This is just my personal story. Everyone has a unique one and just because these are my experiences doesn't mean everyone with deaf parents feels the way I feel or undergoes the same challenges and joys. With that disclaimer, I'd like to explain what exactly it means to be deaf.

Many people I tell my story to are under the assumption that because one is deaf, one must be mute as well. That isn't true. Both of my parents speak and many deaf people speak.

Another assumption people make is that deaf people are unable to hear anything, and that's not true either. Deafness is a scale. You can be hearing, hard-of-hearing (like my father), or deaf.

Side note: You may ask why I call my father "deaf" when he is really hard-of-hearing. I could just say that he's hearing-impaired, but I prefer not to call my parents that. When they are called "hearing-impaired" by those who are hearing, my parents are immediately labeled as "other". Someone being called "hearing-impaired" is subjecting the hearing person's point of view on my parents. Meaning, my parents could call hearing people "deaf-impaired" and all that does is place a barrier and set distance between the two. Like I wouldn't call someone with blond hair "brunette challenged", just like they wouldn't call me "blond challenged". To me, it's the same with deafness. It's not the end of the world if someone calls them "hearing impaired", but I feel it's nice to think about. Okay, back on track.

Here's how they get by in the hearing world. My dad wears hearing aids and my mom wears a Cochlear Implant which involves a magnet on her brain and an outer ear piece. The way C.I.'s work, to my knowledge, is by taking sounds from the environment, translating these sounds into electrical impulses, and simulating sounds inside the brain, completely skipping over the ear drum.

They are not a magical "fix" to become hearing. Noises sound different with a C.I., and they are not perfect. Cochlear Implants are an extremely touchy subject and a huge controversy. To summarize the argument briefly: To view being Deaf as being part of a cultural group or to view being deaf as a medical condition that can be altered with to get by easier in the hearing world.

I am not deaf because their deafness was not genetic. Both of my grandmothers were sick at one point in their pregnancy and *boom*, my parents came out differently than expected.

Let me run through some facts real quick.

My parents drive. My dog's bark is our doorbell. I don't call my mother on the phone, I have to Facetime her. My parents go to deaf events and parties. My mother did not receive "sense-boosts" like she hoped, so yes she is deaf and she has terrible vision and she has a bad sense of smell and not-so-great taste buds. So that kinda sucks. But she lives.

I sign to them, but not as much as I would like to. They read lips super well and did not want to force me to sign to them. They wanted me to be a kid and not their helper, even though I naturally help them with things. For example, I have always been on phone duty. If someone calls the house, it's up to me to answer the phone. When we're at the grocery store and the cashier asks, "Paper or plastic?" and my mother either says, "Yes" or nothing at all, I am the one who responds to the cashier's eye roll and says, "Pardon us, she's deaf".

I'd like to elaborate on how special it is to have deaf parents in a later article and fully explain why I'm so thankful I was born with a unique outlook on many things. An article about my entire life would take way too long to write all at once and would be really boring (the sign in ASL for being bored is putting your pointer finger to the outside of a nostril and moving it from side-to-side, to look like you're picking your nose). For now, I hope this has been informative and I welcome all and any questions. Thanks for reading!