Hearing Households, Deaf Youth

Part of our Fissures series

Have you ever watched the 1960’s TV series, The Munsters? The niece, Marilyn, is the odd duck. Her physical features and fashion sense don’t match the Munster household. Imagine if they lived in a community with the Addams Family and other similar relatives. Dear Marilyn, so… so… human.

In these households, “dusting” means adding dust in the places where daily life has left a clean spot on the furniture. Cobwebs are encouraged as part of the preferred decor, with concern for the spiders if there aren’t enough webs. It’s their version of normal… every family has a version of normal.

What if you were the Marilyn in such a family? Loved, yet, always explained as the different one, the one for whom accommodations are made, the one out of the loop in simple pleasures like, I dunno, worm races. What if, once you found “your tribe,” the people who understand you, the draw to be with them struggled against your family’s draw to have you near?

Do you see the fissures? Do you see the places where, if not handled carefully, a loving family could become divided and even drift apart from one another? Do you see the friction points where nerves get grated on and structure-shaking rumbles may occur?

The teen years bring this phenomenon anyway. It’s life in the natural adjustment between child and adult, and it’s hard for everyone. But for deaf youth, most of them raised in hearing households with an emphasis on speech and lipreading, the common stresses are compounded by this tug-of-war between family and community. It is, unfortunately, one of the fear-based arguments for keeping deaf children out of sign-centric schools.

Silent Blessings focuses on younger children, those who are often left out because they don’t hear and are too small for self-advocacy. Hopefully, families will be employing several communication modes and tools well before their little ones become teens. We encourage this family interaction knowing that it’ll make the teen transition years a bit less soul-shaking. Fortunately, we’re not the only ones seeking to make a positive difference in the faith lives of deaf young people.

Check out Deaf Teen Quest. They’re a mentorship ministry to Deaf youth, a Deaf-led outreach of Youth for Christ. Deaf adults, mentors and role models, invest themselves in bringing the practices of faith and experiences of God’s love to Deaf teens. They’re also available for heart-to-heart conversations, such as strategies for excelling as a Marilyn in a Munster world.