I spent years hiding my hearing loss. I was embarrassed by it, determined to keep it invisible. Then I became a mother — and everything changed.
My story actually begins with my father. As a child, I watched him struggle silently with his own hearing issues — growing his hair long to cover his ears, retreating to the corner at family parties, sometimes with his back to the room. I didn’t fully understand it then. But when I started losing my own hearing in my mid-20s, I did. He was probably exhausted from concentrating so hard just to follow a conversation. So, he withdrew. And for many years, so did I.
The Catalyst: Motherhood
Motherhood changed things not because it made hearing easier, but because I saw my kids watching me do the same things I had watched my father do — pulling back, going quiet, hiding. I realized I was passing that stigma to the next generation. My hearing loss is genetic, which means my children may face it themselves someday. What model was I setting?
It was time to finally accept my hearing loss. I started wearing my hearing aids consistently, being honest with my family and friends about my communication challenges, and eventually sharing my journey more publicly. Something unexpected happened: the more I talked about it, the better I felt. Each conversation made the next one easier.
What Hearing Loss Looks Like in a Family
One of the funny things about raising kids with hearing loss is that they never knew anything different. When I asked my teenagers what it felt like to have a mom with hearing loss, they didn’t understand the question. They’d grown up learning how to talk to me — get my attention first, face me, follow a few communication basics. It was simply how our family worked.
We figured out together where I should sit at the dinner table for the best sight lines, what to plan before going to a restaurant, and how to grab a captioning device at the movie theater without making a production of it. Small accommodations that, taken together, made me feel supported rather than singled out. Not everything was graceful — hide-and-seek can be a challenging game for someone with hearing loss — but we found our way.
The most supportive thing a family can do is make accommodation a group habit rather than a solo burden. When it stops being “mom’s thing to manage” and becomes something everyone participates in naturally — checking where she should sit, picking up the captioning device without being asked — it transforms the whole dynamic. The person with hearing loss feels supported rather than spotlighted. That shift is enormous.
More Than Technology Needed
Hearing aids today are remarkable — sophisticated, Bluetooth-enabled, programmable for different environments. Captioning has advanced enormously. These tools matter deeply. But they are one leg of a three-legged stool, not the whole structure.
To truly thrive with hearing loss, we must augment technology with self-advocacy. Part of this requires adopting a proactive attitude about our hearing loss. Accepting it, being willing to ask for what we need, and letting go of the shame. The other part is adopting practical strategies to communicate better: choosing the right seat, using visual cues, and creating powerful support networks, including with our families.
For Moms Just Starting This Journey
If you’re a mother newly navigating hearing loss, here is what I most want you to know:
You are not alone. There are many of us out here. Through HLAA (Hearing Loss Association of America) support groups, online communities, and advocates sharing their experiences, you can find your people.
The path is not smooth — and that’s okay. There will be hard days. Moments of frustration. Times when your family gets it right and times when they don’t. That’s not failure; that’s life with hearing loss. Parenting in general isn’t a smooth path either. Give yourself and your family grace.
Be specific about what you need. The more clearly you can communicate your needs, the more effectively your family can help. “Please face me when you talk” is more actionable than “I’m having trouble hearing.” Learn your own hearing loss well enough to ask for what actually helps.
Be patient, and keep reminding gently. Children will be doing everything right, facing you and getting your attention — and then something exciting will happen and they’ll spin away mid-sentence, pointing at something across the room. It can be frustrating. But a calm, age-appropriate redirect — “I see you’re excited! Turn and show me so I can see it too,” — goes a long way. Children aren’t going to do this perfectly. Neither are we.
Take care of yourself. The better you feel physically and emotionally, the more resilience you have for the harder communication moments. Hearing loss is exhausting in ways that are difficult to explain to people who haven’t experienced it. Rest. Seek support. Let yourself off the hook sometimes.
Stepping Out of Hiding Helped Me Too
When I came out of my hearing loss closet, I thought I was doing it for my kids. But acceptance turned out to be the best thing I ever did for myself, too. It didn’t make the hearing loss easier — but it made everything around it easier. My kids grew up understanding that people have different needs, that accommodating those needs is just what families do, and that hearing loss is not shameful. I hope they carry these lessons into their own lives, whether or not they ever need them themselves.
Learn more about building supportive family relationships with hearing loss in Hear & Beyond: Live Skillfully with Hearing Loss. Available wherever books are sold.
Readers, how does your family support your life with hearing loss?
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Shari, this is a really lovely post. I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day and that Mother’s Day for all your readers with hearing loss just gets better every year.
Thank you Katherine! I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day too!
Another good post!👍🏼
Thanks Eliza! I am glad it resonated with you! Thank you for your comment!
Hi Shari! Thanks so much for this helpful post. It wasn\’t letting me comment on your post but I wanted to ask: Can I ask how you manage communicating with your children in the car in the backseat? That\’s something that I wonder about as a HOH mom to be as I struggle hearing anyone in my backseat.
Great question and a tough one! Some people use large rear-view mirrors for lipreading, but that only works when stopped. Remote microphones can also help. Who else had ideas to share? Thank you for your question.
I hope you had a great Mother’s Day, Shari, thanks for such a great post!
My mom doesn’t have hearing loss but I do. She was, and still is, fantastic at accommodating my hearing needs.
That is wonderful! Thanks for your comment and your support!