my friend jenne...
When I was young my mom thought it was neat to teach me how to do the letters in sign language. So, she would spell words to me and I would try and guess what she was saying. I think that started my obsession with deafness.
My obsession didn’t surface again until my sophomore year of high school when a new friend of mine introduced me to her parents and I saw her hands waving in the air. It hit me quickly. Her parents were deaf. I was so intrigued by this new development that I started to act like every other “outsider” to their culture and quizzed her frantically about how to sign this word or that, and could she please sign me something. I realize now how that felt to her. She had grown up in a world where people did that constantly. They wanted her, even as a child, to educate them about deafness and sign language and could her parents do this or that. Could they drive? Could they work? Could they go through the drive thru?
After I began to learn more about her culture and growing up in the deaf world I was surprised to find that her life was quite different from mine. She was forced to grow up very quickly. She was required to be her parent’s interpreters at all times, for doctor appointments, for bill collectors, for family members who never took the time to learn to sign, and so on. Her childhood was spent mostly with adults explaining away everything she thought was normal.
After learning about her struggles I was destined to educate myself and not ever be one of those people. I can't believe how uneducated I was and how uneducated the rest of the world is.
My obsession didn’t surface again until my sophomore year of high school when a new friend of mine introduced me to her parents and I saw her hands waving in the air. It hit me quickly. Her parents were deaf. I was so intrigued by this new development that I started to act like every other “outsider” to their culture and quizzed her frantically about how to sign this word or that, and could she please sign me something. I realize now how that felt to her. She had grown up in a world where people did that constantly. They wanted her, even as a child, to educate them about deafness and sign language and could her parents do this or that. Could they drive? Could they work? Could they go through the drive thru?
After I began to learn more about her culture and growing up in the deaf world I was surprised to find that her life was quite different from mine. She was forced to grow up very quickly. She was required to be her parent’s interpreters at all times, for doctor appointments, for bill collectors, for family members who never took the time to learn to sign, and so on. Her childhood was spent mostly with adults explaining away everything she thought was normal.
After learning about her struggles I was destined to educate myself and not ever be one of those people. I can't believe how uneducated I was and how uneducated the rest of the world is.