the Americans lack of familiarity with the language (as its used globally) preventing them from comprehending the language. So yes, put in more work, the world is shrinking and English is the global language. What you're saying is spoken from a position of privilege because the culture allows you to mock others' accents rather than the other way around. Remember, every time you hear English with an accent other than British, American or Australian, it usually means the speaker knows at least one entire other language as well, probably one that you would sound like an idiot if you tried to speak it. Don't be rude or dismissive of their intelligence.