Noah's Blog

I agree with you.

Actually, what Shakespeare wrote in the play Hamlet was

"To Thine Own Self Be True"

Interestingly, this was said by the father Polonius when giving advice to his son, Laertes.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but as one who loves the Bard and majored in English Lit in college, I wanted to point that out. It does perhaps change the meaning of the message somewhat. Especially when you consider that the next line says

"And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou cannot then be false to any man."

In order to be honest with others, we must first be honest with ourselves. I do agree with you that such honesty includes being who and what we are - if we give up our lives to another, then we pay the price of losing who we are, and thus we will have a hard time being true to ourselves. Allowing someone else to define who we are means we lose the ability to discover ourselves and our own identities; and to grow and develop as individuals with our own thoughts and feelings.

You make some interesting and thought-provoking points.

I am curious tho... you mention children bonding with the parent with whom they feel they speak the same language, have the same culture, etc. How would this apply to - for example - a biracial child who has one white parent and one black parent? Which parent would such a child be more inclined to bond to? After all, they are a product of both. Will they be accepted by both cultures, rejected by both cultures, or what? Or will they be much like the Marlee character says in the movie... caught somewhere in the middle?

Or is this a good comparison to use?

Hmmm... something to think about.

Children bond with the parents they have the most meaningful communication with. It could turn out to be both parents, ideally...but most bond with one parent.

Well said!

"(If) you are not true to your
own self,"...."you throw away a pearl richer than all your tribe."
So you get the idea.

Very WELL Said there!

Need all the honesty in every one of us no matter who we are!

what a comment! You inspired me!

Hmmm... I enjoyed viewing your vlog.

As for a child favoring a parent over other parent, yes, it depends on the ease of communication. I was and am still closer to my father. I sense my son feeling more comfortable with confiding in me than in his father. So it depends...

Gotcha about acceptance. I have already witnessed some outright rejection of CI people on the DeafRead (I got scorned by Aidan and Tony from Australia who failed to get my point.) Because I see that the future deaf community will be mostly consisting of late-deafened people with English as their first language and CI children who would be more trained to be aural than visual/spatial. So we need to accept them, make them feel warm, and they'd want to learn about ASL, etc. We don't want Deaf Culture to be exclusive.

Ahhh... one more thing.

I noticed you said that CI/hoh/oral deaf people are stuck between two worlds, not fully accepted by either world. That is what frustrates me...

I tell my son to see himself as a bridge between two worlds, not being stuck between two worlds. A bridge that he could easily walk to the worlds whatever he feels like it, being at home with two worlds.

But then the worlds have their own expectations so it creates tension :o( .

Add to your comment, why the hell did he married to a deaf woman that can not talk, but try to make his deaf son to be hearing? Way off the point in the show. Also comparing to BIG D Grandparent an old fashion way to now new Technical is too obvouisly that C.I. is good!?!? It is same thing with hearing world for example tattoo are artworks today but old fashion look at tattoo are evil ugly sin! So that show is way off the point. Didn't like that show much.

Hi all: Thanks for your comments!

Anonymous #2- Thanks for your correction! I have never thought about bi-racial children. Umm, I would like to hear what bi-racial children have to say about their relationships with their parents in a cultural sense.

Dianrez- I don't know if no child feel close to both parents equally. How about a deaf child with deaf father and mother? How about hearing children with hearing father and mother? I wonder...

Jean Boutcher- Good proverb!

Karen Mayes- Yes, we must work together. I really like what you say to your son! Know what, we need more deaf people from different communities and more hearing people from different places to meet together on the bridge! Thus, we'd need to build a bigger bridge.

Steve- Well, I don't know. Since they are not really a married couple, I will go ahead make a reference to marriage couples in general. People need to understand that when they get married, they are committing to supporting each other, accepting each other flaws, working through all problems together, and loving each other no matter what. So, when a hearing and deaf couple decide to get married, they must be ready to face cross-cultural problems and agree to work through all these problems together, instead of hoping that everything will be perfectly fine.

Noah