Why SEE? Why not ASL?

Alright guys and dolls, here it is, the truth. SEE was not my first choice. I had never herd of SEE until last year. In high school I had learned a tiny bit of ASL and I LOVED it. I thought it was amazing and I had always wanted to learn more. So why didnt I? I didn't know how to go about learning more and I never had the desperate need to know it. I just wanted to learn to speak with my hands because the language is so beautiful and graceful. I bought books and tried to teach myself with books. I found my self signing things backwards so I came to the realization that with out a teacher I would not be able to learn the language....bummer. I knew classes where expensive so I never looked into taking classes. As I mentioned above I never had the need to learn the language. I looked at it more as a very interesting hobby rather then a second language.

One of the sweetest things my mother has ever said to me was when I told her Becca was mostly deaf. Those who know me know that I am speaking truth when I tell you I am a worry wart. I had gone through so much in my pregnancy with her that I thought there could be several things wrong. I never once imagined hearing loss. When we where told that our daughter was deaf, sure I went through a brief moment of shock...and worry that one day I would be calling for her and she would never hear me if danger was around...or that I would never hear her voice and that she would never respond to mine. When I expressed this to my mom the only thing she said was " Jamie what better parent could she have been given then you?" You have always wanted to learn sign and now you have the reason to.

First off I had no idea that my mother even remembered I had wanted to learn sign. Secondly she had no worry in the world over it because she knew with out question everything was going to be ok. Coming form my mom this was a big deal.

Where SEE came in. We met a women in our deaf and hard of hearing group that has a 34 year old son who is completely deaf. When she sat at her crossroads deciding what language was best for her son she decided on SEE. She now teaches SEE. She offered to teach our group free of charge. What an amazing gift! After speaking with her I instantly liked her. Her reason for choosing SEE makes sense to me. She wanted her son to know that there is a lot more to the English language. An example she gave us in our weekly classes is one like this. In ASL if you are telling your child you are going to your grandmothers house you might sign something that says " we go grandmother house" where in SEE we sign "We are going to grandmothers house". We sign it all the ing at the end the pass tense of the word etc.

Some people do not like this method because its harder and longer. When you are watching someones hands speak rapidly its very hard to keep up. My thought is that Becca will learn SEE to help her learn to read books and understand what she is reading, then later on if she wants to drop SEE to pick up ASL then we will all be ok with that and support her in what ever she picks up.

As of right now Becca isn't fully deaf. She hears just slightly above where they would qualify her for cochlear implants. Which is another subject that we will touch on later. If my daughter should lose more of her hearing...goodness that thought puts tears in my eyes...but if she where to ever lose her hearing I want/ need to know that I will always have a language to speak to her with.
The thought of not having the ability to speak to her crushes me. You would be surprised to learn that a lot of parents and family have not taken the time to learn their childs language. I cant comprehend that. I cant let my baby grow up in a home where she feels she is not a part of it.

Hugs,
Jamie Marie