kayla123 said:
I would like to know what is so wrong about wanting your child to speak??? Is it such a bad thing to want want your child to be independent, to socialize with others and not have depend on an interpreter at all times? I'm not against sign at all, i'm for total communication. If your child was born blind and there was a surgery to help his sight, don't tell me that you would not consider the option. And as for waiting for a child until he is older to get an implant, the benefits are not nearly as effective as under the age of 3. I see the difference it makes in kids when i take my daughter to her av classes. If wanting my daughter to be independent and making sure that she has total communication when she gets older, then by all means you can call me a selfish parent.
Blind is not the same as deaf. There is no Blind culture, but there is a Deaf culture. That's because for a culture to exist, there must be a separate language, and traditions and norms and beliefs that are passed from generation to generation through that language. Deaf passes culture to other Deaf through ASL.
I am also hearing parent of Deaf child. My son does not have CI, and refuses to wear aids at all. He has always said that the noise confuses what he sees!
He prefers ASL, but will use signed English when talking with people who know some signs, but not ASL. He also has speech reading, and has some verbal skills. He is able to communicate very effectively and independantly.
I believe that he is independant because from the very first moment I knew he was deaf, I took him to other deaf ppl and said show me what he needs. I listened to their advise more that the advise of the hearing experts that kept telling me "No sign", "Make him wear his aids" "Make his use his voice". They were giving me an unhappy, frustrated child with no communication skills. What the Deaf community taught me and my child gave me a happy, well adjusted, outgoing son who is confident of himself. They gave me the child he was meant to be.
I am now, and will always be grateful to the Deaf community. They showed me what to do for my child and made be a better parent than I ever could have been. They are my son's family, just as I am his family. They taught me to understand what my son faced, and what he was going through, because they had been there before. No hearing expert, no CI, no hearing aids, no speech therapy could have done that. It took a community of caring, proud people who opened their hearts to a small deaf boy, and a nasty hearie mom who was confused. They took my deaf son and made him a Deaf man. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I was honest what I said in my first post. I hate all the bitters between the deaf and hearing. I hope and pray that all of that would end just in a matter of time. 
