There is a beauty and curiosity surrounding the deaf culture, and sign language in particular. I am sharing my thoughts in this blog with answers to many common questions I've received over the years regarding my experience of growing up in the deaf culture.
"Nancy, will you describe to me what the waves in the ocean sound like?"
When I was 12 years old, my deaf father took me on a road trip down the Oregon Coast. We stopped at Cannon Beach where he asked me this question. This was the first time in my life I realized how different our lives must be as I struggled to put into words and sign language this impossible description.
"So, your parents are deaf. Have they always been deaf?"
I am a CODA- a Child of a Deaf Adult. I am hearing. My parents, Gary and Lisa, were both born deaf. Both of my grandmothers got sick with German Measles (also known as Rubella) while pregnant and the permanent side effect was that it impacted their baby's senses. The largest group of deaf people in the country are between the ages of 55-60 as that was the time of the Rubella outbreak.
(*This is why I support vaccinations because my grandmothers didn't have the chance at that time to get vaccinated and this picture would look very different if they had. We are so fortunate for technology. It is shocking and sad to hear that for the first time in 40 years, rubella is on the rise again due to people choosing not to immunize their children. I encourage people to do your own research and learn all sides before making your personal opinion and decision and be willing to hear all sides.)
My Grandma Ann (Lisa's mom) didn't even know she was pregnant yet when she got sick with the measles. Because she was so early on in her pregnancy, the sickness affected several of my mom's senses so she was born deaf, blind in one eye, and unable to smell.
"Do you have any siblings? Are they deaf?"
I have two older siblings- my sister, Shirley, who is four years older than me and my brother, Steven, who is two years older. Because the deafness was caused by the rubella, it is NOT hereditary and we were all born hearing. I have no greater risk of having a deaf child than any other hearing person I know.
I also have a younger half brother who IS deaf. My parents divorced when I was 10 and my dad remarried another deaf lady named Dina Marie. They had a baby boy named Nolan who is 16 years younger than me. Nolan was born 3 months premature. We are not sure if Nolan is deaf because it is hereditary from his mom (they had some genetic testing done an found it could possibly be Waardenburg Syndrome in different levels) or from being born so early. He is a gem and bright spot in our lives and has his perfect spot in our family!
"What was that like growing up with deaf parents?"
I remember people asking me this question often when I was growing up. And at that time, I couldn't understand the question. When you're a kid, you don't know that anything in your life is "different." All you know is your life- it's all "normal" to you. It wasn't until I became an adult that I understood the curiosity behind this question.
A few stories that come to mind are:
1) From as early as I can remember, I interpreted for my parents. Even as a four year old, we would have conversations where I was expected to relay information back and forth between my mom and other adults from ordering food at a restaurant to talking to policemen or teachers. I never dared lie and misinterpret what was being said on either end- it just didn't seem right.
2) I grew up in a world where we had exposure to many different disabilities, most of this happened on Sundays as we attended a Mormon church with deaf members. I'm grateful for this because it taught me to judge someone based off their heart, not their outer appearance, paycheck, or level of education.
3) I'll never forget one time my mom leaving me a voicemail on my phone via a male interpreter and the look on my friend's face when he heard the low, manly voice say "Hi Nancy, this is your mother." Haha! I quickly explained that my mom was not a man. :)
When I was younger, if I wanted to call my parents from school or a friend's house, I'd have to call them through the relay service. I had to memorize this LONG random phone number and be connected with a TDD interpreter. I gave them my parent's phone number where they would call and use a TDD (see picture here) to type what I said, my parents would read it, then type back, where the interpreter would speak it to me. These phone calls took SO LONG!! A simple conversation of me calling home to ask to stay longer at Lacey's house would look something like this:
....call relay service, wait wait wait, finally connect to Mom......
"Hello. This is Lisa. GA." (GA meant 'Go Ahead' AKA 'now it's your turn to talk!') typing.
.....pause....
"Hi, this is Nancy. Go Ahead" speaking
.....pause......
"Hi. What's up? GA" typing
....pause......
"Can I stay at Lacey's house longer? Go Ahead" speaking
...pause...
"Who is Lucy? GA"
....pause.....
"No, LACEY. Go ahead."
.....pause.....
"I don't understand. You mean you come home? GA"
....pause.....
"No, can I stay at LACEY's house longer? Go Ahead."
...pause....
15 minutes later.......
"I love you. SK" typing (SK was code for "I'm hanging up now"
"I love you too. SK" speaking
These phone calls took forever! Eventually VRS came along which is amazing and deaf or hard of hearing people could connect a camera to a monitor and be able to sign back and forth.
4) While in high school my friends assumed since my parents were deaf, it made it easy for me to sneak out of the house at night. However, when one sense is weakened, others are often heightened, If I turned on a light or took even two steps outside my room, my mom would see/feel it and her bedroom light flashed on to investigate. We couldn't get away with much!
I remember going out TP-ing and egging with a couple girlfriends when I was about 13 and coming back to my mom sitting on the stairs SO MAD as she SPANKED me on the butt! I was horrified (I was 13- that was so embarrassing and un-cool to be spanked in front of them!!) and I don't think I ever went again.
5) When I was in first grade, I was practicing with my mom for a spelling test. She typed the word in the computer and it would say it out loud to me, then I had to finger spell it back to her. I couldn't understand the word and she tried a couple times then finally had to spell it to me. I thought it was so cool that I "got out" of spelling that word! Haha.
6) It was not uncommon for water to be left on or random electronics to be making noise at our house. I don't even hear it most of the time now because I grew up with it. And people assume that since we went to a deaf church, it was very quiet. It was the OPPOSITE. Deaf people usually don't know how loud they are being or that they are making noise at all! And all us CODAs would be so noisy and our parents didn't mind since they couldn't hear us. :)
"How did you learn to speak?"
Just like a hearing person spends time teaching their child to speak, my parents spent time with me teaching me to sign to communicate with them. My first word to speak and sign was "dog." I still love dogs to this day! :) We have home videos of my mom sitting with Shirley for hours teaching her to sign. Shirley has beautiful signing abilities to this day.
Also, babies vocal chords aren't fully developed until they get older so even if they know what they want, they can't communicate it. Sign language provides a GREAT way for babies to let you know what they want--- and have you ever seen a signing baby? It's the cutest thing ever!!
Like I wrote earlier, I had older hearing siblings and that is mostly who I learned to speak from. We also had the TV on in our house pretty much all the time which is what contributed to our colorful vocabulary!
Actually, I remember a story growing up that one time when Shirley was pretty young (about seven years old or so) my grandma Ann came out from Utah to visit us in California where we lived. Shirley, as this sweet, bubbly, brown eyed, brown haired little girl kept dropping swear words out loud and my parents had no idea. My grandma was shocked and finally figured out WHY when we got in the car to drive and we had a rap station on the radio. Can you imagine?? Ha! Our music became a bit more sensored after that.
"How did your parents know when someone as the door or when you cried as a baby?"
Our phone and doorbell were connected to lights throughout our house. When you rang the doorbell or the phone rang, these lights would flash. We also had dogs through the years who did a good job notifying my parents as well.
As babies, there were special baby monitors that would vibrate or flash lights. **Though my mom claims all three of her babies *magically* slept through the night after a few weeks old. Since having a child of my own who didn't more than three hours at a time until 6 months old, I consider this one of the BLESSINGS of deafness! And I'm pretty sure they sleep trained us easily. :)
"How did your parents learn to communicate?"
There weren't many options when my parents were younger and not much research had been done yet. As most parents do, my grandparents did the best they knew how.
LISA:
My mom, Lisa, attended an oral program in Utah where basically she was taught as if she was hearing. She struggled to communicate with speaking and reading lips and was limited. When she was 11 years old, a boy transferred to her school and gave her an A-Z sign language alphabet card and showed her a few signs.
At age 14, she attended a youth conference where she was fascinated by an interpreter and drawn to them. My grandparents knew she needed something different in her life. While it was hard for them emotionally, they decided to take her to a deaf church.
Lisa described that experience by saying:
"Grandma talked with me about going to deaf ward. I won't go. She said 'just one time- try it. If you don't like, you can go to the hearing ward.' I said okay. I entered the church for the first time and I saw people signing. I asked two people 'Are you deaf?' they answered yes. I looked down at myself and realized my identity for the first time. I am deaf too. First time in my life I felt like I belonged here, I felt connection and identity. I decided to go there from now on.(Can you imagine what life would be like having such limited communication for the first 15 years of your life? And how empowering and beautiful that moment must have been for her discover sign language??)
I learned to sign A-Z and my name L-I-S-A.. that was ME. My brain was clear. Not cloudy, no tantrums, not overly emotional. I felt much more calm because I could communicate- my hands "talked" instead of my mouth. "
GARY:
My Dad, Gary's, experience was unique as well. Like my mom, and many other deaf people from this generation, he was raised orally and didn't sign until he was in his 20s. He says he was born with the gift of wanting to learn, so that was a helpful trait.
His mom, my Grandma Carolyn, was a natural and trained teacher. She spent many hours with him and a speech therapist in his younger years having him watch her lips, feel her throat, and PRACTICING. One of her favorite stories is the first time he said his first word: BALL. She had been in the kitchen and Gary ran in to her and was trying so hard to get her attention. He kept saying "Ba, Ba, BA!" and finally dragged her outside to show her- he had thrown his ball over the fence into the neighbor's yard and wanted her help to get it. All the hard work and time and energy had paid off in that moment to see it "click" for her sweet little boy who was finally able to COMMUNICATE!
He felt he learned to speak really well when he was a junior in high school having speech lessons three times a week for two years straight. At the end of that school year, the therapist said he had achieved a great thing being able to read a book and saying it perfectly. He worked really hard at it.
(Can you imagine learning to speak never having heard the words before? And learning to know what someone is saying to you by staring at their lips and mouth?? Especially if someone speaks fast or has an accent. WOW. And my dad is incredibly talented at this. My Grandpa Darwin shared several stories of how many of the people in their lives didn't even know my dad was deaf because he spoke so clearly and read lips so well. That's amazing!!)
As for learning SIGN LANGUAGE... he didn't learn this until he was 20 and served a mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His plan was to learn ASL to serve God and share the Gospel with deaf people, and after his mission was over, to just go back to hearing and drop sign language. Once he learned sign, he knew it was meant to be and how powerful a tool and a link/connector he could be between the deaf and hearing world. He's skilled in both and it's pretty cool to witness!
Is sign language universal? Couldn't everyone in the world just communicate through sign?
You would think so! But many people in America are taught American Sign Language (or ASL) This is very different than english. And the grammar looks different as well.
For example, in English, if you were to say:
"I'm going to the store."
in ASL (my mom's first language), it would be:
"I go store."
There often aren't signs for every single word and sign language is very conceptual and visual. For this reason, you could get by "signing" with people in other countries by acting things out or pointing. But every country has its own form of sign language different from others. My mom learned this at the deaf olympics she volunteered at a few years ago and all the different signs for "bathroom." Some were pretty funny! :)
"Do you teach your children to sign?"
We've taught my son Teddy to sign and plan to take him to a pre-school at the deaf school nearby as soon as he is old enough. It was very helpful when he was a baby and I want him to have a good connection with his grandparents!
"Emotional 'extras' " :
In some ways I feel sad my parents can't hear the sound of their grand children's laughter or easily participate in group conversation at a family party. I know the latter especially has created lots of loneliness and isolation for deaf people. They seem to be more susceptible to have depression.
Strengths of deafness:
At the same time, there are things deaf people experience that we as hearing people won't get to - like my mom gets to fully FEEL the love from Teddy. She doesn't have to hear the negative, the gossip, from hearing people, they miss out the stupid social norms created by society. They are more humble, more accepting, more loving of all groups of people. Their other senses are stronger. They are okay with life being more SIMPLE.
My home growing up was a dream place for a kid in many ways- because my parents could connect so easily with us. Building forts, going to the park, PLAYING like KIDS. As I became a teenager, the same social expectations weren't placed on me as on some of my other friends- my grades, my bright tiger pants, pink hair.. I was allowed to be an individual.
We had so much FUN as kids and I see it now with my mom being around her grand kids - she celebrates holidays so big and plays and is silly. I admire it!
Oppositions of growing up with deafness:
It was also the opposite of a dream place in some ways. There was a lot of fighting. And signing is very physical. If my mom didn't want to listen to what my dad was saying, all she had to do was close her eyes! And the more emotional the situation, the bigger the signs, or if you're typing, the harder and faster you type. I remember my parents fighting a lot, even physically. And yelling.. people sometimes associate that if you're deaf, your house is probably very quiet. But it's actually the opposite because you don't know how loud you are! So they could YELL. As a child, I knew this wasn't "right." I didn't know what the ideal family and marriage looked like, but I knew this wasn't it. I remember actually feeling relief when I came home from school when I was 9 and my dad's things were out of the house and my parents were getting separated. I thought "finally!" I loved my mom, and my dad, individually, and together they just weren't a good thing for so long. I actually didn't even know a happy marriage was possible until I met and married my now-husband, Jon. Our first month of marriage I yelled at him and he said "We're not going to do this. We can talk about it, but we are not going to fight. We're on the same team." It was a total shift for me! That is true whether you grow up with deaf parents or hearing though! I do feel like I'm a more "physical" person with my experiences growing up though.
Some other oppositions: difficulty of communication, high divorce rate due to communication barriers, difficulty participating in family events since many family members don't learn sign language, difficulty finding jobs.
What other questions do you have about the deaf world?? I'd love to answer them! I hope you enjoyed this post! :)
*These are personal opinions and experiences I've shared here and the purpose is to enlighten those who may not have much experience with the deaf culture.
Stay tuned for a future blog post on: "What to do if you meet a deaf person: DON'T FREAK OUT!!"
