In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan Russian prevails as the lingua franca despite efforts by policymakers and language activists to promote the Kyrgyz language. This study uses language socialization as a lens to investigate language shift in the city by analyzing communicative events between an urban Kyrgyz mother and her two children. Through two months of participant observation, three interviews, and six thirty-minute recordings, I determine that Kyrgyz in the household is becoming restricted to the register of scolding. Kyrgyz scolds in the family perform Kyrgyz kinship and invoke age-graded hierarchies of respect, recruiting the children into obedience. In contrast, the use of Russian performs accommodation to children, providing the children with opportunities to disregard hierarchies and decrease the social distance between themselves and their mother. In conclusion, I contend that ideologies and practices of childrearing are changing as the first generation of middle-class post-Soviet mothers negotiate their identities as cosmopolitan, global citizens, and changes in the relationship between mothers and their children are contributing to language shift in the city.