She Wants Her Daughter To Learn Sign Language To Communicate With Her New Step-Sister, But Her Daughter Isn’t Having It

I guess you can’t REALLY force any kid, especially a teenager, to do something you want them to do, but you can sure influence and persuade them to do what you want…

And this mom took to the pages of Reddit to ask if she’s out of line because of what she wants her daughter to do.

Read on and see what you think.

“I (49 F) recently married my husband (52M) who has a deaf 7 year old daughter. She communicates solely via ASL.

For some background, my daughter (17F) is generally a very non-problematic teenager. She does amazing in school, and has never caused any problems other than regular teenage hormone stuff.

There’s a problem…

However, she doesn’t like my husband and step daughter. She is not outwardly rude, but basically ignores their existence (skipped SDs birthday party, doesn’t engage in anything other than basic small talk with my husband).

I did try to do family activities together to have the bond and all, but I stopped pushing it when it didn’t happen and as long as she’s not being outwardly rude or harmful to them, I can’t exactly punish her for not liking them.

She’s making a huge effort.

Now, since my relationship with my now husband started getting serious, I started taking ASL classes and am now basically as fluent as a hearing person can be. My daughter, however, never made an effort, which is ok since she technically has no responsibility towards her.

However, recently my daughter has started watching SD when we aren’t around, which changes things. In my opinion, since she is now spending time in which she is responsible for a young child, she needs to learn at least basic communication.

Her daughter isn’t having it.

When I brought it up to her , she outright refused to make any effort at all. I tried recommending YouTube videos, but she refused to try learning even a couple words, saying she’s not responsible for my choice to be in the life of a disabled child.

This issue has also been causing a lot of problems in my marriage. My husband confided in me that he’s starting to feel uncomfortable with his young daughter living with someone who is so cold she refuses to make even the most basic effort, or engage with her at all. He has brought up that he is considering divorce due to his concerns about how SD will be affected by this.

She’s had enough.

So given all that, I had to finally put my foot down. I told my daughter that we have a disabled person living in our household for the foreseeable future, and if she wants to live here for college (graduating next month), she has to at least learn basic ASL.

She doesn’t have to like her stepfather and stepsister, nor does she have to hang out with them, but she has to have the ability to communicate with her for the sake of safety and basic decency.

I made it clear that if she chooses not to, she is welcome to live in a dorm (that I will pay for ), it’s just that living in our house (that is also my SD’s house, my husband and I paid for the house equally) comes with basic rules.

Well, my daughter hasn’t spoken to me for 7 days, so its about time I ask, AITA?”

Check out how Reddit users reacted.

This person thinks everyone is to blame for this situation except the young daughter.

Another individual doesn’t think the husband has done anything wrong.

This person shared their thoughts.

This Reddit user talked about the older daughter.

And this person thinks the older daughter is to blame for this.

This family clearly has some communication issues…

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.