There’s a side to your girl that not many see.

In an earlier post I may have mentioned that I am a CODA, a child of a deaf adults. If not, here it is.

Yes, both of my parents are deaf.

Initial Thoughts

Whenever this comes up in conversation, the standard, immediate response is:

“Really?!”

And then everyone becomes my audience. It’s all right. Because this time, I was the one that brought it up.

So to answer the most anticipated questions…

My dad was not born deaf; he contracted scarlet fever at 6 years old and then that happened; but my mom was born deaf.

They both can speak very well (they had speech classes at some point in their childhood) so they are not deaf and dumb (how rude); they do wear hearing aids (at least my dad wears his one from time to time; my mom both of hers all the time); and, no, they do not read lips.

What was it like? you might ask. It was all I knew so I am not sure how growing up with deaf parents was any different than if they could hear. Even as I look back as an adult. I mean, I can see now some areas that were missing–but was it really caused by not being able to hear? I’m not convinced.

So how is it possible me and my sisters can hear? And my kids? They say hearing-loss it not hereditary and somehow skips generations. But big skips, what? If you know more about this, that’s all right, you probably do. I usually had other things on my mind when at the OB.

Now that we got all that out of the way we can now focus on . . .

The Nitty Gritty

I like to say my first language was not English. You know, I was likely signing milk and more and please before I even spoke my first words. Right?

It’s likely.

Then I was signing “fluently” and talking all the time. I use quotations because I think I made up my own signs along the way that only my parents understood. But even at a young age I was signing what I was saying. I felt so silly if I were to sign and not talk–even if I was just moving my mouth and silent-whispering. At least that was how I would talk to my parents. In public.

At home it was full voice fully with or fully without my hands. I did not sign with my sisters. Unless, of course, we were in public, and we didn’t want the public to know what we were saying.

Yes, okay, we were a strange bunch.

Back to signing what I was saying. The formal name for that is: Signing Exact English or S.E.E. signing. It started out as my preference (maybe?) and it was also what my mom preferred for an obvious reason: less misunderstandings.

S.E.E. signing is not the same as ASL. Like at all. S.E.E. is based on the English language while ASL is its own (abstract IMO) language. Many watchers-of-us say that sign language is just so beautiful. (I never felt beautiful signing, but that’s beside the point).

In my experience ASL is used a lot to sign songs at church. That always made me uncomfy feeling like I was “performing” so that was not my thing. Just give me the words and I will sign them out. Bing bam boom. ASL is also commonly used in personal conversations. To each their own, but definitely understandable for those whose first language is not English.

And I will say that for my intelligent parents, they wanted to hear–I mean see–the words (picking up what I’m putting down?) and figure out what it all meant on their own. To be exact (on a roll here), my mom ingrained in me to translate the actual words and even if I did not understand it, she probably would.

My two cents (because I do agree with her) is that it’s better to sign exactly what is said–and let them sort it out on their own; don’t simplify it and reduce the original meaning.

I actually feel pretty passionately about this.

So in a way, I kind of became a robot.

Although I truly am not. But let me tell you a story about that.

A few years after I got married, my step-grandfather passed away leaving his house and all his possessions for his stepdaughter to sort out. Bless my husband, he volunteered to help, and I was tribute to keep the language barriers at bay.

Over however many days we were there we were packing things up into boxes, trash bags, and moving the whole time. There were hours spent in a lawyer’s office where I was the little interpreter, signing the as-exactly-as-possible all the words. (That job is not for the faint at heart). Oh and did I mention we were in Michigan in winter? And that heaters were on and drying out the air? And remember I feel silly signing without at least moving mouth? Well, I may not have been using my voice, but I still became parched and thought for sure I was going to pass out. But not a one was keen on that. Remember, I’m the robot.

It was hard. And maybe there is some PTSD from that experience. So I don’t use my hands to talk much these days. (Unless I am writing things like this. Ha.) It’s a hard knock life–whether you can or cannot hear. The grass is not greener.

But I hope you’ve gotten at least a tiny glimpse of what it was like being a CODA.

No, not bitter. And no regrets.

Some Fun Clips

(I can barely recognize myself in the video! lol!)