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medpundit |
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Friday, October 04, 2002"...there are many, many deaf people who specifically want deaf kids." This is true particularly now, particularly in Washington, home to Gallaudet, the world's only liberal arts university for the deaf, and the lively deaf intelligentsia it has nurtured. Since the 1980s, many members of the deaf community have been galvanized by the idea that deafness is not a medical disability, but a cultural identity. They call themselves Deaf, with a capital D, a community whose defining and unifying quality is American Sign Language (ASL), a fluent, sophisticated language that enables deaf people to communicate fully, essentially liberating them -- when they are among signers -- from one of the most disabling aspects of being deaf. Sharon and Candy share the fundamental view of this Deaf camp; they see deafness as an identity, not a medical affliction that needs to be fixed. Their effort -- to have a baby who belongs to what they see as their minority group -- is a natural outcome of the pride and self-acceptance the Deaf movement has brought to so many. What this really is, though, is an attempt to keep the children from growing up to exist beyond the pale of their parents’ experience. This sort of thing is common in parents everywhere - in the immigrants who get upset when their children are “Americanized”, in parents who discourage their children from going on to college, in the smalltown parents who don’t want their children to move away to the big city, or in parents who protest marriage outside their own religious or ethnic group. It all just boils down to the same parental angst of “how 'ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm?”. posted by Sydney on 10/04/2002 08:39:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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