There is an assumption / misconception that homeschooled kids grow up in bubbles, protected from the realities of the wider world because their parents keep them out of school.

The ironic thing is, I wasn’t homeschooled. I went to a mainstream school, and due to my mother’s efforts, I was included in the mainstream all the way through to highschool, before inclusion became a thing in Australian education.

Yet, I’ve realised as an adult, that I grew up in a bubble.

Growing up, my deafness was barely a factor in my life. To me, I wasn’t deaf. I faced discrimination and barriers for sure, but because of the supports I had, they had minor impacts which I could easily overlook. My mother made that ease of life possible for me and I will be forever grateful for having a childhood that was accessible!

However, once I finished school and moved out into the world, it became really hard for one reason alone. People! I could not believe how many people were ignorant, discriminatory, and were in positions of power to actually impact my life adversely. It only became worse when I became a mother and had to advocate for my children’s needs.

Pop went that bubble.

Things I have learned being a deaf woman in society include;

• It doesn’t matter how fucking kickass and awesome you are, if you are deaf there will be people who can’t see past that to your actions and amazeballs competency.
  
  
• Striving to be even more awesome and competent (and running yourself into the ground, pretending the ground isn’t there, keep running just because you won’t lay down and give up) is not going to change how these people view you. They have the deaf blinkers superglued on like you wouldn’t believe.
  
  
• To these people, being deaf means you are disabled, heavily reliant on others for support, and above all, need someone to dictate your life and control how you go about your life…. FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. You can’t possibly know what is best for you, let alone your kids or your family, and therefore can’t be trusted to be autonomous and independent.
  
  
• Being a deaf parent to these people also means you are neglectful, incompetent, and a bad parent whose kids need outside help. Frankly, all deaf people shouldn’t have kids according to one particular sergeant in the Queensland Police Service.
  
  
• Goddess help you if you have children with disabilities. Disability related problems for your children is not due to their disability, but is in fact your fault because you are deaf! If you are homeschooling, it is even much more your fault! Let’s all jump on blame the mother bandwagon but amplify that by a zillion times because you are deaf!
  
  
• Being deaf is something I should apologise for, or have other people apologise to me for it.
  
  
• The systems put in place eg. community services, deaf services etc to assist people pose a danger for deaf people thanks to judgement and hypocrisy one would not believe existed if it had not been experienced firsthand!
  
  
• Being deaf means people cannot understand me. Never mind that I speak English, and English is actually my first, native language, and I can read, write, lipread and talk fairly well. Being deaf means these people lose their capacity to read or write English when I write something down for them.
  
  
• Being deaf means I am full of bullshit and should be able to lipread or hear others and if I say I can’t, I am lying / deliberately ignoring someone / pretending to not understand / playing games.
  
  
• Being deaf means I am also dumb as in mute and unable to speak AS WELL as being intellectually impaired and need English to be so overly simplified to the degree that even an amoeba would struggle to understand what was being said.
  
  
• Deaf people get their driver’s licenses from Kellogg’s because there is no possible way a deaf person can learn to drive, pass a driving test, and be a safe driver.
  
  
• People are fucking two faced like you would not believe – especially the nice ones who seem to be dripping sincerity and understanding. They are the ones that take what you say through the audist coloured glasses and apply their own judgemental meanings and interpretations to it to somehow come up with something so far displaced from your reality it just ain’t funny anymore.
  
  
• Deaf people have boxes they should be in. Any body part you move outside that box is liable to get mangled really badly. Deaf people have to be superheros to bust out of these boxes and to stay the fuck out!!!
  
  
• Bouts of psychosocial disability on top of being deaf is a real fucking thing to struggle with and if you are particularly strong, independent, and capable, it really floors you when it happens. Worse, all the people around you who are used to your perpetual tireless fighting and advocacy cannot fathom what is wrong with you, why you are being like that when some other situation didn’t trigger it…. Might as well slash your wrists and die. Thanks society.
  
  
• Being deaf and talking about these things often has people looking at you like you’re just exaggerating, being a martyr, making mountains out of molehills, etc when frankly, talking about these things is embarassing and hard. Nobody likes admitting their failings, and being deaf is a massive fucking failing in an audist world full of hearing people that no deaf person, no matter how awesomeballs they are, is able to overcome.
  
  
• Deaf people who have voices, speak out, and advocate are troublemakers, angry bullies and just plain… rude.
  
  
• P.S. Deaf people who have cochlear implants are still fecking deaf people.

If you think this covers it all, think again. It is impossible to cover the multitude of actions committed by other people, society, and systems towards deaf people in one measly blog post.

Yours truly,

– deaf in Society