It's sad to say, there are some parent's who do not communicate with their child who is deaf through ASL. Unfortunately, there are some who don't make the effort to learn, thinking that they don't have the time to learn or ask for help to learn to sign.
Then there is the majority who really do want to learn, have tried and feel they cannot do it because it's too hard.
I was brought up by deaf parent's, and the ironic thing is, they didn't teach me sign language right away. From birth to 4 years old, they spoke to me orally. One Saturday night, my mom and dad went out, I had a deaf woman babysit for me. Poor thing couldn't understand me, because I couldn't sign to her. She decided to start teaching me some simple words like "good night" "coffee" "mother" "father".
I was so excited by my new found language that I couldn't sleep, and I do remember getting out of bed when my parent's came home and I proudly signed to them "good night". Talk about shock! My dad and mom had the biggest smiles on their faces.
The funny part to me was, the babysitter scolded my parent's for not teaching me sooner, meaning younger. My parent's realized they did make a big mistake by not teaching me to sign, and from that night on, they practiced with me for 30 minutes every night. Which to this day I am very grateful for. I thank Evelyn, the babysitter I had that night for giving my parent's that extra push to get me to learn "family communication" with my deaf parent's.
I married a deaf man, so when we both had kids we both agreed that each word they tried or learn to say, we would teach them the sign that goes with that word. Needless to say, we had a very successful family communication at the supper table.
So much is lost when either parent or their child are not able to communicate with each other. It's like missing those "firsts". How are they doing in school?
What they did with their friends? What is going on in the world? If it wasn't for Evelyn, I would not have been able to share that with my parent's.
My Mom had passed away 4 years ago, and because she gave me the gift of sign language, I wanted to give back to her what I had learned all my life. I
interpreted at her funeral, not only because other deaf attended the funeral, but, because I wanted to tell my Mom in my own way how much I loved her
and to thank her for opening up a new world for me!!!!
