Chapter 44 :)

Deaf Parents 

This chapter was completely new to me. I knew that not many Deaf parents had Deaf children and vice verse, but I did not think that it was that big of a deal. I thought that the phrase "to see if the baby's 'one of them' or not" was a little harsh, my thought is that if the child's parents are Deaf then they will adapt that culture. I would think that the baby's health would be more important than whether it was hearing or not. 

Something mentioned in this chapter that I found to be really interesting is that there is a strong cultural affiliation between deaf children and adults, and I see how some hearing parents could resent that. When parents have this child they expect to have this strong everlasting bond with them, and yes I do think that there would be some what of a wall between a hearing parent who does not know much ASL or understand Deaf culture and the Deaf child that is immersed in this sort of thing. I can see how this would be some what heartbreaking, however the hearing parents should try to learn ASL and try all day everyday to make a point of being in their child's life. 

On the subject of Deaf parents having hearing children... My best friend Charlie (I have talked about him in these blog posts before) has 2 deaf grandparents, a Deaf sister, and his mom teaches at the Indiana School for The Deaf, is going through a bit of a crisis. He is fluent in Sign Language and has strong ties to the culture, well about 2 weeks ago he woke up and had very fuzzy vision... well by the end of the day his vision in his right eye was almost completely gone, the next day the same thing happened to his left eye. He has has 3973468 tests done over the last couple of weeks and the doctors are almost positive that he has a rare (irreversible) genetic disease called Leber Hereditaty Optic Neuropathy, it causes sudden blindness in men in their mid 20's (he is 23). Anyway he and his family is at a loss for what to do, they are used to Deafness, and blindness is in a way opposite.