Posted on 08/08/2016

‘Tween advocacy and fitting in. I stared at the picture for a while.  I tilted my head first to the right and then to the left.  I was looking at my 12 year old’s self-portrait and trying to figure it out.  It didn’t even look human but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.  What could I say about it?  Then she gave me a hint “My art teacher said it could just be a part of me that represents me.”  And then it all became clear.  The confusion on my face and its fade to understanding must have been more obvious than I thought because she started to laugh as I smiled with pride.  It was her ear with her hearing aid and hair partway over it-- not a horse or some mythical creature at all.My pride in that picture is two-fold. I have the typical pride of a parent whose child does a good job on a school project.  I have the added pride of a mother of a hard-of-hearing child who not only advocates for herself, but is developing pride in her difference.  She is developing a “Deaf Pride” theme in what she wears (Derrick Coleman “No Excuses” tee shirts), what she watches on Netflix (“Switched at Birth”), what she reads and suggests to others (“El Deafo”) and pop culture (Nyle Dimarco on Dancing with Stars).  This is fun to watch and support.But she is 12 and that is such a tricky age.  Just as she may easily have intense Deaf Pride on Monday, she may wake on Tuesday to a frustration that she is different and “no one is like me”.  Frustration that she needs to wear hearing aids, use an FM system, ask her friends to repeat what they’ve said or just fake that she heard it, get so tired just trying to keep up.  And then here’s the parental balancing act-- how do we have empathy for the real struggles she faces while not wallowing in self- pity.?  How do we acknowledge her work while also giving her perspective on the very real work of those around her who may have different but also very real (and potentially invisible) challenges?  Even kids that bask in “difference” at age 12 want to fit in.  That’s what it is all about at that age and sleights-- perceived and real-- cut to the bone.  When you have an obvious visible “difference” those sleights are easier to detect.I do not have all the answers.  Parenting seems to be very much a make-up-the-rules-as-you-go kind of game.  But, my husband and I have adopted an attitude since she was very young and we better understood the impact of her hearing loss: we maintain high expectations, we understand it can be a reason but we deny it can be an excuse.  So, when she brought home her self-portrait of her left ear with its orange and yellow earmold only partially obscured by beautiful brown hair it was a tangible expression of that attitude.  Her hearing loss is a part of her.  It is tough, it is different, it is not the end of the world and she can soar both despite and because of it. 

Bethany Picker, MOM