A deaf friend from my deaf school days e-mailed me today. He pointed out, correctly, that the term "hearing-impaired" is today, viewed as offensive. "Hearing-impaired" was a politically correct term when referring to hard of hearing and deaf individuals. Today, the word "Deaf" is perfectly acceptable. I wasn't offended. I completely understood where my friend was coming from.
However, I am the only deaf person in my family. My nieces and nephews are hearing. When one of my nephews was five, his mother, my older sister, came to visit, bringing her five year old son with her. My sister asked me if I would baby sit while she had dinner with friends one night. I said sure. My nephew and I were sitting at the kitchen table in my home, when he said, " Aunt Mindy, what can WE do to fix your ears"? I was stunned into silence, absolutely FLOORED that my nephew understood Aunt Mindy was somehow different. He was perfectly serious. I took a deep breath and collected my thoughts, wondering how do I explain DEAF to a hearing five year old. You don't.
I told my then five year old nephew, that Aunt Mindy's ears were broken, just like his mother's tummy was broken. My nephew has known all his life that he is adopted, and that his mother could not have a baby in her tummy like his birth mother had him in her tummy. A five year old would understand the concept of broken ears because at that age, he or she understands a broken toy. The broken toy doesn't work. I then explained to my nephew that Aunt Mindy wore hearing aids to help her hear, like his mother wore glasses and contact lenses to see. I took off one of my behind the ear hearing aids and showed him what the hearing aid did. My nephew seemed satisfied.
Later, when my sister came home and her son had long been tucked into bed by his Aunt Mindy, I told my sister what her son had said at the kitchen table. It threw her for a loop. She was as surprised as I had been.
My usage of the term "hearing-impaired" while using my CapTel phone to talk to Triple A about my battery situation the other day was quite deliberate. Hearing Society, when someone identifies themselves as Deaf, 95% of the time will automatically assume the Deaf person signs. I also have discovered that if I identify myself as Deaf while using the CapTel phone to clue me into what is being said, that person will raise his or her voice, making the speech discrimination for me worse. Yelling is useless. I don't sign because my family is hearing and they don't sign either.
Quite often, when my mother and I would go out together, and use a public bathroom, she would still be talking to me behind a closed bathroom stall. I of course, heard her talking but assumed she was talking to someone else in the bathroom.. She would come out, chuckle, and say, "Mindy, I forget you are deaf." My co-workers do the same thing to me and then apologize. I tell them my own mother would forget I was deaf.
I am equally comfortable among other deaf people even though I don't sign. We still communicate. We text each other. Write each other notes. Sign hello, nod, etc. I still live and work in a hearing world. I would hope that most hearing people are comfortable around me, but I am beyond the age where I need acceptance. I've been on this earth a good while, so I am not going to be emotionally shattered if a hearing person rejects me for whatever reason. I am very comfortable with who I am and yes, I "found myself" a long time ago. Been there. Done that.
That wasn't always the case. As a deaf teenager and frequently the only deaf person in my mainstreamed classroom, I hated being different than my hearing peers. No self respecting teenager wants to be different than his or her peers, deaf or not. I have never had an issue with being deaf, as I have been deaf most of my life. What I have had issues with, is how society deals with it. I consider myself deaf. I make sure my doctors and specialists know I am deaf.
If a hearing person identifies me as "hearing impaired" in the course of a conversation, I usually let it go. Most of Hearing Society identifies Deaf people as using sign language, which is totally inaccurate. Not all Deaf people sign. I am convinced, though, that the day will come when cochlear implants are as commonplace as open heart surgery, and affordable. I think it is going to take a couple of generations of cochlear-implanted babies, who grow into adulthood, to be 100% accepted as part of society.
To Hearing Society, I am what deaf culture would refer to as a "high functioning deafie." That's the truth. To a hearing person, they very often know there is something different about me but can't quite figure it out. I actually once stood in an elevator at my office building, and said, "Good Morning," to someone who asked me to hold the elevator door open for him. Looking at me, the gentleman said, "I can't quite place your accent, are you from Texas"? I said no, I'm actually from somewhere else and identified where I was from. Later, when I got home that night, I e-mailed some friends in Texas and told them about the morning episode in the elevator. They really got a kick out of that, as there is absolutely nothing resembling Texas about me!
No comments:
Post a Comment