According to estimates from the Annual Disability Statistics Compendium, nearly 3.6 percent of Americans consider themselves as deaf or hard of hearing. Of course, it is not so easy to live with the complete or partial loss of one of the main human senses, but doctors and scientists are doing their best to alleviate the situation.

Hearing aids are becoming more and more perfect from year to year, and sign language, in our deep conviction, should be included in the top ten greatest human inventions, along with typography and the wheel. However, deaf people, alas, still sometimes have to face complete misunderstanding even from their own relatives – as it happened in the story of the user u/TA_familydinner, which we will tell you today.

The author of the post, his wife and their 3 y.o. daughter recently attended his brother’s engagement dinner

Image credits:  cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)

The author’s wife is deaf so they’re teaching their daughter sign language as well

Image credits: TA_familydinner

Image credits: Donnie Ray Jones (not the actual photo)

Image credits: TA_familydinner

The toddler knows that in order to attract mom’s attention she could also bang on the table – so she did during the dinner

Image credits: shankar s. (not the actual photo)

Image credits: TA_familydinner

The author’s SIL-to-be called the girl’s behavior ‘rude’ and insulted his wife as well – so they just left in outrage

So, the Original Poster (OP) and his wife are raising their three-year-old daughter Lizzie, and they recently attended his brother’s engagement dinner. What is important, as the author of the post notes, neither he nor his wife had previously met with their future sister-in-law, Anna, because they live far enough away.

The OP’s wife is deaf and wears a hearing aid, but sometimes, when it gets too noisy around, the woman turns it off, and then others should communicate with her in sign language. Parents teach little Lizzie this language, but since the girl is still a toddler, it’s not that easy. Therefore, she knows – if you want to attract mum’s attention, you need to knock on the table – she will definitely feel the vibration.

But Anna didn’t know about it! And at one point in the midst of dinner, when the OP’s wife turned off her hearing aid, Lizzie wanted to go to the toilet and tried to attract mom’s attention in the same way that she was taught. She attracted attention – not only from her mother, but also from Anna, who remarked to her that banging on the table while eating was completely inappropriate.

Moreover, even when the OP explained the situation to Anna, she still kept insisting that such behavior looks rude, and that they have to parent their daughter better. In addition, Anna referred to the OP’s wife as being ‘defective’, so the man was reasonably outraged and decided to leave the party. He apologized to his parents, offered to pay for the meal and picked up their belongings. The parents insisted that Anna apologize, but the OP’s brother, on the contrary, said that it was rude to knock on the table.

In general, the OP and his family left, and that evening his brother called him and threw a real tantrum, accusing brother of not only ruining the engagement dinner for him, but also framing him with money. It turned out that the parents made him pay for the dinner they hosted – because they also considered his fiancée’s behavior to be rude, and then left the restaurant altogether. Be that as it may, the author of the post did not at all consider himself wrong in this situation.

Image credits: Mack Male (not the actual photo)

According to experts, hearing children of deaf parents successfully master both spoken communication and sign language, although if both parents are deaf, then the kid’s primary language would probably be sign language. “Most children of deaf adults will eventually become fluent in both English and sign language, making them bilingual, which research shows bring many benefits mentally and intellectually,” the British portal SignSolutions states.

American researcher Mary T. Weiner Ph.D. in her study “Understanding Deaf parents with hearing children” also claims that “Many people do not understand or know about deafness. It is our job to educate them, thus the need for us to be assertive, a skill that your child/ren can learn from you.” It remains to be hoped that the author of the original post will still find a common language with his brother and, possibly, with his future wife – and teach them to be more tolerant.

However, many commenters to the original post were not so delicate in their expressions towards the original poster’s SIL-to-be. Moreover, in the process of communicating with the OP, people in the comments found out that the brother had previously been quite arrogant and isultive – and even suggested that he find a ‘normal’ partner. And it frankly shocked the commenters. “I’d be done with Anna and brother forever”, some of the folks honestly admits.

Unfortunately, in situations like this, it often happens that relatives are overly intrusive with their own points of view – as it was, for example, described in this post of ours about a SIL, who criticized the parents of a girl with autism for not taking the daughter for a walk to a noisy theme park. And if you’ve already made up your mind about the characters in this tale, please feel free to express it in the comments as well.

People in the comments unanimously sided with the man, claiming it was his SIL who behaved absolutely rude in this situation

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