From motherhood to Mexican streets, my world is expanding even as my hearing and vision diminish.
By Sophia Boccard
Sophia Boccard, who lives with her family in Mexico, says, “Nurturing kinder, better humans feels more important than ever, especially in today’s world.”
Beep beep… beep beeeeeep!!!!
Ah, the glorious sound of backed-up traffic as I push a double stroller—the kind requiring Hulk-level strength—right down the middle of the street. Why, you ask? Because I’m blind, and the middle of the road is actually the safest place to hold up traffic with my two boys, Socrates and Alexander.
Picture this: a vibrant historic center in Mazatlán, Mexico, where ocean breezes sweep through brightly colored houses. I’m pushing my stroller from one job site to the next because my nanny called in sick and work waits for no one.
My husband and I run a home renovation company here in Mazatlán, a venture we started in 2019 when we left New York City behind. We like to think we were ahead of the curve, making the shift to a new career, lifestyle, and country before so many people started relocating thanks to the pandemic.
While Mazatlán’s charm is undeniable, it is stroller-hostile. The elevated sidewalks seem made for mountain goats, and random potholes create an obstacle course.
For someone like me, navigating with a 15-degree field of vision is like pushing a stroller through a narrow tunnel—you only see what’s right in front, often missing obstacles like giant electrical posts until you accidentally smack into one.
So, I stick to the street, and those beeping cars will just have to wait.
Two boys close in age are already a parenting challenge, and Sophia’s hearing and vision loss add complexity, but the family is adjusting with the use of sign language and other accommodations.
What Is Usher Syndrome?
I was diagnosed with hearing loss at 4, initially thought to be a reaction to an antibiotic after an emergency surgery. This meant hearing aids, speech therapy, and assistive devices in school growing up, each device and therapy adding to the feeling of not being whole.
Unbeknownst to me, during all that time, my vision was also fading, which became evident in 2012 during a routine eye exam that led to the Usher syndrome diagnosis.
Usher syndrome is a double recessive gene that affects both hearing and vision, often leading to progressive peripheral vision loss due to retinitis pigmentosa. It requires both parents to carry the genetic lottery no one wants to win.
Fast forward, and here I am bustling down Mazatlán’s streets with the kids. Prior to having children, my husband Socrates tested for Usher. He carries zero genetic markers for it, so we knew that our children could be carriers but not have the condition themselves.
Motherhood With Usher
And so the boys are 15 months apart—because why not add more chaos to my already challenging life of adjusting to progressive vision loss?
The answer is simple: legacy. I want to have many kids, and as a new mom seeing first-time motherhood at 38 years old, I had no choice but to raise two little ones close in age.
Motherhood has been a journey in learning to find grace for herself, Sophia says.
Nurturing kinder, better humans feels more important than ever, especially in today’s world. This mission isn’t without its mishaps. I’ve tripped over crawling babies, dodged scattered toys, or shrieked panicked squeals when a hearing aid battery dropped, knowing I had to rely on other senses besides sight and hearing to find it. (Smell? Taste? Touch!)
Motherhood has been a journey in learning to find grace for myself, and I’m just getting started. I’ve read all the “Mom doing her best” articles, and they still make me feel like I’m underperforming.
Case in point: When my hearing aids are off, no baby cries can break my sleep. This doesn’t make me a bad parent, it just makes me a mom with a built-in dad alarm system for middle-of-the-night cries. I’ve come to accept that in many areas, my husband will be the top performer and do things better than I can, and that’s okay.
New Superpowers
As my vision makes its Irish exit—a quiet but unmistakable goodbye—I’m discovering new superpowers along the way. My “parting of the Red Sea” white cane is my trusty tool for navigating crowded airports and events, sparing me from apologizing to every suitcase I’ve ever knocked over. There have been far too many, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” moments of me talking to the belly of a hard-sided piece of luggage.
Sign language has become their family’s secret code, a way to easily communicate when it’s hard for everyone to hear such as in a busy kids’ play zone.
Socrates and I started to learn American Sign Language as a way to learn to communicate in ways that would be easier on both of us. It’s now becoming our family’s secret code, especially at Recórcholis, a well known kids’ play zone in Mexico. While other parents shout and bang on the tempered glass to get their kids’ attention, the kids and I coolly exchange “Wanna get ice cream later?” signs.
Writing this now, I realize that it’s resilience, not Usher, that has become my lottery ticket “win,” teaching me to keep getting back up. In the end, we’re all doing our best to survive.
And sometimes, surviving means holding up traffic in Mexico with a double stroller, teaching toddlers sign language, or talking to suitcases. But mostly, it means showing my boys that their mama can do anything, just differently. Because combined hearing and vision loss aren’t diminishing my world—they’re teaching me new ways to experience it.
As my field of vision narrows, my world keeps expanding—with two giggling boys, one understanding husband, and countless possibilities, all squeezed into a perfectly imperfect 15-degree view of life.
Sophia Boccard is a member of HHF’s Board of Directors. This appears in the Winter 2025 issue of Hearing Health. She also wrote the cover story for our Spring 2018 issue. For more, see 35agave.com and instagram.com/35agave. For references, see hhf.org/references.
The Latest Blog Posts
From motherhood to Mexican streets, my world is expanding even as my hearing and vision diminish.