Ask @Sing2phins Anything!

tisunge602 · June 2014

Sing2phins said:

snip

Agree... you are amazing. My SIL went completely deaf when she was a baby as a result of bacterial meningitis. She is very stubborn and refuses to wear her cochlear implants. She has two, soon to be three small children. She makes no effort to use correct sentence structure and is sometimes impossible to understand (even in writing) as a result. She never went to college and doesn't work because it seems she prefers to live off disability. (I understand college isn't for everyone; I'm just using it as an example of failed potential.)

I know you are not completely deaf, but all that to say ... I admire you because you are making it work despite your disability. You are an educated, successful woman. It must have been very emotionally painful to go through what you have.

I know that you meant well, but I have very complicated feelings about what you've said here. I would have been an educated, successful woman whether I lost my hearing or not. I didn't succeed "despite" my disability, and when you say that, it implies that I shouldn't have been able to succeed, just because I don't hear normally.

Framing it that way is harmful to people with disabilities because it perpetuates the idea that we are less than and can prevent us from even being offered the opportunity to show what we are capable of. I know, because it happened to me. After I lost my job at the BAC, I tried for a solid year (after a period of sort of recovering from the shock of what happened to me) to find work. I sent out literally hundreds of resumes, all of which indicated that I needed to be contacted by relay and therefore disclosed my disability, and was offered a grand total of three interviews (this was 2003, well before the time when everyone was out of work). And each of those three employers more or less openly doubted that I could do the jobs with a hearing impairment, even after meeting me.

There's nothing magical or special about "overcoming" a disability. Some people will succeed after the sudden onset of a disability -- like losing your legs, or your hearing all of a sudden -- and some people won't. But what determines that is who you were before, not the fact that a terrible thing happened to you.

Additionally, comparing me to your SIL doesn't do either of us any favors. Her circumstances are completely different from mine. Losing your hearing before you learned to speak makes the likelihood of success with a cochlear implant much less. I had 25 years of life as a hearing person; that's a significant advantage over her. I'm also nearly positive, assuming she's in her 20s or 30s now, that she didn't get her CIs before she turned 5, which makes the learning and development of language very, very difficult. And I don't even want to get into whether she really "prefers" to live off disability or whether she's just never gotten a fair shake at employment. Disability is there for a reason, and if she qualifies, I have zero problem with her collecting it. I had to for a while, too.

Please don't misunderstand me: I appreciate where you're coming from, and I know you meant it as a compliment. I'm just asking you to think about the way you see me, and other people like me. What I'm capable of with my hearing impairment (although legally and clinically speaking, I am, in fact, deaf, though I don't identify that way) is generally not more remarkable than what I would be capable of with normal hearing.

You're totally right, as usual. I apologize for what I'm sure came off as an ignorant comment. I did mean it as a compliment but I can understand how it was misconstrued.

*open mouth, insert foot*

kimmycup · June 2014

Ever been to New Mexico? (I grew up there).

If so, did you love the green chile? If you haven't been, would you ever go?

[Deleted User] · June 2014

I'm the worst at questions, but I you! That is all.

TJHine · June 2014

keight38 said:
I'm the worst at questions, but I you! That is all.

Agreed. You are a really classy, nice woman!

[Deleted User] · June 2014

Sing2phins said:

Mommyxtwo1113 said:

Sing2phins said:

mskatiep said:

What was your first paying job?

What toy from childhood was your favorite?

Aside from baby-sitting? I worked eight summers in a row at King's Dominion starting when I was 16.

I still have this big stuffed mouse that I've had since I was little. No one has ever been able to tell it's a mouse (most people guess a bunny, but no: he has short ears and a long tail), and he's all threadbare and the rattle doesn't rattle anymore, and he's a faded, barely-pink pink now.

I went to kings dominion every summer up until I got pregnant with DD. From like 1997 to 2010

@mommyxtwo1113 Did you ever buy a funnel cake? Probably I served you. Or made it. Or ran the stand it was made in. Or, eventually, trained the person who made it.

All the time. I love funnel cake

so strange to think I have probably talked to you a few times in person. Did you grow up near kings dominion?

mskatiep · June 2014

@Sing2phins‌ also, I think there are some rain checks I'm still waiting on.....

[Deleted User] · June 2014

What high school did you go to?

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