A Tribe of Many Cultures

"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree"

Albert Einstien

If you like my blog you may want to check out my friend's new blog. She just got started recently. Only three posts so far but her story is as complicated as mine. It will unfold, I am sure, over time. Our stories are never the stuff of a manual.

Our Greatest Journey


I met this family almost six years ago. I was their first ASL teacher. They showed up with a deaf infant and a toddler. I am a bit of a snob when I teach. I don't allow SEE signs or Baby Sign Language. My son visits to tell stories and I expect everyone to become voice off signers. There are other classes for folks who want something different. I am oriented to second language acquisition. Most of the folks who sign up have hearing kids. They were different.

So I mentioned they showed up. Mom and dad came to my class. Dad was an equal partner. I was shocked. I remember looking at their little baby and hoping they would stick with it regardless of what intervention options they chose. I remember how brave they were.

We were different, like apples and oranges, I am a free spirited artist and very liberal by nature. They were more conservative.  Turns out the mom is a talented artist and the dad is gifted in his "art" even though I doubt he would frame it that way. They have the same drive to make the world a better place. They love their children and are willing to think in such depth and not just do as they are advised.  They don't judge others..... maybe we are more alike than different? Turns out we are of the same tribe.

So a few years later..... I consider them to be trusted friends even though we have no political or religious similarities. We can ask each other candid questions without the fear of being judged. I can learn about them and not feel they will be threatened if I don't follow. I am allowed to understand. I can allow them to just be with my respect. They can expect the same from me. Huh.... that is my vision of utopia.

So the way I see it is we are all standing around the same tree. From my view the branches slope one way. From yours maybe it looks different. The guy over there that we don't know is seeing a branch that needs trimming. We are all looking at the same tree. How about we all work to take care of it?

Angry Birds and Ipods

 I have habits in regards to the radio when I am in the car with my kids. If I am alone with my hearing daughter I turn off the radio because she is always talking and the news shows I listen to are too adult. I also enjoy having that time to connect with her. When I am alone with my son I do the same thing. When I am driving without the kids I listen mostly to public radio.

In the recent past I have twice left the radio tuned into NPR on while driving with my son. The first time there was a story about waiting to go to college. My son was sitting next to me in the front seat. He turns to me during this story and out of the blue starts talking about which college he wants to go to.

The second time there was a story about local schools using ipods for instruction. He turns to me and again out of the blue starts to tell me a story about a girl at school giving him a virtual cupcake on her ipod......

A couple of days ago I was listening to a story about a game app for phones called "Angry Birds". When I picked up Haddy from school that day he was all excited about a game app he found called.......

So this got me to thinking. I remember when he was little, before the hearing test, he would seem to respond to sound. I questioned if he was really deaf and almost cancelled his hearing test. I knew a mom who stopped signing because her deaf son responded to a car alarm. At the end of the day my son hears not a sound in this big loud world but sometimes he startles me. As my son would say if I questioned him, "still deaf".

This May Seem Strange

I apologize to my two friends for posting about a private meeting.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with two friends. They are deaf.... maybe? I don't know if they are HH, deaf , hearing or what level of hearing they have. What I do know is how good it feels to sit and have a really in depth conversation in sign. It feels so good to just relax and know they understand me. My signing skills have slipped away a bit maybe but this felt like home.

So we were "talking" about something important to all of us. There is a freedom when you sign. It allows for people to connect and focus in a way voice doesn't in my opinion. I notice when I am in my sign mode I turn off my ears.......

Yep, my daughter does it too. I will be speaking her name over and over and she doesn't turn to my voice if her brother is signing with her. Of course I am also signing and shouldn't depend on her ears at home but it really interesting to me that our ears learn to tune out the noise.

So today I felt a sense of "home". We have a deaf kid who is mainstreamed and rarely get to have that sense. We are the exotic family with the deaf kid.  With my friends today I was just a mom and friend.  I love how I can just look at my friends and focus on their feeling and thoughts. I really can't explain why ASL is so connecting.... I can't really explain why it feels like home..... I can just share that today I am grateful to have had a moment where I wasn't the mom of the deaf kid. I can only share that I am grateful  to have friends and today gave me a bit of something I have been craving.  Our family is different but that is a good thing.

Free Hearing Aids

I live near two state schools. Both received free hearing aids for all of the students and staff. Nice. OSD's gift was made very public on a TV show.

So I was at a friend's house yesterday and she was showing me her daughter's. They are light weight and small. Nice. She said although she was grateful it was a pain to turn them off because you need to remove the battery which isn't all that great for kids.

She was also wondering how much it would cost to replace the earmolds which house the microphone? When my son wore hearing aides he would just go to the school audiologist to get new molds.

I don't ever think about this kind of stuff.

Music To My Eyes?

My son is staying after school to rehearse for the ASL showcase this Friday night. All of the ASL students auditioned for the show. Haddy was a judge. They asked him to join in for the show.

The thing that struck me last year is it is all interpreted music. It was cool but felt odd to me. I am used to going to the deaf school to see ASL poetry. My first instinct was why were they just doing music? A deaf audience might be really bored and it is their language. Then as I really thought about it this year I started to kind of get it. Just like lots of stuff I encounter living with a deaf kid, its complicated. I really don't have a conclusion but just a ramble of thoughts.

Part of learning a language is learning the culture. So I at first imagined the kids learning ASL poetry. By then I imagined what that show would be like. 500 hearing people watching with blank stares having no idea what is going on. ASL poetry is usually not interpreted. 500 people falling asleep in their chairs. The kids would not have a strong enough understanding of the language to really pull it off. There would be no shared experience.

Many deaf people I know enjoy music. Heck, even really deaf Haddy enjoys it when he feels it. The kids incorporate dance, lighting and props so there is a visual element. I guess I still feel a bit odd about it. When I asked Haddy what he thought he said it was boring to watch, all music.

Then I got to thinking this is the one show at the school where they won't have any accessibility issues. Shouldn't it be really as entertaining for the deaf audience? Maybe add more dance and a theater element? I remember the deaf folks who have attended the last two shows Haddy was in really loved the dancing. I don't know. It is just something I think about.

I also got to thinking that when we lived in LA we saw a deaf group preform music at Deaf Expo. It was really cool so maybe my initial reaction was misplaced. I would still like to see a little bit of deaf culture injected but how cool is it we live in a time where there is a whole evening show dedicated to my son's native language? How cool is it that the ASL program has a waiting list?

So what would a deaf native signer want to see that would be accessible to a hearing audience in a way the bridges the two communities by limiting accommodation? What can a deaf person tell me about watching interpreted music? Is there a different way for these kids to showcase the accomplishments?

A Simple Question ...

What does it feel like? Uh, to be deaf.....

How do we do this better? Uh, parent of deaf kid....

What do I do different? How do I do it?

Those are the questions my husband and I asked. Now that we are 13 years in I feel it is important to ask again.

What tech stuff do we need? What did we do right or wrong? How can we be better parents? Anything is a fair question or answer.

I feel we, as parents, hold on to our way and never look back. I am just wondering if there is something we missed?

Hearing Loss

It seemed a bit funny to me today watching my kids at a birthday party.  I have heard this phrase mentioned in regards to my son, "He suffers from a hearing loss".

That never really felt right. He doesn't suffer and he never "lost"his hearing. How can you lose something you never had. He has however, lost his hearing aides once or twice as a wee kiddo. Deaf people come in all shapes and sizes. Every deaf kid is effected by the level of their hearing. Every deaf kid hears (or not) in different ways. My kid doesn't hear at all so he navigates the world in a way that is suited to being non hearing.

I was standing in line at this party across the room from my son and saw him fluently signing with someone. There was a natural conversation happening. Turns out this man has a deaf mother. She "lost" her hearing at age 16. That is a hearing loss in my opinion. She had it and it went away.

I just was thinking about how we use language.

loss |lôs; läs|
noun 
the fact or process of losing something or someone 


suffer |ˈsəfər|
verb [ trans. ]
 experience or be subjected to (something bad or unpleasant)


The party was a blast. We had a friend tuning 4. My son made friends with a 12 year old boy. They used their phones to communicate as they played. They are now facebook friends. The boy attempted to initiate this by by using a made up sign.... my kid understood. He doesn't suffer but he did drink too much soda.