Why I don't like Alexander Graham Bell

I understand that Alexander Graham Bell might be very familiar historical figure. I understand that the invention of the tlephone is one of the greratest inventions of all time. On the surface, Bell might be a hero. However, I have some issues with the man, and what he believed, and how those beliefs affect people, namely my kids, today.
First of all, Bell believed in the theory of Eugenics. I have a real problem with that. For people who do not know, Eugenics was a progressive movement in the early 1900's, which followed Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest to its logical conclusion in society. Progressives wanted to make society a better place, and felt that the government was the way to do that. One way to make society better was to eliminate certain aspects of society, like disease, retardation, blindness, deafness, or anything that could be considered a disability. Bell was a supporter of this idea. Many eugenisists, including Bell, felt that one way to eradicate these portions of society was to prevent them from reproducing. Bell strongly felt that this should apply to deaf people. If both members of a couple were deaf from birth, then they should not marry or reproduce because this would lead to more deaf babies. Laws, like this were passed in many states during that time to prevent certain populations from marrying. Some people were even encouraged to voluntarily become sterile. Eugenics had many supporters during this time, and was quite prominent in the United States. Only after Hitler and the National Socialist Party of Germany adopted the theory of Eugenics to justify the murder of millions of people, did it become unpopular in the United States. This idea of Eugenics is what led Bell into his life's passion and work.
That work was the oral education of deaf children. Along with being a eugenicist, Bell was also a Nationalist. Nationalism at this time meant a great fear for outside groups and cultures. Bell felt that the Deaf community fell under this umbrella, since they had their own language and culture. He felt that it would be important for them to abandon their language and culture, which seperated them from society. He came up with techniques and ways for deaf people to learn how to speak, and therefore become part of mainstream society. This new idea became very popular, and soon many deaf schools, that had previously taught ASL, switched to this new method. It was taught to students in very ruthless ways, where they were harshly punished for using their hands in communication at all. The goal was to eventually eliminate ASL all together, and only have oral deaf people in this country, until the actual goal was realized where deaf people were eliminated all together, and society would be wonderful and hearing.
Fortunately, students at these schools secretly taught each other ASL and deaf culture survived and was strengthened.
So what is the problem with oral communication for deaf people? For me, part of the problem is that it teaches deaf kids that there is something wrong with them, that needs to be fixed. On their own, they will never be happy or successful, or part of society, or any of that. When a child who is deaf is raised to be only oral, then he is constantly at odds with himself, about who he is and what his value is. His self worth takes a huge blow. Another part of the problem is that it is a hard way for deaf kids to communicate. Yes, there are cochlear implants and hearing aids, but it still takes a lot of effort. Communication is hard enough, without added complications. ASL is a beautiful language that enables deaf people to communicate freely and openly, or anyone who learns the language.
Now, my son is deaf. He has a cochlear implant, which means people automatically assume that we want an oral only lifestyle for our son. This is not correct. We see the implant as a tool for him to use to help him along the way. The harsh reality is that no one in our family is deaf besides our kids, so no one signs except for us, and one aunt. This is ok. It's the reality of the situation. We want to give Johnny the tools for communication in all aspects of his life, which includes his family. However, we will not force him to give up sign, or even encourage it. I have seen my son come alive through sign language. It is his first language, and I will not take it away from him. I do not believe that encouraging him to sign or to participate in the deaf community is going to hinder him. On the contrary, it will give him strength. I do not look at other kids who have cochlear implants who talk and listen only in the auditory world, and say to myself, "Finally I see that my son can have a happy, productive life." No! I see that as only one aspect of my child's life. I always believed that he would have a happy productive life, with or without hearing. I hope as he gets older, he is proud of who he is, and accepts himself, and does not view himself at all with shame. His success is not attached to the implant in his head. I want him to think, I am happy and productive, not despite being deaf, but because I am Deaf.
I hope the deaf community will accept him, despite his implant. We did not do it because we are ashamed of our son or because we did not think he could succeed without it. We did it to give him another tool to help him communicsate with others. The hearing world will not ever bridge that gap, so my son had to sacrifice to bridge it. Maybe this is wrong, but it's what I think.

Monthly Update

School has started for me, and that is why there has been such a long break in between blog posts. I wanted to take a few minutes to update everyone on everything that is going on in our lives, because life does not stand still!

Johnny is making great strides with both the implant as well as signing. He has started to imitate more sounds that he hears, including fire engines and the word "bye". He has also started to turn when we call his name, which is pretty cool.

Even cooler has been the increase in proficiency we have seen in his signing. He is starting to link bunches of words together to make sentences. Sometimes he will sign things so fast, I am not sure what he is signing. His favorite sign is Firefighter, since that is his current obsession. Today, we went to Erica's parents' house for a western night. They had a fire going, and as everyone was kind of leaving, and the fire was dying, Johnny waved his hand to get my attention and then signed fire, Firefighter, then water, and made the action of spraying water on the fire. Apparently, he wanted the fire department to come and put out the fire. It is amazing to me that he can put that all together. He has also begun to master the art of talking back in his signing, like when we tell him it is time for bed, or time to change his diaper. He is very good at signing no and shaking his head, then he looks anywhere, except at us. I would get angry, if it weren't so cute!

Johnny has also been enjoying the football season. I got him a little football outfit, that he wore for five days straight. I also took him to the first Utah home game, and he loved it. Now, every once in a while, you will find him getting down in his stance, and then jump up and run, sometimes he just runs, and sometimes he will run at me to tackle me. It is awesome. I think he is going to be a linebacker someday. Who knows?

Eliza is beginning to make more sounds as well. She just turned one on September 8, and it has been incredible to see how much of a little personality she has been developing. She smiles and laughs all the time. Her favorite game is to find a piece of clothing and drape it over her head and then walk around with it on up there. It's just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. She has begun to mimic more of the gestures she sees. Tonight at dinner, I signed eat to her, and so she moved her hand up to her mouth, copying me. Her favorite sign is what. She walks around all day doing that sign, nonstop. I think she must see us do it all the time, either that, or she really just wants to know what everything is.

Erica is doing well. We are getting more and more excited about our next little one on the way. At first it was a shock, but now we are just excited. Boy or girl, this little baby is coming to a great family, with awesome older sibling to show him or her the ropes.

The Cabin and Eliza's New Tricks and Other Big News

This last weekend was a lot of fun. We went up to a cabin in Huntsville, UT. Johnny loved it there. He saw horses and water and fire and ate s'mores and hot dogs and chips, it was a dream trip for him.

We got there on Friday afternoon and moved our stuff into one of the bedrooms then we went for a little walk to the barn that they had on the property. On the way there was a little stream that went through the property, and Johnny had fun just throwing rocks into it. He didn't want to leave it. Then we took him across the street so he could see some horses, which he liked as long as we kept our distance from them.

That night, we built a fire in the backyard and had an old fashioned wienie roast. It was delicious. Then we roasted marshmallows and had s'mores. Johnny liked that as well. The next day, it was kind of rainy in the morning, which disappointed us because we had planned to go canoeing that afternoon. In the morning we went over to David O. McKay's childhood home. We signed to Johnny that it was a prophet's house, and he thought that was really cool. He has been obsessed with prophets lately, so it was really neat.

After lunch on Saturday, it cleared up quite a bit, and we were able to go canoeing. We drove down to a little reservoir and took the canoe and kayak down to the water

and everyone took turns going out in the water. Johnny loved being on the canoe with us. He thought it was great because he was on a boat on the water. He was mad when we had to leave.

We left the next day after church, and after we almost caught the cabin on fire when we cooked some pizza. All in all it was a great little getaway.

Now for Eliza's new tricks. She has been spending more and more time on two feet instead of on all fours. She has even started taking steps. Today, while I was at work, she walked across the living room. It is amazing to watch her. She'll be sitting on the floor, then she'll get herself up and start walking, just like that. Pretty soon she is going to be chasing Johnny

down the hall. It is funny to watch her, she always gets so proud of herself when she walks, and looks around, and waits for us to clap for her, and then she claps for herself. It's fun.

The last part is our big news. We are excited to announce that our little family of four will soon be a family of five. It is a little sooner than expected, but we are excited nonetheless about the addition of another baby to our family.

Wonder Woman

When I was younger, there was only one thing I really wanted to be: Superman. Unfortunately, I can't fly, I don't have super strength, and I've never tried, but I'm pretty sure I'm not bulletproof. Not to mention my physique, which is not exactly super. Maybe I didn't grow up to be Superman, but I got close, because I married Wonder Woman. For those of you who read this and know Erica, you know what I'm talking about, or you at least have an idea. For those of you who don't know Erica, you're missing out.

Why is Erica so awesome? Where do I start? The world has it's own ideas about what makes a "wonder woman". This is a picture of perfection- the ultimate career woman who is also the ultimate soccer mom, who also keeps a perfect house, whose kids are just perfect, and through all of this her make up stays perfect and not a hair is out of place. This is not reality. The sad thing is that the world is missing out because the reality is so much better.

Erica does not have a career. She gave that up, by choice for her kids. Our house may not always be perfect, and neither are our kids. My wife doesn't have to worry about her make up smearing, because she is more beautiful without it, than she ever could be with, and fortunately for her, her hair looks great no matter what. So apparently. she does not fir the world's perception of perfection.

Let me tell what she does do. Last year, our world changed forever. In some ways we were planning on this, since we were expecting another child, which always changes things. What we were not planning on was being catapulted into a whole new cultural world. Our world was broadened and changed when we found out that Eliza was moderately deaf, and then a couple of months later, we found out Johnny was profoundly deaf. Erica, up to this point had no experience with deaf kids. She did not know a lick of sign language. She knew nothing about deaf culture, and had never imagined raising a deaf child, let alone two. This could have been enough for anyone to start questioning why things happen the way they do. As much as i would like to deny it, it was easy at first to see this as a trial and a challenge, a tragedy. Erica never did. She knew it would be hard, but she knew that raising kids would be hard. She seemed to realize from the beginning that this was not a tragedy, but a blessing. Through it, she has brought our family closer together, and has had nothing but love for our kids all the time. She has loved them unconditionally. How fortunate my kids are to have her as a mother, someone who will help them find strength in who they are, focus on being able, not disabled. She has grounded me in the knowledge that our kids are the most wonderful kids in the world. It has gotten to the point that we would be a little disappointed if our next kid was not deaf.

Besides all of this, Erica has been a wonderful mother. Our house may not be perfect, because Erica puts a priority on spending her time with the kids. She seeks out different activities to help the kids experience new and different things. She has shown me nothing but love, and has made my life worth living. She is always willing to pull me back down when need be and help me stay grounded, whether that is financially or whatever.

Erica is one of my heroes, and right now, I feel like she needs to now that, and I want others to know that. Sometimes, we get to caught up in what we are not doing right, and miss all the things that we do really well. I don't want this to be the case for Erica, because she does so many things, so well. I love her, and I look forward to our eternity together.

The Incident

I thought a lot about what to write for this post before I wrote it. Last night we had an "incident". Johnny has a hard time getting along with other kids. When he is left alone he is a sweet little boy, but often times when he is around other little kids he gets frustrated. We have seen that a lot. I think it comes from the inability to communicate. Johnny only knows sign at this point, and only on a basic level. The other little kids in our apartment complex only know english, and again on a very basic level. This leads to frustration, them with Johnny and vice versa. When Johnny gets frustrated, he usually hits the other children, to get their attention or to get them to stop, or to get them to go away. He doesn't know any other way to get his message across. We realize as parents that this is no good. We have tried to teach him not to do it, and in some ways he has gotten better the more he signs. However, there are times when he still gets so frustrated he can't help it. We try to be there to prevent those times from happening, but we are not perfect.

This brings us to the "incident". Last night Johnny was playing in a little police car outside. We were watching him, and he drove a little distance away from us. We were not too concerned because there weren't any other kids near him. We were sitting with some friends and were engaged in conversation with them. We kept looking back to keep an eye on Johnny. During one of the times that neither of us were watching, Johnny had been approached by a little girl in our ward. I don't know what happened, but the next thing we know, all the other little kids are running to this little girl's mom, many of them yelling that some little kid did it. We all looked to see what it was, and this little girl was bleeding from her nose. One of the other parents, who is not related to this little girl, came storming over to me, and said "Hey, your kid just grabbed some little girl's nose and made it bleed!" I got sick to my stomach. Then I got angry at this person, because his next words were taunting as he said "Yeah, see that girl over there, your kid did that, see what your kid did?!" I immediately ran over and took Johnny inside. As best I could, I tried to explain to him in my broken sign that hurting other kids was bad, and that he would have to go to bed now as a punishment. He cried for a while. I don't know how much he got from what I told him. Erica talked with the mom of the little girl. We felt, and still feel terrible about what happened. The mom was great. She was not angry with us, and explained to Erica that her little girl's nose bleeds pretty easily, and that it was not a big deal. Johnny's behavior still was not appropriate, and we are working so hard to get it right and to teach him.

I think that is what bothered me the most about what the other parent said. He has no idea what it's like. I don't blame him. How could he know that we had just had a long talk that day about things we needed to start doing to break Johnny of his hitting habit? How could he know that his comments were going to make my wife cry herself to sleep that night, and make me feel like a failure as a father? He probably thought that he was being some kind of hero, standing up for all the little kids on the playground and protecting them from the beastly Dietz child who never listens when the other parents ask him to stop. He probably didn't even know Johnny was deaf. I still wanted to ask him, though, to see how he would do raising two deaf children. Now it's hard to raise kids no matter what, but when one of his kids hits someone else, he can pull that child aside and talk to them about it. We try, but we just don't have the words. We're trying to learn them, but they're not there yet. We know that this kind of behavior is unacceptable, and we don't model it at home, but I honestly don't think Johnny is doing it to be mean. maybe I'm wrong. maybe my child is the monster this guy obviously thinks he is, and maybe we are awful parents who simply just don't care, like he must think we are. But I get so worried when Johnny does that stuff. I hate it when it happens, and I don't want him to do it, so I must care a little bit. And I've seen Johnny with his sister and other little babies and how he will softly try to hug them and give them kisses, how he signs words to teach Liza how to talk, and i know he is not a monster. I see how when he sees the other little boys playing with trains or super heroes, he gets his trains and super heroes. He just wants to be like the other kids, but he doesn't know how. We are trying to teach him, and I am sure he will eventually grow out of it, I just hope we can help him do it quickly.

Growing Up Some More

It's been a little while since I've written. I thought I should give an update on Johnny's progress as well as Eliza. This time I am going to start with Eliza. She is getting to be such a big girl. She has started to stand all the time, and has even begun to let go of things, and goin' freestyle. She has also begun to climb on things and over things and under things. She is getting to brave, I think, but maybe it is just hard to see her grow up so fast. I miss the days when she was a newborn and I got to hold her, and she was so little. Now she is so independent (she learned that from Johnny), she hardly ever wants to be held. She has begun using some more signs. Here is a list of the signs she has done to some extent or another: Mom, dad, more, milk, horse, airplane, and hat. She is also understanding more sign, which is just so cool. I swear she knows bedtime, because she gets mad every time we sign it to her. She also learned that from Johnny. She has also learned to make the ahhh noise when we practice with Johnny. Unfortunately for Erica, she has just entered a very mommy clingy stage. Erica loves it.

It seems like the longer Johnny has had the processor on, the more he signs. He is picking up signing like crazy, and not just words anymore, but whole sentences. It is so much fun to watch. He signs to us, to other people, to Eliza. The last one is really cute, because he will show her a picture of something and then sign it to her and sometimes he will help her to sign it. It is awesome. He has also started signing when he plays and sometimes he just signs to himself. It has really become a great language for him, and I think it will remain his first choice. He has also done really well with sounds. He has begun mimicking the sounds he hears us practice with him all the time. We talk to him all the time, but mainly he responds to our signing. He is so smart, just unbelievable what he can do.

What Johnny Heard

The title might be a little misleading. I don't really know what Johnny has heard this week. This is what I do know: Johnny heard something. We have seen some responses as he has been wearing his processor, but obviously there is still progress to be made and work to be done. Today, for the first time, we were making one of THE sounds, and Johnny began imitating it, so I know he heard that. It will be a long road to him speaking and listening.

It has been interesting to hear and see people's responses. Going into a store the other day, I noticed a man staring at it. Not just a curious look, or double take, but staring, with a look of bewilderment on his face. I thought, "what, you've never seen a kid with a cochlear implant before?" Then I thought, I really hadn't before we found out about Johnny and Eliza, so he probably hadn't either.

Most people that we have talked to have asked if it has just been amazing to see him respond to all the sounds. Our family is excluded here, because we prepared them for the reality. People think it is like wearing glasses. You put them on, and you can see. It is completely different with the cochlear implant. Johnny has to learn how to hear and listen now, and it will take a lot of hard work. So the answer is, it hasn't been much different yet. It will be amazing over time, but not just yet.

The one thing that has come out of it has been the opportunity to explain to people our thoughts on the whole kids being deaf thing. A lot of people assumed, in the hearing world, that we were doing this to fix our kids, so they wouldn't have a tragic life where they missed out on all the wonderful sounds around them. It has been a great opportunity to explain that our kids being deaf was never a tragedy. It may have been a comedy at times, or a drama, but never a tragedy.. Tragedies always have unhappy endings, and that wasn't ever going to our kids' lives. Johnny is 2 and a half years old. He is healthy and happy. He talks a lot (using his hands), he loves Batman and all things super hero, he loves trains and cars and frogs and bugs and dogs. He loves his little sister, sometimes too much. He knows who Jesus is, and he loves Him. He loves mom and dad, his grandmas and grandpas. Where's the tragedy? He is just like any other kid. We did not get him the implant to fix him, to make him just like everyone else. We didn't get him one because we felt like he was missing out on life. He wasn't. He is an incredible little boy, who can do so much, with or without the implant. We got the implant, not for him, but for others. To help others get over the communication barrier with him. My wife and I are learning sign, and teaching it to him, and he is amazing at it. That will always be his language of choice, I think. He will never have to work at signing as hard as he will at listening and talking. The reality is that the rest of the world will not cater to him. The implant is just a tool for him to communicate with others, make his life a little easier. It is not what is going to make his life complete, because it wasn't missing anything.