I’ve had two deaf/hoh bosses. The first, Stav, was when I was putting myself through undergrad by working at PetSmart. I believe he had a cochlear implant that provided him with limited ability to hear, or else he was extremely hard-of-hearing. In either case, he would augment what hearing he did have by reading lips. He was one of the best bosses I ever had when working retail, and he had a great sense of humor. Once, he and I were ringing register side by side, and a family came in with a shrieking toddler–I have never heard a child scream like that in my life. The family did nothing to address it…and not in an ‘we’re letting this run it’s course’ sort of way, but in a more neglectful, disinterested kind of way. It went on for a good ten minutes. As they came through my line, Stav looked up, eyes darting all around the store, either not realizing or doing a very good job of pretending to not realize that the sound is coming from the kid in my line, and asks very loudly, “What on Earth is that? Is it a bird? Did one of the birds escape? It’s AWFUL.” The look on the parents’ faces was priceless. And the kid shut up.
More recently, I got to work with a deaf supervisor in my Clinical Psychology Ph.D program. She specializes in multi-cultural issues, especially transgender (one of my areas of specialization) and Deaf culture (not something I have expertise in, but a topic I thought might be interesting in learning more about). She supervised my individual work and I had her for group supervision, too. It was really interesting to learn about her work with Deaf/deaf clients. One of the resources she directed us to in group sup may be of interest http://www.michaelharvey-phd.com/; the Recent Articles go into some of the unique aspects of Deaf culture. One of the articles is about a case in which a family is trying to figuring out whether or not to get a cochlear implant for their eight-year-old son…it’s the one called “Does God have a Cochlear Implant?” Midway through there are some really interesting comparisons to Deaf culture and other marginalized groups, and gets into how the dad grapples with his own identity as a Black man and how this is similar/dissimilar to Deaf culture. It touches on some of the “how is deafness a blessing” themes in a really interesting way and may be worth checking out.
Quoted for truth. I’m not big-D Deaf, but I am deaf in one ear, and have been from birth. And it has unquestionably been a handicap in social situations. My hearing has been getting worse in my good ear, too, and I’m definitely noticing the isolation that that engenders.
On the other hand, I’ve never had trouble sleeping in a noisy environment, so, y’know, I got that going for me. In truth, my dysthymia and ADD are bigger handicaps.
I’ve had a couple over the years; worked out fine all around. It would work out even better today; back then using a paper and pen for some communications was a chore. With the new laptops and notebooks, no real problem at all.
The more technical the field, the less likely anyone is going to want to talk on the phone. I’ve drawn a paycheck working for people that I have never once spoken to, and honestly I prefer it that way. There is an e-mail trail that we can both refer to and avoid miscommunication. Unless you have a job that requires face-to-face contact, deaf is not a problem at all.
Hallmark Lesson #1: Toolmaking and using is part of our heritage as Humans. Personally, I would not deny my child a tool if it were financially possible.
Hallmark Lesson #2: Self-delusion is often at the core of self-confidence. You need to believe you can do something, no matter how unskilled you really are, to even try it. We all have a bit of Dunning–Kruger in us.
Except that members of the deaf community that deny treatment to their children are tacitly recognising that the positives outweigh the negatives by that refusal. Otherwise they would not be concerned that their children would leave their community, given the option.
I’ve had a deaf boss, completely unable to perceive sound. She went deaf in early adulthood, though, so although she was fluent in Sign it was her second language. (Post-deafness, she was learning Italian, including to lipread and speak it. I suspect she had better than typical linguistic and other skills to pull that off.)
You work around the deafness issues. I’ve had visually impaired/blind bosses, too, same situation, you work around any problems that arise. Yes, it’s a handicap, but it’s not something insurmountable in the vast majority of situations. Particularly with modern technology there are very few things that the blind or deaf can’t handle in the work world.
I tend to feel the same way.
However, for a long, long time deaf people were all too often treated as sub-human, less intelligent, less moral, and as inherent criminals - seriously, look into some of the history, some of it is terrible. I can understand a desire to close ranks and get defensive. In some cases, I think parents fear if their children are hearing or given implants or whatever they’ll “lose” the child to a world they find alien and unaccepting, a world they can’t enter.
Sure, people sometimes say something like cancer or some other serious medical issue is a “gift”, but they usually mean that they’ve found a way to pull something good out of something traumatic, not that cancer or losing a limb or whatever is somehow an inherent good. It’s not. You might do an amazing job of making lemonade out of lemons, but that doesn’t make lemons in the natural state sweet rather than sour. Some Deaf folks, though, seem to regard Deafness as an inherent good… which viewpoint I have extreme difficulty in comprehending.