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Comment by IAmNotACellist | Hacker News Reader

>makes the parent feel lonely

You misunderstood. It says some of them celebrate that their child will have the opportunity to be a part of their community and culture. From what they've experienced, they can see it'd be a profound shame if their child isn't able to participate in something they've had so much positive experience from. Though that's not universally true. Also a child growing up hearing with deaf parents will have a whole set of problems that they would find challenging to meet, and could fear not being able to help.

On top of that, cochlear implants are not miracle devices, and as I understand it, deaf children who get it will still have significant hearing and speech issues and may end up isolated from both sides.

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Regardless of the deaf community potentially being a place of rich, positive culture, deafness is still a disadvantage and a burden in everyday life.

I get that people need to accept things like deafness or blindness, and adopting a community and sharing the support that provides is a big part of that. But denying your child treatment that would allow them to have all their senses, because you want them to be a part of your community and culture, is a selfish act, full stop. If parents are expected to try to give their child the best life possible, a treatment to restore a deaf infant's hearing is a no-brainer. It's table stakes. I agree that denying a child that is abuse.

But many children grow up with deaf parents - one or sometimes both of them. And they learn sign language to perfection, as any child can learn languages to perfection. It's hard to see that the ability to also hear will make them not able to participate in anything.

Yep. If the "community" is excluding them for being able to hear, that sounds like their problem

The hearing community excluding deaf people is about a million times more common

>It's hard to see that the ability to also hear will make them not able to participate in anything.

If they're hearing they won't understand the deaf community, nor need it, and will miss out on what their parents and other community members valued so much

I think some religious parents with gay kids have tried that line before.

Deafness is a medical issue depriving a human being of a naturally evolved sense that is critical to survival even in a stable civilized world. Denying them that sense because of identity politics is every type of wrong.

1. Hearing isn't critical to survival in our modern world, at least in the West

2. What you mean to say is denying people the ability to regain their sense of hearing, and the medical interventions you're alluding to don't do that to the extent you're imagining. Our best approaches, cochlear implants: don't restore hearing in the way that removing earplugs would, have a large learning curve; only work on some people; and the affected person's brain usually can't be fully capable of understanding and reproducing spoken language the way a born-hearing person would. People who receive them also still rely on some amount of lip-reading, sign, and apps.

3. People who are adept with sign and familiar with the deaf community often communicate far, far easier with sign language than a hearing person communicating with a deaf/HoH person who has a cochlear implant

To what extent do you actually have knowledge and experience on the topics you're discussing?

A friend of mine was stabbed to death during a robbery, he was from a low income neighborhood very much in a wealthy western city, he was stabbed to death simply to avoid him fighting back because he was a big guy so they ran up on him from behind, something he would have heard had he not been deaf but thank you for the lecture.

A friend of mine was beaten over the head with a metal pipe in an inner city area of DC and nearly died. Another was beaten up in a German city, kicked in the head, and has permanent brain damage. Both were hearing. Another was robbed at gunpoint and knife-point (separate incidents) in inner-city Baltimore. I don't blame any of this on their hearing.

Do you have something resembling a point?

Hearing is pretty essential if you're a pedestrian, when you're not in an environment with sidewalks and traffic lights everywhere. When I'm walking around where I live (in two different countries) I have to constantly be aware of traffic sounds behind me. I can think of a number of other situations where lack of hearing would be a disadvantage, or downright dangerous.

You can live without a sense of smell too. But I for one find it extremely useful when a quick sniff tells me some food stuff which otherwise looks fine has actually gone off.

Cochlear implants actually are kind of miracle devices. With early implementation, deaf children can have perfect speech and pretty good hearing (not perfect). We are at the point where denying your child speech and hearing is a choice.

My son is deaf, with a CI in one ear and hearing aid in the other. If you couldn't see them, you wouldn't think there was anything different about him.

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