Insight: Why I sometimes wish I had a hearing family (BSL)

Dear reader, before you read on, please note that I love my family dearly and I do not – under any circumstances, wish to be disowned or part of another family.

This blog is simply a culmination of thoughts I’ve had throughout my life – many as a teenager – where I’ve wondered how much easier things would be if my family were hearing.

Pretty much my entire family are deaf. I have one hearing sibling who is the odd one out but the others are deaf and I have relatives on both sides of the family who are proud, deaf sign language users.

I actually thought being deaf was the ‘norm’ and my hearing sibling was the strange one, reacting to loud noises and responding to things I was never aware of. The Deaf culture in our family is strong and lively and it’s something that for the most part I’m very proud of.

Many times when I’ve had deaf friends over, they’ve marvelled as to how easy it is to communicate with everyone and they even say they chat to my parents more than they do their own! So I understand that for a lot of deaf friends with hearing families, having deaf parents must be something they’ve always wanted.

But trust me, it has its down falls. I’ve compiled a short list of the disadvantages of having a deaf family in a light hearted way so that others like me know they are not alone!

1. Firstly, my family always seem to know what I’ve done – good or bad – and what I’m up to, as they are part of the deaf community grapevine. Rumours get back to them so quickly and they’ve been known to text me about things that they’ve ‘heard’ before I’ve had chance to talk to them.
   It’s impossible for me to keep relationships or trips a secret -my news is their news it seems!
2. I sometimes wish I could have my family all to myself. Whenever we go out, if there’s a group of deaf people or friends – I always seem to lose their attention as they get absorbed with catching up with or advising others.It’s lovely that my friends adore my parents and chatting to them but I sometimes get a little frustrated that I don’t have as much of their attention as I could have.
3. It’s impossible for me to use the deaf card in our household. While friends say how they got out of trouble by using their deafness, there’s no way I can use that excuse in our home where deafness is the ‘norm’ and therefore everythings visual and easy to access. I can’t pretend I’ve missed information or not heard something – which would have been fun to do in my rebellious teenage years!
4. It’s not easy for my family to communicate with hearing people. I’ve had relationships with deaf people who have hearing parents and it’s been sad to see the communication breakdown between our parents. If only the hearing parents could sign, or if only my parents were more like theirs – it would be so much easier. Friends who have hearing parents automatically have a free interpreter, right?! My deaf friends with hearing relatives can use their family to interpret or speak or ring someone for them – whereas I can’t do that because we are pretty much all in the same boat.
5. People often refer to me as ‘so and so’s’ cousin or ‘so and so’s sister’ which is annoying – I have a name! People assume they know me because they know my brother/Dad/cousin etc but in actual fact they know nothing about me and I wish they wouldn’t assume.

Maybe life would be easier in a lot of ways if my family was hearing. But to be honest, in a lot of other ways – as my friends explain – life would be considerably harder.

At least I am like my family, we all have so much in common and our life experiences are so similar. At least I can chat to my parents without any communication barriers and I never feel alone at the dinner table either. Family gatherings are loud and busy but also fun and enjoyable.

Instead of complaining, maybe I should just be counting my blessings. Perhaps the disadvantages of having no private life and overlapping friends and so on are all worth it too because of the close bond that my family and I have. And that’s something to really be grateful for.

This blog has been written anonymously as part of the Insight series where readers are invited to share their story or news about their interesting job with The Limping Chicken. If you have a story to share please email rebecca@rawithey.com

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