Couldn't believe - Today is FRIDAY! YES TGIF! Crab legs dinner tonite! Playing game - Blokus with friends Tonite! Oh oh - drinking wines - apple-raspberry wine that we got from Tenn (yum yum).
I'm thinking of a topic for today. Ummm... I do aware that some of you curious how we raise our kids as deaf parents. Honestly... Much better than what I grew up with my hearing family - ironically? Sorry my parents - I know its not their fault :o(
My dad do know some signs. He has a several deaf friends before I was born. Poor my mom, she has no knowledge of deafness when she first found out that I am deaf. She was devastated for a while. FYI - They are now perfectly fine. :o)
My parents found out that I was deaf at age 2. My parents decided to have my dad’s friends to teach them sign languages. So my parents can communicate with me easily. Audologist suggested my parents to check some schools (mainstream program and deaf schools). My parents decided to send me to residential deaf school My mom said it was the MOST hardest things that she ever had by sending me to residential school for the deaf. It was about an hour from my hometown. (Most states have one school for the deaf – while New York has several deaf schools (7) – most schools are more than an hour drive.)
Anyway… the year that I first went residential school. They were practicing oral method/approach (1970's theory) which means no signing allowed in education. My parents were a little uneasy and talked with principal about it. That idiot principal told my parents that I was at the “good chance” of going school in my hometown. If I keep up with “speaking” skills at school and at home then I can go hometown elementary school. Of course that increased my parents’ hope and decided to not use sign languages. They used oral method (speaking). For few years, school system realized that oral method/approach does not work so they changed to total communication (speaking and sign language at the same time). It is so confusing! Anyway... Highly recommendation - use sign language with no speaking or just speaking with no sign languages. they do not mix just like drink and drive.
Now,My parents said, “WE wished that we never LISTEN that damn principal!” My parents now couldn’t sign well. My mom once a while say, “I’m so sorry… that I couldn’t sign… I wish I could signs so that I can communicate with you easily.” I always blamed my parents for many years. Until one day, I decided to asked them – why didn’t they learn sign language when I was young. I was shocked to hear their stories. I said, “I’m so sorry that I was so angry against you for many years just because I didn’t know the facts.” Now I’m blaming that damn principal for not allowing us to have communication easily. (It breaks my heart when I typed – I do wish I could communicate with my parents and siblings easily than what we have now.)
That’s why I’m blessing to have my kids who can signs and be able to communicate with me (fully accessible and no missing out information). I actually choked my tears. My kids! They will have beautiful two languages to use – American Sign Language and Speaking English (some Spanish). We can make any kind of conversations - during dinner time, watching movies, any where because we can understand with each other like a family.
With my parents and sister/brothers, I always asked - What ya all talking about? They always said - oh we talked about the house on fire. I was like... excuse me... You all talked longer than that - the house on fire. I always had to asked for more details - then finally they said - a little boy was playing with matches and started the fire - blah blah (still surface informations). I do not want that in my family with my kids. I want them to know details as of normal conversation that peoople make. It would be nice if they all use sign languages while make a conversation. A VERY few family that all can signs and even relatives! I would say -- about 3 families that I know who can signs (hearing parents, hearing siblings, and even relatives). It would be nice for family who can signs for a deaf person. In my opinion, using sign language is more accessible than just speaking. I took speech classes since I was 3 yrs old. I can't tell you how much its fun - REALLLY BORING!!! All I do is reading book outloud - focus on accent and few parts to work on (still same problem today - 15 and 50 - both are so similiar - i have to emphasize 'n' for 15 LOL) all that.
Nowsdays, better techonologies to make it fun! More kids like going speech classes. Lucky them!
The point of whole things is that communcaiton accessible is really important for all family. Communciation and Relationship are important to me now especially with young ages.
5 comments:
THAT SUCKS !
What sucks worse is that your family KNOWS that what they did was wrong and are still not making it right. They should be FLUENT in sign language in my opinion.
We have talked about learning sign language JUST from your posts about the non communication from one to the other.
Even if your parents chose not to speak it, your siblings should for hell sakes. I honestly can't believe that they haven't learned it already. It's been 32(?) years already.
I'm sorry...that sounded like I was attacking your family. I didn't mean to.
I'm sorry you had to go through all of that nonsense as a child. How extremely confusing and probably scary.
I think you are really smart to be deaf and be able to describe the "N" sound. That is amazing to me.
I hope that because of you, my family can learn another language...even if it's just enough to get by.
I'm proud of you for teaching your kids how to speak and for talking about it.
You da bomb !
I am proud to call you my friend!! I am also proud of the type of parent that you are. Open communication between a family is so very important. I do agree with K too. Why in the hell is your family not fluent in asl??? You make me want to lear more signing then I already know. As K said YOU DA BOMB!!
Kj & Nail - I always asked that questions - Why?- my family not fluent in asl. Who knows? Am I speaking well? I might but not fleuntly as I want. I can speaking but recieving the information is the issues. Or - residentail school - only see my family - on weekends, holidays and summer?
My mom didn't realize how immportant it is until few years ago. If she realized at my young age, she might will learn signs. Who knows?
I love my parents and siblings very much... They always good to me. (the communication part-sucks!).
Kj-Thanks I love being 32! That's when I had Mikaela in that year! I wish I could go back and be 32 again! :o)
I truly admire you both for raising such wonderfully diverse kids. No doubt they'll make this world a better place!
That is really interesting. It is crazy how thoughts and standards change over the year when dealing with various things like raising babies. Sometimes you wonder what they were thinking!
I'm so sorry about your relationship with your parents and siblings. It must be hard to be the one who is left out. I can relate in some aspects as Angele's family has sometimes spoken only French around me and I have had no clue what they were saying. I can pick up words and phrases but it's so fast that it's hard for me to really understand them. And one time some of her idiot ex-friends talked and laughed for hours while I understood nothing. :( Language can make you feel very excluded. It's great that you are doing an excellent job with your children. It will be wonderful for them to have more than one language.
When I was younger I borrowed books from the library on sign language and tried to teach myself. I didn't get very far. It would be wonderful if you could take sign language in school as another language. I think it's very important and it would be nice if more people could use it.
Thanks for sharing your life with us. :)
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