By Amina Ali

My mum has never been able to hear anything since birth, which sounds sad to some people, but to her, it’s just her way of life.

Because she’s deaf, it means I can do British Sign Language (BSL).

Everyone is normally surprised when I explain that I started signing at six months old, but research shows that baby signing has massive benefits to a child’s communication skills.

While other mums got confused about why their baby was crying again, my mum pretty much knew straight away.

I’d suck my thumb or pat my tummy if I was hungry, I’d put my hands under my head if I was sleepy and waft smells away if I… you get the gist.

As I grew older and my skills developed past the basics, sign language and deaf culture became a superpower.

In a loud, crammed restaurant, we didn’t have to scream to talk to each other and we could spot each other to talk across a room. I had a skill very few young people have, and I took it in my stride.

Even in my own life, my spelling, reading and retention skills excelled anyone in my class thanks to the subtitles that were constantly on TV. I could speak my mind easily, getting straight to the point if I was happy, angry or sad.

It was brilliant, until it wasn’t.

I wasn’t unaware how people treated my mum differently or the difficulties she faced.

We’d get intense stares in town or outside the school gates when we spoke to each other. Like we were animals in a zoo, not humans having a chat.

It even got to the point I became the token ‘BSL girl’ at school. I liked telling people about deaf culture, but it got annoying when the only words people wanted to learn were swear words.

Sometimes we’d go to a doctor or hospital appointment, only to find out that there was no interpreter. So, we’d either have to wait longer or come back next time.

I couldn’t – and still can’t – interpret for my mum at these appointments. Not only is it inappropriate for a child to translate either their own or their parents’ medical conditions, I also don’t have the training to interpret in medical settings.

While my mum is very independent, whenever I go out with her it feels like society relies solely on me to be my mum’s voice. It’s frustrating for me and for her. People will automatically look at me when I approach them and ignore my mum completely.

Think about it. How would you feel if people don’t look at you when they talk about you?

It’s rude and disrespectful.

I take my BSL skills for granted, but sometimes it baffles me how much society lacks basic communication. I can think of countless times people have rudely spoken to my mum because they can’t comprehend her deafness.

When I was seven or eight, me and my mum were in a hospital shop, standing in separate aisles. A woman in a wheelchair asked my mum to move out the way.

My mum – who wasn’t facing the woman and oblivious to the situation – carried on looking through a magazine.

After saying excuse me a few times (which I could hear from the sweets aisle), the woman grabbed her umbrella and whacked her on the shoulder. It left a bruise, I remember.

My mum let it go, but I never have. I wish I had the guts to follow her and tell it to her straight that even if she wasn’t deaf, you don’t assault someone. Was a tap on the shoulder or a tug of the coat really that hard for her?

That’s just one of many moments she’s been abused or shouted at for something out of her control.

And my mum is not the only one. Research from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People found that 67% of deaf people experience negative attitudes from hearing people.

This is just a few reasons why I push for people to learn basic BSL, or even just basic communication. It’s not right that deaf people are excluded from society and its not right that people can’t communicate with them.

If you’d like to learn BSL, visit https://www.british-sign.co.uk/ and sign up for their online course.

Alternatively, you can visit the Commanding Hands YouTube page.