Actually, you're right. Sometimes the girl I like is deaf, sometimes not. I should be fine with kids either way, and put in the work to make sure they develop right. I'm rethinking this entire paragraph. Perhaps I should have said I don't specifically search for a girl who is deaf, and then just left it at that, or just removed it entirely. Love is love.

Let me respectfully suggest that this is just untrue, a persistent myth about language learning. Hearing kids learn spoken language just fine, even if their parents don't use it.

Some (old) studies had suggested otherwise, but you made me remember the bilingualism argument, which is gaining traction. I do know that if you have a hearing child to both deaf parents, it's very important to expose the child to spoken language as much as possible. Of course, I hope I'm that kind of parent :-)

Bilingual kids do have a lot of advantages over kids who only know one language. I'd be very happy to teach my child, hearing or deaf, both sign and English.

Thanks for the insightful comment.