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"\"Do you know Braille?\"\n\n\"Can they drive?\"\n\n\"How come you can hear?\"\n\n\"Can you teach me sign language?\"\n\n\"What was it like?\"\n\nIf there's a question someone has about growing up with deaf parents, I've heard it. As the older kid of a deaf dad and a hard-of-hearing mom, I hated telling people about my family because it instantly became the only thing anybody wanted to talk about.\n\nSo, what was it like? Now that I've had some years to think about it, here's my answer: I don't know.\n\nI only know what it was like to have my dad for a dad and my mom for a mom. Sure, hearing came up sometimes, like when I had to help out on the phone or translate at a dinner, but most of the time we were like any other family. My mom took us to school in the morning and made dinner at night. My dad taught me how to drive and how to balance a checkbook. We went on family vacations to the Grand Canyon and the Outer Banks.\n\nFor a long time, I changed the subject whenever someone asked about my parents. I was tired of deafness being the only thing people knew about me or the only topic they cared to pursue. I was tired of the a = b reductionism, the \"Oh, of course she's good at English! She has deaf parents!\"\n\nThen I met a girl named Shefali, whose family had just moved to the U.S. from India. I was so curious about this country I'd read about but never visited, and I peppered her with questions: What was her school like there? What did she eat for breakfast?\n\nSuddenly, I stopped. I realized that I was doing to her what I resented people doing to me. But Shefali didn't mind. \"Does it bother you that I'm asking so many questions about you and your family?\" I asked her. \"No,\" she said, shrugging her shoulders. \"Everyone's interesting to someone.\"\n\nEveryone's interesting to someone would echo in my head from time to time, whenever a friend wanted to know about sign language or wondered why a light flashed when the phone rang at our house. I realized that the overwhelming majority of people who ask me questions about deafness, the deaf community, or sign language are doing so because they're genuinely interested, not because they're mocking or trying to psychoanalyze me.\n\nThere's a quote from Helen Keller that I reference a lot: \"Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people.\" And it's true. Many people want to know more about the deaf community, but the language barrier makes it difficult to ask questions or foster dialogue. Because I exist in both of those worlds, the deaf and the hearing, I'm in a unique position to educate. This lifetime of answering questions is my own way of translating.\n\nSo let me answer some for you.\n\nBraille is for blind people, so I don't know it. But I do know American Sign Language. It was my first language and the one I still feel the most at home in, although I've made a living from working and communicating in English. ASL is where I go when I'm hurt or afraid or brilliantly happy, the place where I can crawl into my own hands and be safe.\n\nMy parents can drive, and they're great at it. On the whole, deaf people are pretty good drivers\u2014after all, they're not talking on the phone or messing with their radio. Why do you think ambulances have to have flashing lights as well as sirens?\n\nI can hear because I was born that way. Neither of my parents' hearing losses is genetic, and a significant majority of deaf and hard-of-hearing adults will have hearing kids. We're called CODAs, Children of Deaf Adults. Thanks to social media, I've met CODAs from all over the world. A lot of us know each other and hang out in real life. Although my friend Elodie lives in France and we communicate in different sign languages, we've been able to bond about deaf experiences in different countries and talk about what our respective communities are doing differently. The internet has been a huge gift for the deaf and hard-of-hearing around the globe.\n\nAnd yes, I'd love to teach you something. I say that provided you don't treat ASL as a party trick, and that you want to learn something other than swear words. But if you do want to pick up a couple of signs or even try to become fluent, it's a joy and an honor for me to share my native language with people who love it as much as I do.\n\nImagine being able to communicate\u2014and to laugh, and to love, and to grieve, and to experience joy\u2014in three dimensions. That's how I feel about my family. Our language gives us the ability to express ourselves in so many more ways."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.teenvogue.com/story/deaf-parents>