I am sorry you're angry! I agree that deaf children should be exposed to both cultures/languages fully. I think things are *slowly* changing in that people are more "open minded" about the options available to them when they have a child with a disability (not just deafness, but autism, blindness, developmental disabilities, etc). Years ago, it was "lock them away, they'll never be able to function in the real world" (out of sight, out of mind), and with deafness there continues to be the approach of "mainstream" - why does oral school = success in so many hearing minds??
What I have never understood is how a child deaf from birth or the critical language development years is expected to pick up a language that is based on sound, when they have no instructional language to work off of and can't hear?
Here's an interesting story though just for thought...
My mother's parents are both from Italy. When my grandfather was little and began kindergarten in the US, he was mercilessly teased for not being able to speak English, and then for speaking it with an accent. Because of this, he FORBADE my grandmother to teach their 4 children (my mom included) Italian. He didn't want his kids going through the same teasing he did. He didn't want my mom, aunt and uncles to speak English with an accent. To this day, my mother still holds a small grudge against him for denying her the opportunity to become bilingual from an early age. But then again, he thought he was doing the right thing.
Now of course, in most schools, the kid who knows the foreign language is the "cool" kid (at least that's the way it was when I was in school, and I'm only 21).
