Jillio, are you writing essays??? 
I think my parents are a good example in the differences in parents' reactions. Both of them were very upset when they found out that I was deaf. My dad took it really hard, he didn't even want to tell anyone in the family that I was deaf. My mom quickly got over it and went into "practical" mode, gathering as much information as she could, took me to a deaf school to get assessed, etc. If I learned ASL, I am pretty sure my dad would be against it. I doubt he'd try to learn to sign, but my mom definitely would have. It just so happened that I was able to communicate well with speech reading at a young age, so my mom was happy that I could develop language at a normal rate and my dad was happy that I could talk and "be normal". I've personally known two different type of parents, and if I try to imagine what they would say here in AD. My dad would probably have ignored everyone, basically saying "You don't know anything". My mom is pretty level headed, so she would talk to people about things. However, she doesn't take people's crap easily. If someone was being an ass, she will refrain from talking to that person. If enough people are being asses, she will eventually stop going on AD or at least get an email address from one or two people she found who have similar conditions as me and personally ask them questions. So in either case, AD isn't very appealing to them if those few "ass-y" people keep monopolizing the thread/conversation.
