1) The phone rings at my house…
“Hello?”
“Hi is Mr. (my dad) there?”
“Ummm….yea, he’s here, can I ask who is calling?”
(Some kind of stupid courtesey call operator)
“Yea, he’s deaf, so he’s (obviously) not going to be able to talk on the phone”
“Oh, ok, I’ll call him back later. Have a nice day” (click)

And now I’m stuck on the other line, screaming into the phone…”HES DEAF! HE’S ALWAYS GOING TO BE DEAF! Don’t call back because HE IS STILL GOING TO BE DEAF WHEN YOU CALL!!!”

2) This story is a peak example of the first part of the blog (deaF-death?)…

One time I was at a party with my girlfriend. The party was fun until one kid began to complain about how hard his life was. My girlfriend…(not exactly filled in on deaf culture yet…) said “Well, I bet your life isn’t as hard as haveing 2 deaf parents.” The boy looked at me and asked “what?” in a very defensive manner. I paused and then looked at him to say “yea, my parents are both deaf.” Immediatley, the boy grabs my throat and screams, “MY MOTHER WAS A SAINT!” The confrentation turned into a huge fist fight, and when it was all said and done, I found out later that he was misinterpreting deaF for DEATH, and on top of that, his mother had died within the last few years.

Besides the fact that he was obviously disturbed beyond my comprehension, this hearing fool was so ignorant, that it turned a sympathetic situation into a highly disturbing one.

Anyway, thats my 2 cents… Thanks for this blog, its nice to see that I’m not alone in a world full of blind hearing people.

Keep the love!

Also- how did i learn to talk…

It’s good to know I’m not the only one

Are they dumb/mute?
Do you/your parents read Braille?
Do they read and write?
Why are you not deaf too?/Will you become deaf?
Does your house have ramps?
Are your parents on welfare?/Do they have jobs?
How can they have/raise children?
How do you talk to them?
How can they yell at you?
How did you learn to talk?
Deaf people are really quiet, huh?
Do you speak deaf?
Aren’t you scared to have a Deaf baby?
If I talk loud can they hear me?
Deaf people can sneeze? Wow!
Can you say anything you want to them?
Were they born like that?

My favorite: “So, what’s it like having deaf parents?”
Well, what’s it like having hearing parents? I don’t know anything else!

I recently had a family member ask me why I had to go to grad school to go into deaf education since I “do it so well.” (I assume he meant “sign” so well…) I tried to explain that just because he speaks English he can’t just walk into any classroom and teach kids who speak English. No luck. Freakin’ hearing people…

As a deaf mom, I have a hearing son who does CONSTANTLY tapped my shoulder whenever he wants to talk to him– he is a real chatterbox! I have tried to do the same thing to do him because I had hoped it would teach him a lesson– unfortunately, it didn’t work. (He knows that he can tap my shoulder if it is urgent)

My question is does any of you or other CODA did the same thing to your deaf parents by tapping shoulders frequently?

As a deaf mom, I am still learning more about CODA kids. When you were a child, did you always tap your parents a shoulder frequently? My hearing son does that a lot to me– I often teased him back by tapping him a lot.. I had hoped it would work to stop tapping my shoulders CONSTANTLY because he is a real chatterbox!

So, I’m curious if you or other CODA did the same with other deaf parents– like me???

Laura