Unsupportive Mom Upset After Her Deaf Daughter Decides To Hold Her Wedding Ceremony In Sign Language

When her deaf daughter decides to have her wedding ceremony in sign language, her mother is upset.

It’s difficult enough to plan a wedding, much alone execute it, without everyone poking them with demands, preferences, and views they didn’t ask for.

A couple of years ago, an Am I The A-H*le? tale surfaced about a deaf woman who was planning a wedding for largely deaf guests and wanted to hold the ceremony in sign language. Her mostly deaf mother, on the other hand, had something to say about it.

Weddings are stressful enough without someone dictating how things ‘should be.’

“AITA for Having a Sign Language Wedding Ceremony?”

I’m deaf (24F) and my parents put me into mainstream school after getting me bilateral cochlear implants. They never taught me sign language or immersed me in my deaf culture. They were adamant about not allowing me to use ASL at all.

So, despite my parents’ wishes, I learned ASL in high school and went on to a deaf institution.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t sign fluently when I first started, I soon felt welcomed and understood, and the deaf society was nothing but friendly. After a few months, I became proficient in ASL and stopped wearing my processors since they were no longer necessary. I honestly didn’t understand how lonely I was until I wasn’t anymore.

At college, I met my fiancé, who comes from a huge family of deaf individuals. Everyone he knows, including his extended family, is deaf, HOH, CODA, or SODA, and everyone speaks sign language well. I adore his entire family.

He proposed to me last May after we’d been dating for four years. We’ve been organizing the wedding and have chosen to do it entirely in ASL; the deaf pastor at our church consented to perform the ceremony. My hearing extended family is relatively limited, consisting of only my mother, father, sister, brothers, aunt, uncle, and cousin (my cousin is learning sign). My fiancé’s large extended family, all of whom are deaf or sign proficiently, will be there, as will the majority of our friends.

However, we decided to hire an interpreter for the hearing impaired so that they could understand what was going on. We recently sent out the invitations for our August wedding. The invitation states that it will be in ASL, but that there will be an interpreter for those who are “Signing handicapped,” which is a joke.

My mother, on the other hand, began messaging me and attempting to persuade me that it should be in English with an ASL translator. I believe that because it is our wedding, we should have it in our native tongue, but my mother believes that because we are in America, English should be the first language and that anyone who does not want to “get treated” (have an implant) should hire an interpreter.

She also remarked that saying “signing disabled” was insulting. I don’t believe she appreciates the irony, because she routinely refers to me as hearing impaired. ‘I should have never let you go to that school,’ she kept saying throughout the interview.

My mother also claims that deaf people should be used to having interpreters, despite the fact that she has never had one before, making it more difficult to understand. Is this an AITA situation? Should I just do the ceremony in English because, despite the fact that we consider sign to be our primary language, I suppose it’s the more common means of communication?

I can’t cut off my parents because I’m now helping to pay for my younger brother’s attendance at an autism school.

We are unable to sign and converse at the same time. The minister and my fiancé are unable to talk; however, I have the option of speaking until absolutely necessary.

My parents not only did not learn ASL, but they actively discouraged me from doing so as I grew up. We spent our entire life in Austin, Texas, and there was a deaf school 10 minutes from our house, but they clearly said that I would not be allowed to attend.

(I’ll add this later.) “Reception will be held in ASL, English interpreters will be available for the ‘signing impaired,'” according to the invitation. It’s in quotation marks because I literally placed it in quotation marks.

The deaf community did not indoctrinate me into not wearing my processors; instead, I simply began to use ASL more frequently, and when I needed surgery to adjust the implant, I chose to forego the surgery and stop wearing them because there was no real benefit and I didn’t want to undergo an unnecessary procedure.

Another edit: To those of you who are doubting and even angry at me for refusing to wear implants, you are deafeningly. Many individuals say things like “Don’t you want to hear music?” or “Don’t you want to hear music?” or the sound of birds chirping?” At least for me, music through CIs stinks, and even when I used to wear them all the time, I would take them off to listen to music. No, background noise such as birds singing makes it more difficult for the microphone to pick up other sounds such as people chatting.”

The post received a lot of attention, receiving over 21,300 upvotes and almost 150 awards from the Reddit community, and engaging people to the point that there were over 3,000 remarks in the comment area.

After 21k upvotes and 3k comments, the community has concluded that while the OP isn’t the a-h*le, her mother is.

You can read the post and see how others reacted here, and you can read more Am I The A-H*le? tales here. But, before you do that, tell us what you think about the issue in the comments area below!