A few years ago I asked my parents what their experiences were.
At first they thought it was quite difficult to have deaf daughters and it felt like misfortune. But they never showed us that.
Which led to everything working out.
–What I love is that our parents were active participants in deaf culture. My mother taught me sign language and became an interpreter.
My father always came along to deaf camp during summer vacations.
He was an active member of the Hand Theater and we always went to the Amsterdam Deaf Club, where there was the children's beehive.
–And Jean Couprie, who did something with building blocks.
–Oh yeah, that was quite a thing, with theater and blocks. That was for children. He would also participate in that, so great. They've always been very active.
I think that's also had a positive influence. Not just being on the sidelines, but being actively involved in the deaf world. Really fantastic!
–I find that quite impressive now. Because I notice that parents nowadays are not as active anymore in the deaf world. –Very little, yeah.
–Because our parents were so involved we felt really at home in the deaf world, even at age ten.
But I remember that our parents also did a weekend where they couldn't use their voices at all. They were only allowed to sign.
And I remember dad came home and said he found it really interesting. Spending the whole weekend with hearing people, yet using your voice was prohibited, you could only use signs.
That made him realize that it's about seeing, not about hearing. Nowadays they don't do it that way anymore.
–You can't really compare.
–I mean that you're forced to communicate without speech. With CI's they don't do that anymore, they've become much more indulgent in that. Now you can use both voice and signs.
Immersion in sign language and deaf culture doesn't exist anymore. But well, that also depends on the personality of the parents. Some of them are just scared because they don't know that world.
Our parents simply thought that was interesting and were open to it. Don't forget they happened to have great role models like Martie Koolhof, Anka Uittenbogert, Jeantine Jansen, and Tony Bloem.