Ignorance Hurts

Originally posted on December 2, 2005

Every single day, many parents are in shock after being told that their beloved infants are deaf. Well, any parents with absolutely no connections to the deaf world would react pretty badly to the news. The next step is to adjust to the alternating lifestyle in their family by learning how to sign in order to communicate with the deaf child.

Today, far too many doctors are still under-educated on the needs of deaf children. It is important that a child adapt American Sign Language as its primary language in communication along with English being given the equal status. We live in a society where everybody speaks and writes English. I don't have a lot of faith in the oral approach because many children who are born deaf tend to have a hard time learning how to speak. They can, but it's a very difficult task and requires a lot of training only to become barely capable of being understood by a completely stranger.

Deafness isn't just about being unable to hear, there's more to it than one could possibly imagine. There is actually a whole different world out there for the deaf. Just go to any deaf get-togethers or conventions for the deaf and you'll be amazed by what you see.

Though, there's a dark side to being deaf. It's the ignorance that the deaf keep facing every day in their lives. It's the society, despite the changes we've pushed for in the last few decades. People are still being ignorant of the problems that the deaf and the other types of groups such as autistic, blind, deaf-blind, quads, and more. No matter what we've achieved, there's always people who come up to our faces and mock us just for being deaf. We often have to fight to break down the barriers. There's always another barrier to break down after breaking one because people are just too damned ignorant and end up forming more barriers.

Some of these people end up having deaf children. Sure, you may laugh in their faces as a way of punishing them. The scary thing is, imagine what they'll do to their children for just being deaf. Some of them may suddenly be impacted by the fact that their children cannot hear and
become good parents. It still doesn't make up for their nastiness in the past. People just don't make fun of people for nothing, they weren't taught to understand people like us because they come from families who are too ignorant to bother with the reality in our societies.

Ignorance Hurts.