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I read a sci-fi short story sometime in the last few years. I probably read it on Project Gutenberg. No idea how old it was or how well-known. It was from the point of view of some kind of shellfish-like alien whose mother was an alien like itself but whose father was human. We only got glimpses of his story through the POV of the alien, but he had apparently figured out how to communicate with these aliens. The narrating alien child would quote him sometimes and the things he said were recognizable as jokes to the reader but the child didn't get them. The alien children lived inside their mother's shell until they were old enough to survive on their own. I remember the narrating alien led its siblings to high ground because that was considered a prestigious place to settle down and establish themselves. There were some details about the hostility of the environment where they lived but I don't remember specifics.