All The Young Dudes

Deaf Culture For Beginners…. A Lesson in Irony!

From The MM Guide to Deaf Culture For Beginners posted in full below [the blog is still there. If you end up at an Error 404 page, just type in the URL, http://attherimmm.blogspot.com in the address bar of your browser and search for that entry]:

1. NOTES FOR STUDENTS: You may only use, bona-fide and accredited academic publications, but not Wikipedia as a reference source.

From The Professor’s Guide to Deaf Culture For Beginners:

1. Paddy Ladd is a bona fide and accredited researcher/ lecturer.
2. MM wouldn’t believe the any source that is positive about deafness, and validates sign language and Deaf Culture, as valid anyway. I’m sure us Deafies can create a database of accredited sources.
3. Wikipedia information can be cross checked with other sources, should you wish to do so, rather than dismissing it as a source of information. It will tag pages as incomplete, or in need for verification.
4. Help us advance Deaf culture, and build bridges with the deaf and hearing worlds. Show us some of the bona-fide and accredited academic publications that you use in your writings, MM.

The MM guide…
deaf: The lowercase ‘deaf’ refers to those for whom deafness is primarily an audiological experience. It is mainly used to describe those who lost some or all of their hearing in early or later life, and who do not usually wish to have contact with signing deaf communities, preferring to try and retain membership of the majority society in which they were socialised.
(Understanding Deafhood. P.Ladd).
LESSON ONE: “Introduction to the Basics”….
(A) Clearly identify the ‘deaf’ Mr Ladd is talking about, provide statistical and validated evidence to support this..
(B) Why, do these individuals reject contact with signing communities ? again, provide statistics/proof.

NOTES FOR STUDENTS:

You may only use, bona-fide and accredited academic publications, but not Wikipedia as a reference source.

And Anonymous Responded:

It was pointed out, that dis-allowing Wiki input undermined the ability of students to respond (?). In ascertaining that readers ARE undertaking serious research into ‘Deafhood’, it was decided that along with many British academic bodies, MM would not allow Wiki as a viable (Direct) student research area, because biased articles and references abound in Wiki, written BY ‘Deaf’ therefore accuracy could not be maintained, when references are made to other sectors. In ‘Understanding Deafhood’ you need to understand by what basis Mr Ladd has made all his assumptions in his reference work, students validating via proof, and not deaf ‘hearsay’ is surely positive ? The Issue of ID’s is central to Mr Ladd’s ‘work’, but there is a need to provide accurate statistical analysis to back it up, I don’t feel he has provided that, so I asked ’students’ here to prove this incorrect,and indeed validate Mr Ladd.

FURTHER READING:

Tales Of The Deafhood - Misunderstanding the Concept of Deafhood
Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”
On Being Deaf: Part One
On Being Deaf: Part Two
On Being Deaf: Part Three
Communication: Freedom Of Choice
Identity: Fluid or..?
Identity & Fluidity: Just A Thought
A Positive Deaf Identity: What is it?
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part Two
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part One
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities: Deaf Gays And Lesbians
Tales Of The Deafhood - The Epiphany
Tales Of The Deafhood - An Introduction
More Thoughts on the Deaf Blogosphere
What is Deafhood?
Deafhood: A Process Of Self Repression
Many Tribes
In One’s Own Image: Ethics and the Reproduction of Deafness
Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World
Informed Choice and Deaf Children: Underpinning Concepts and Enduring Challenges

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Tales Of The Deafhood - Misunderstanding the Concept of Deafhood

MM, in his latest post, Ancient & Modern, rightly points out that much has already been said about “deafhood”. I’m not going to take him to task over what he says, because it wouldn’t achieve anything. However, there are few points that I want to pull up for discussion, because I consider them important for discussion and understanding. Starting with the misunderstood term, Deafhood.

The term Deafhood is much maligned one. As I have said in a previous post, Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part One, DEAFHOOD, is not prescriptive in its definition. Paddy has offered up the term as a starting point with which we DEAFIES and deafies can use to explore how WE see ourselves and OUR place in the world. More to the point, how we can derive at a definition of ourselves that does not rely on [without resorting to] Hearing people or the Hearing view of deafness, for us to measure ourselves against.

Understanding Deafhood is not just about references to the past. It is also about understanding the present and how the two are related. If you wish to understand the present, you really do need to understand the history. This applies to Deaf and deaf people, as much as it applies to the status of Women, Gays, Disabled people, why wars happen, why conflicts are so protracted, et al.

Anybody who has given or received undergone counselling, will know that to understand the present, you need to understand the past. You can not grow as a person, if you don’t understand or acknowledge what is holding you back. The person you are now, is not just the product of your life as it is in the present, but heavily influenced by factors, both positive and negative, in your past.

The trouble with MM’s style, is that he asks some good questions, but uses smoke and mirrors, to deflect any meaningful responses, Especially, if they probe too deeply. He could contribute meaningfully to this debate, but he chooses not to. That’s his prerogative. But this post, like much of his criticisms of Deaf and Deaf culture, are an example, of the need to understand and acknowledge effects the past has on the present.

So, to answer MM’s question, Milan and A G Bell, are very much relevant to the ongoing dialogue of deafness. Read my previous critiques of Paddy Ladd’s book, the linx which can be found at the end of this post.

None of us come into this life unencumbered. From the point of conception, there are forces at work that will help determine the person you will become. From the moment you start to exercise your free will. You will be encumbered by a variety influences and forces that will conspire to shape you in both negative and positive ways. That will haunt or empower you.

DeafRead is no more a uniter of Deaf and deaf people, than Slashdot, Yahoo, Google and DIGG unites hearing people. What DeafRead is not a community, nor is it a forum. It is a blog and vlog aggregator that allows people to promote their work to a wider audience. It will no more define the Deaf and deaf community, than Slashdot, Yahoo, Google and DIGG defines the hearing community.

The internet, or Cyberspace if you like, is building on some previously established patterns of communication [and global interaction] that Deaf and deaf people have been using. To an obvious example, the chat or Instant Messenger programs, of which the TTY/ Minicom can be rightly seen as a precursor. Then there is the blog, which is supplanting email discussion lists, and it’s visual brethren, the vlog [or v-blog]; and let’s not forget the humble webcam, which in turn supplants the video letter, use of text, and makes video conferencing accessible. What started out as a games platform and word processing machine, has become a multimedia and communication centre.

DeafRead is aggregator. It publishes links to various blogs and vlogs. Which in turn link to various other sources of information, fact and opinion. But it does not mean we are any more a community online, than we are offline. It is more accurate to say that it reflects the diversity of cultures, opinion, personalities and clashes of the real world Deaf and deaf communities.

FURTHER READING:

Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”
On Being Deaf: Part One
On Being Deaf: Part Two
On Being Deaf: Part Three
Communication: Freedom Of Choice
Identity: Fluid or..?
Identity & Fluidity: Just A Thought
A Positive Deaf Identity: What is it?
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part Two
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part One
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities: Deaf Gays And Lesbians
Tales Of The Deafhood - The Epiphany
Tales Of The Deafhood - An Introduction
More Thoughts on the Deaf Blogosphere
What is Deafhood?
Deafhood: A Process Of Self Repression
Many Tribes
In One’s Own Image: Ethics and the Reproduction of Deafness
Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World
Informed Choice and Deaf Children: Underpinning Concepts and Enduring Challenges

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A Critique Of A Book That The Critic Never Read: Indiana Ladd and the search for Deafhood

It is all very well to have an opinion. That is your right and that is my right. It is all very well to behave like a troll. That is your right and that is my right. But mere opinion does not credibility make. As we have seen with Deaf Militancy and the so called Oppression Of CI users, uninformed opinion, lack of analysis, and a historical awareness, gets in the way of understanding and building bridges. Not only that, opinion that makes no attempt whatsoever to cultivate an informed nuance, analysis and historical awareness, and instead prefers to breed in the murky waters of, “That’s what I think. Period.”, that encapsulates trolled vanity. In which case, all that is important, is that one is heard, and one is seen to being engaged in debate, without actually engaging in debate.

The Last Crusade [Indiana Ladd and the search for Deafhood?],is  another prime example of trolled vanity. The author is well known in UK circles - email lists, forums, and blogs. He is famous, or infamous, as the case may be, for pushing his opinion with an invitation to respond, only to obfuscate, shift the terms of the debate, miss the point, avoid the question, or respond with yet more questions when people respond. He is always on the attack, whenever Deafness is portrayed in a positive light, or that anybody dares suggests that there is a Deaf culture. There are other mitigating factors that further convolutes the dialogue. Namely, his inability to accept his deafness.

I know that deafness provides us with challenges, I know there are difficulties in our relationship with the hearing world, and I know that deafness affects people in different ways. What I do not appreciate, is Deaf people becoming punching bags for deaf people who simply cannot entertain the notion that Deaf is good. Who feel they have been cast a drift from the hearing world, that they seek someone to blame. And that someone to blame is the Deaf community.

I have reproduced his post below for you all to read, and you can make your own judgements. But there are a number of problems with the post [its reasoning], and just about everything he writes, the main one being, blaming the victim. Perpetually stuck in victim mode, with no nod to progressive ideas as to what it means to be Deaf.

First off the bat though, is the total dismissal of Paddy Ladd’s work, and the much maligned concept of Deafhood, that is the opening paragraph. Add to that, the trivialisation of the Stop Eugenics campaign. Invalidation by trivialisation. He then proceeds to ask numerous questions, provides no answers, makes assumptions, all written in the style beloved by the gutter press. Word usage that illustrates no understanding or appreciation of the concepts being bandied about. Shows no insight into the relationship between issues. No appreciation of cause and effect. No historical understanding. No nuanced analysis. Only opting to blame the victim, that is, Deaf people for all our current ills. Going as far, as to blame Deaf people for the strained relationships they have with the hearing world.

The problem is, his writing is framed in such a way, as to disallow a bipartisan siding. In other words, if you agree with him that Deaf people may lack self confidence, you may also find that you are agreeing to the idea that they are totally to blame for their problems. It is black and white, with no shades of grey. The Last Crusade [Indiana Ladd and the search for Deafhood?], taps right into the fears that hearing people have about deafness. Instead of assuaging those fears, MM demolishes any last vestiges of positivism, and all that is left is total despair [I'm being hyperbolic here I know].

He offers no answers of his own.

Indiana Ladd and the search for Deafhood?

Emperor’s new clothes ? confused ramblings ? the first deaf bible ? A last ditch stand by a diminishing community to re-invent itself against the onslaught of Cochlear Implantation, removal of the deaf base (Deaf schools), challenges to British Sign Language, reputed to be in decline, and recently Eugenics issues to ‘ensure’ no more deaf are in the next generations, whilst also apparently failing to convince anyone outside the deaf community there is much positive about being deaf to make it worth preserving.. ? You decide.

Have the hard-core sectors of deaf activism, contributed to the negativity surrounding deafness ? Attacks on Oral deaf, Who is really deaf and isn’t ? The right or worng way to communicate ? constricting the deaf world so immersion and integration is impossible, launching access campaigns that won’t be taken up by most who prefer to stay as they are in a minority area and only with other deaf like them ? Catch 22, you move out or stay Isolated, Martha’s Vineyard was a prime example surely ? when a road out emerged, the community vastly diminished, unable to ‘compete’ with a wider world outside it.

There are the Deaf versus deaf “wars”, where the medical versus the Social models, continue to divide us into contentious and polarized camps. Yet, it may well be unless these two camps unite deaf culture could fail, certainly continue to struggle, because support and cohesion within the deaf community is failing badly, who else but other ‘deaf’ are going to have any sort of empathy ? If the ‘Deaf’ community would be honest with itself, it PREFERS to be with their own kind, while that is a right or preference, what does it offer future generations ? Isolation and secularization of deaf people ? More of the same ?

To raise access and awareness issue, suggests deafhood is counter-productive, making a virtue of the Isolation, indeed, re-branding it, a culture that omits (In the UK), near 9 million people with hearing loss. Those prevented or attacked for wanting alleviations or CI’s, or prefer oralism, from thus being part of the ‘culture’ are then not going to add any of their weight behind the ‘Deaf’ are they ? They are going to join hearing in the drive to get rid of deafness, acquired deaf in the fore front, because while they do cope with their deafness, they’d rather NOT be deaf either.They are increasingly taking on cultural deaf who attack them for being medically oriented, and who use weapons like “Sad people not coming to terms with deafness”, “Losers’”, or “discriminators against deaf culture and its members”. It’s heady and heated stuff ! It seems the twain will not meet, when one wants in to deaf culture, and the other wants out of deafness altogether, compromise seems almost impossible. There are those who feel Paddy Ladd offers deaf nothing but more of the same, but at least more glitz…. lauding deaf culture as a stand alone entity not needing to be part of anything else. A sort of quest for the holy grail re-write…. it fails generally because there is no clarifications of the deaf, who they really are, just adding confusion and vagueness to fill the gaps…and the deliberate omissions of acquired deaf input to the whole thing, despite using much of their input as basis….

This is cultural suicide in real terms, since it demands the rest of mainstream/society foot the Bill, then butt out, it doesn’t work that way. In the United Kingdom Integration and Access is the stated aim, to that end they will close off areas where deafness is secularized, they want deaf people out there and included (Don’t WE ?). Obviously we would prefer to see more actual proof they are doing it ! but the aim is clear, inclusion doesn’t fit in with this Deafhood, since there is no quest for a Deaf ID with most…..

The bottom line is always going to be the whole thing rests on being deaf, a sensory deprivation, research as we all know is attacking deafness daily, and even major deaf groups like the RNID are stating £16b is too high a cost for being deaf and HI in the UK, and others too, we aren’t cost effective ! and they want deaf groups to actively promote medical research into ridding the world of deafness, a set donation set aside by all to treat deafness as a medical issue, yep that from deaf groups.

Promotion of deaf culture and its maintenance and protection has the same bottom line, it HAS to promote being deaf as a right and ‘virtue’, since eradication would destroy it, but it will never justify this to the hearing world, they have not convinced 9 million HI either….

Co-existence is one argument used, but in deaf terms do we really see that ? It’s a parallel society meeting only at points where contact with the system is inevitable, even then to do it via a 3rd party. Do deaf understand the realities of access and integration and what they have to do to make it really work ? If they believe they cannot be equal via integration then this is not a concept many are willing to go with. It is a test as to if deaf culture can survive as a stand-alone thing, OUTSIDE the deaf community, and if a closed community can offer deaf people any advance…..if they have faith in their culture, surely it will ?

Is not the problem, the deaf community lacks confidence in itself….? Continuing to make attacks on mainstream/hearing/and the ‘deaf’ are not going to help it at all is it ?

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Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”: Part 2

I have been thinking about my last post,Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”,and Paula Rosenthal’s comments.

Sure I’m not a parent, but as a Deaf, Deaf not deaf, I am quite qualified to comment on decisions that hearing parents make for their deaf/ hearing kids. After all, I know the deaf/ hearing experience better than any hearing person! While I agree with Paula, that being a parent gives you a different perspective, but at the end of the day, the decisions made tend to favour the Holy Grail that is the Hearing world.

I’m beginning to wonder how fragile the sense of self exhibited on many of the blogs extolling the virtues of lipreading, hearing aids, the cochlear implants, hearing birds sing, the new decibels that come online, and gazing in admiration at the sound a dog makes as it wees against the tree. I’m beginning to wonder their sense of self is so fragile, that without the aids of technology, will the deaf person crumble!?

I remember vividly the moment my whole came crashing down, when I realised that the hearing aids were not the manna from heaven that are advertised [only today I was in my audiologists office today waiting for some hearing aids repairs and tweak, looking at the various leaflets. They continue to promote the lie. The promise of a normal life, all predicated on a electronic gadget]. Yes, to this day, I have this relationship with the hearing world, that is rather fragile, because of that one incident.

Paula asked what I meant, and whom I was referring to, by the question, “WHY do people continue to labour under the assumption that all people with a hearing impairment are alike [the same]?” In the ongoing debate about Deaf and deaf, there are people who insist that we are all the same whether we sign or not. I say, NOT! Especially where deaf people choose not to sign, they are choosing a different path. We not anymore united by the fact of our shared hearing impairment than people of colour [choose two countries] are united by the colour of the skin.

That’s why I ask the question, why all the enthusiasm for technology as a means to solve the problem of deafness/ hearing impairment. I’m not against interacting or having relations [in the biblical sense as well] with the hearing world. I’m not against the use of technology. I’m just against the use of technology that is used to placed the ultimate burden back on deaf people. The use of technology and speech inducing communication methods, to obviate the need for an alternative way of being for deaf people. I embrace diversity, for without we would shrivel up and die. A Deaf world without Hearing input, would be like a world without Gay people. Who would cut your hair, decorate your houses, and entertain your husbands when you [the wife] is out with the girls?

My post Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”, asked more questions than Paula responded to. I didn’t expect anyone would reply to them all. Lord knows it’s hard enough to try to formulate your thinking and clarify what it is you are trying to say. It is a rant that is expressing a frustration and extreme dissatisfaction with how fragmented we really are. Still, resources are, nay effort is, being put into trying to integrate deaf people into the hearing world, rather than building a world where all deaf are bounded by common by language, that is sign language.

In the final analysis, my questions WHY, have more to do with why are we being herded onto a particular road replete with technology and communication methods galore, which in turn is used to build up their esteem and self esteem. Think about this, if all deafies could sign, we could have a bigger subculture to the mainstream, that would be our baseline from which to grow as people. All the rest, the technology, additional communication skills, are adjuncts tot he bigger experience of being Deaf.

As Moi wrote in Deaf People are Whole, Organic, and Natural

I get so frustrated when people talk about how important hearing is and how important it is to fit into the hearing world. Yes, all of us minority groups need to know how to function in the majority. Granted. That’s a given. But why is the insistence on doing it on THEIR terms? It is perfectly possible to function in the hearing world on our terms, while showing respect for the hearing culture, language, and norms. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. I know, because I do it all the time.

FURTHER READING:

Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”
On Being Deaf: Part One
On Being Deaf: Part Two
On Being Deaf: Part Three
Communication: Freedom Of Choice
Identity: Fluid or..?
Identity & Fluidity: Just A Thought
A Positive Deaf Identity: What is it?
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part Two
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part One
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities: Deaf Gays And Lesbians
Tales Of The Deafhood - The Epiphany
Tales Of The Deafhood - An Introduction
More Thoughts on the Deaf Blogosphere
What is Deafhood?
Deafhood: A Process Of Self Repression
Many Tribes
In One’s Own Image: Ethics and the Reproduction of Deafness
Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World
Informed Choice and Deaf Children: Underpinning Concepts and Enduring Challenges

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Empathy Isn’t Always A Natural Instinct When One Is The “Default”.

What the hell is wrong with people? What is it about deafness that sends people off to Whoop, Whoop, in search of the Holy Grail that will provide them with the ultimate answers that will solve all our problems regarding deafness. A solution that would make the lot of the hearing parent’s [and by extension, the hearing world's] job easier. Wild and crazy Friday night, Deaf Mom of Two Deaf Children, Would Beethoven Have Wanted a Cochlear Implant?, Can Culture Argument Be Applied Equally and Why I Won’t Teach My Children ASL, among many other blog posts, leave me some serious questions as to why are we covering the same ground, that we covered 20 years ago, and still getting frigging nowhere?

I sound jaundiced I know, but I am sick and tired of listening to parents go on about unconditional love, and from what I have been privileged to witness, it is anything but. At times, it seems like one, long, continual projection of what the child should be, based on the parents image of themselves. Are we photocopying or are we creating?

If the last 20-30 years has seen an explosion in knowledge about deafness, and a greater awareness of what it is and how we can deal with it, then why are we traversing the same, tired, old debates about choice in communication, what’s the best method for teaching, and so on, and so on?  Why are we traversing the same, tired, old, ground, blithely unaware and blissfully ignorant, of all that has gone before? More pertinently, ignoring past precedence as if it has no bearing on the parents child today. “My child is unique, therefore requires a unique solution!”

With all this knowledge and experience at our disposal, one would think that we would be making better progress for our Deaf brethren, kith and kin, giving them a better world to live in, than was possible in the past. Well, I’m killjoy, and am enjoying it very much. I, for one, have a good grasp of Deaf history and a better nuanced understanding of the dynamics of the Deaf and Hearing relationship than a lot of people. With all this knowledge and experience we supposedly share, will somebody please tell me:

1. WHY are parents [and the Hearing world] increasingly resorting to is technology to deal with deafness and its implications?
2. WHY are Deafies continually being weened on technological measures to build their bridges to the Hearing world via cochlear implants, hearing aids?
3. WHY the continuing emphasis on lipreading, cued speech, to achieve the same aim as in point 2?
4. WHY, inspite of assurances to the contrary, is sign language still treated as a tool, to be picked up and discarded as the situation demands?
5. WHY do people continue to labour under the assumption that all people with a hearing impairment are alike [the same]?
6. WHY is the aspiration to integrate with the Hearing world done at the expense of being Deaf, and having a positive Deaf identity?
7. WHY is the aspiration to integrate with the Hearing world still the Holy Grail?
8. Indeed, why is more effort expended in building up the deaf child for a life where the Hearing world takes centre stage?
9. WHY does all this technology define who we are as people?
10. AND most salient of all, why is the irony of all these questions lost on all concerned?

I ask these questions not because I don’t understand the reasons behind the choices people make, because I do. I ask these questions not because I don’t understand why some people want to hear more, because I do. I ask these questions not because I seek to deny a person the right to seek technological assistance, because I do understand why they seek technological assistance. I do understand the reasons a mate of mine gave for why he chose to get the cochlear implant. I ask these questions, because nobody is answering them, or even asking these same questions. Instead we are are inundated with the false dichotomy of the oral, implant, lipreading skills, et al, being equated with successes.

I ask these questions, cause I am not blinded by the Holy Grail that is the Hearing World!

Community, communication and culture, The Three C’s, in the Hearing sense, are conceptually limited to audio and speech. More succinctly, they are limited to a strict reading of what the five senses mean. Sure the Hearing employ other means of communication via the other four senses: sight, smell, touch and feel, when the situation demands, and the means of communication are many, but in the final analysis, Hearing community, communication and culture is built on the one dominant underlying structure: audio and aural! The problem is that we Deafies have proven that a human being can function quite well without sound [or a heavy reliance on sound].

In spite of the advances we have made in promoting a better understanding of deafness, and proving the validity of the Deaf identity and Deaf culture, we still cling to the notion of success and esteem as human beings, let alone Deaf people, as measured in Hearing terms. We Deafies, are still being condemned to a life that is dependent on technology and a hearing world.

Technology is expensive, and unless money is no object, it quickly becomes a yoke, from which we Deafies are never free.

I find it hard not to see this obsession with technology as a solution for deafness is bordering on psychopathic violence. As a Deaf person, it’s hard not to be offended by all the rationalisations employed for why the cochlear implant is used. For all the protestations of love and affection for sign language, yet so much effort and energy is expended into programs that use cued speech, speech therapy, lipreading in a supreme effort to give their kids the most opportunities, because it is a hearing world.

Parents, we know that. Parents, those of us who are now in middle age, looking back, see the same crap being pulled today that was pulled years ago. As one blogger wrote:

“…we CANNOT view oralism with CI children as it is a completely different way of raising deaf children today.”

Oralism years ago is no different to oralism now. The intent is the same, it’s just the technology is different. If parents [The Hearing World] put half the time and energy into helping to build deaf culture, building bridges between the deaf and hearing worlds, and build a place where your deaf kids can be deaf without a reliance on audio means, their futures [and indeed, all of our futures] wouldn’t look so bleak. I don’t care what rationalisations are used, deaf kids are being condemned to a depended on technology for their inclusion, self esteem and confidence.

Sure, I’m not a parent, and don’t have the responsibility of raising and making decisions for children. But I am someone’s child. And I have bore the brunt, both good and bad, of parental jurisdiction. And like all children, I know that our parents are not God, and that they screw up somewhere along the line. More than this, I am an uncle, and unlike most uncles, I have actually changed nappies, walked the floor, cradled them to sleep, played with them, rowed with them, and know full well that I actually exert influence, and quite aware that it can be negative as well as positive. Then again, my single status makes me sensitive to parental bullshit.

For all the advances and progress, we still revert to type, when it comes to seeking solutions. It’s better to be Hearing. If you can’t be Hearing, then hear something. I don’t expect hearing people to ever, really understand. I have given up on that objective. “Empathy isn’t always a natural instinct when one is the “default”.”

If this rant offends you, too bad. I’m not impressed with the rationale that parents are putting forth as to how they are rear their deaf/ deaf children. For all their patronising protestations that it’s OK to be Deaf, the ultimate aim though, is that Holy Grail. The identification with and integration with, the Hearing world. On Hearing terms!

FURTHER READING:

On Being Deaf: Part One
On Being Deaf: Part Two
On Being Deaf: Part Three
Communication: Freedom Of Choice
Identity: Fluid or..?
Identity & Fluidity: Just A Thought
A Positive Deaf Identity: What is it?
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part Two
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities Part One
Tales Of The Deafhood - Deaf Communities: Deaf Gays And Lesbians
Tales Of The Deafhood - The Epiphany
Tales Of The Deafhood - An Introduction
More Thoughts on the Deaf Blogosphere
What is Deafhood?
Deafhood: A Process Of Self Repression
Many Tribes
In One’s Own Image: Ethics and the Reproduction of Deafness
Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World
Informed Choice and Deaf Children: Underpinning Concepts and Enduring Challenges

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