Language barriers can make communication difficult enough as it is. But when the people you struggle to understand are your own family, it can feel especially isolating.
One woman and her fiancé are both deaf, yet many of her relatives never learned how to sign. After years of feeling left out at family gatherings, she started wondering whether she wanted the same experience on her wedding day. So she considered leaving most of them off the guest list. Read the full story below.
The woman and her fiancé are both deaf, but most of her relatives never learned how to sign
After years of feeling left out, she started wondering if she should invite them to her wedding at all
It’s easy to take the little things in life for granted without realizing how difficult they can be for deaf people
More than 1.5 billion people worldwide have some degree of hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization, and around 430 million have disabling hearing loss.
If you’ve never had trouble hearing, it’s easy to take a simple conversation for granted. But for deaf people, it can be exhausting when nobody makes an effort to communicate in a way they understand.
Nine out of ten children born deaf have hearing parents. Some families learn sign language together, but that doesn’t happen in every household. Imagine sitting at the dinner table while everyone chats away, and you’re struggling to follow what’s going on. After years of that, it’s hardly surprising that someone might feel like an outsider in their own family.
When deaf children go to school, they might face a whole new set of challenges. Even with an interpreter to help them follow lessons, they might still feel left out when it comes to making friends or hanging out with classmates who don’t know how to sign. That’s why it helps when schools teach other kids how to include their deaf classmates, too.
Finding a job isn’t always easy, either. There are laws against disability discrimination, but that doesn’t stop some employers from making assumptions about deaf applicants. Others don’t provide interpreters or the support they need during interviews and at work, making things unnecessarily difficult.
Even something as simple as going to the doctor when you’re sick can be a struggle. You need to explain your symptoms and understand what treatment you’re getting, which is pretty difficult when you can’t understand each other.
According to the US Department of Justice, poor communication in hospitals can lead to incorrect diagnoses or delays in treatment. That’s why having access to qualified interpreters is so important.
And what about emergencies? What if you need to call the police but can’t make a regular phone call? Or there’s a fire, but you can’t hear the smoke alarm? Thankfully, there are ways around these challenges.
In some places, you can text emergency services instead of calling them, and special fire alarms use flashing lights or vibrations to warn people of danger. The problem is that these options aren’t available everywhere, leaving some deaf people at greater risk.
All of this goes to show just how many everyday situations leave deaf people feeling excluded. Sometimes, their safety is at stake, too.
So it makes perfect sense that this woman wanted her wedding to be a day when she could easily communicate with everyone and simply enjoy herself. After all, everyone deserves to feel included, especially by their own family.
And making life more accessible for deaf people starts with those around them being willing to put in a little effort.
Readers said it was her wedding, so it was entirely up to her who made the guest list
But then the woman made a discovery that changed everything
Readers were completely on board with her decision
