Miss-Delectable
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The Manly Daily | Manly Local News
JUDY Clews' eyes dance from face to face, her expression variously lighting up or clouding over as her daughter Michelle Maguire describes the experience of growing up with hearing in an otherwise deaf household.
Not many people would spare a thought for the difficulties of straddling these two worlds, yet they were a daily reality for this peninsula mother and daughter and, presumably, many others like them, given that 90 per cent of children born to deaf parents are able to hear.
But, having negotiated the challenges, Clews is now more inclined to play them down, suggesting that raising both hearing and deaf children was simply the reality of her life and she got on with it.
But eldest daughter Michelle, a leading sign-language interpreter who had two deaf siblings and, later, two hearing step-sisters, can still recall a troubling mix of emotions as a youngster, including a sense that she was the odd one out in her family.
There was also a heavy sense of responsibility from an early age.
Even at three she was making telephone calls for her mother and helping to be her bridge to the hearing world.
"I remember from about five feeling very responsible," Maguire said.
"I would go to bed at night thinking I'd be the only one who would hear if anything happened.
"I often wondered, would it just be easier if I was deaf too, and then I wouldn't have to worry so much because I always felt responsible for my brother and sister. That was mostly because my grandparents and their friends used to say, 'You're very, very lucky, now you look after your brother and sister'."
The sense she was different to her two siblings when what she wanted most was to be the same as everyone else in the family was worsened when her parents divorced and the children were split up her brother and sister went to a deaf boarding school while she was put in a mainstream school.
"They were still together and I felt separated and different," she said. "Many, many times I used to think to myself, 'Maybe, just maybe as I get older I'll lose my hearing and I'll be deaf just like them and it'll be better'."
Maguire lightens the impact of this statement by pointing out she is, after all, a bit of a drama queen and then laughs as loudly at this family joke as her mother and her daughter, Hannah, who is sitting in on the conversation.
But, clearly, that sense of not quite belonging wasn't relieved when she had to go out into the wider, hearing, world and still felt different.
Maguire said that until she went to school, she thought all families must have been like hers. "I had cousins who lived around the corner whose parents were deaf, but they were hearing and then, when we socialised, we'd go to the deaf club and most of the parents there were deaf and the children were hearing, so I just thought it was the same for everybody.
"But when I went to school I got teased a lot: 'Oh, your parents are deaf and dumb' or 'They're spastics' and 'Show us how to sign' and they would mock me with their hands."
Clews, who had intensive speech therapy when she was young to learn how to speak but prefers to communicate via sign language, said she knew what was happening, but felt powerless to do anything about it. She thinks it is probably easier for deaf parents these days, with greater understanding and advances in communication technology.
"Back then access was a lot harder and I had to work a lot harder to fit in and work out what was going on, whereas now there's a lot more information available," she said.
Maguire, who has worked in the deaf community as an interpreter for 20 years, said she made a conscious decision to live her life in the hearing world, in some respects as a rebellion to the frustrations she had experienced growing up.
"I have got friends who are hearing but have married deaf people, but I suppose I chose not to," she said. "I chose to move away from it." Yet Maguire acknowledges there was a sense of loss associated with that.
"I have had times where I have worked very heavily in the deaf community and then, enough! I've got to find my hearing self, so I go out and explore other things, but I never feel totally fulfilled and I come back. There have been times when I have felt that I'm actually a deaf person inside."
She said her work as an interpreter had exposed her to some very distressing situations, such as court cases involving young deaf children, but one of the hardest experiences had been accompanying her mother to a medical consultation and having to pass on the diagnosis that she had breast cancer. "It was awful. Really awful," she said.
But she said there was another, very different, side to her work that had given her renewed insight into the positive things she had drawn from her upbringing. Last week she interpreted at the opening of the Sydney Film Festival and this week will be on stage in Sydney with the Dalai Lama, transmitting his words to deaf people in the audience.
"Now in my middle age I feel as though this whole thing has been a gift and, as much as it's been a struggle, nothing comes without blood, sweat and tears," she said.
JUDY Clews' eyes dance from face to face, her expression variously lighting up or clouding over as her daughter Michelle Maguire describes the experience of growing up with hearing in an otherwise deaf household.
Not many people would spare a thought for the difficulties of straddling these two worlds, yet they were a daily reality for this peninsula mother and daughter and, presumably, many others like them, given that 90 per cent of children born to deaf parents are able to hear.
But, having negotiated the challenges, Clews is now more inclined to play them down, suggesting that raising both hearing and deaf children was simply the reality of her life and she got on with it.
But eldest daughter Michelle, a leading sign-language interpreter who had two deaf siblings and, later, two hearing step-sisters, can still recall a troubling mix of emotions as a youngster, including a sense that she was the odd one out in her family.
There was also a heavy sense of responsibility from an early age.
Even at three she was making telephone calls for her mother and helping to be her bridge to the hearing world.
"I remember from about five feeling very responsible," Maguire said.
"I would go to bed at night thinking I'd be the only one who would hear if anything happened.
"I often wondered, would it just be easier if I was deaf too, and then I wouldn't have to worry so much because I always felt responsible for my brother and sister. That was mostly because my grandparents and their friends used to say, 'You're very, very lucky, now you look after your brother and sister'."
The sense she was different to her two siblings when what she wanted most was to be the same as everyone else in the family was worsened when her parents divorced and the children were split up her brother and sister went to a deaf boarding school while she was put in a mainstream school.
"They were still together and I felt separated and different," she said. "Many, many times I used to think to myself, 'Maybe, just maybe as I get older I'll lose my hearing and I'll be deaf just like them and it'll be better'."
Maguire lightens the impact of this statement by pointing out she is, after all, a bit of a drama queen and then laughs as loudly at this family joke as her mother and her daughter, Hannah, who is sitting in on the conversation.
But, clearly, that sense of not quite belonging wasn't relieved when she had to go out into the wider, hearing, world and still felt different.
Maguire said that until she went to school, she thought all families must have been like hers. "I had cousins who lived around the corner whose parents were deaf, but they were hearing and then, when we socialised, we'd go to the deaf club and most of the parents there were deaf and the children were hearing, so I just thought it was the same for everybody.
"But when I went to school I got teased a lot: 'Oh, your parents are deaf and dumb' or 'They're spastics' and 'Show us how to sign' and they would mock me with their hands."
Clews, who had intensive speech therapy when she was young to learn how to speak but prefers to communicate via sign language, said she knew what was happening, but felt powerless to do anything about it. She thinks it is probably easier for deaf parents these days, with greater understanding and advances in communication technology.
"Back then access was a lot harder and I had to work a lot harder to fit in and work out what was going on, whereas now there's a lot more information available," she said.
Maguire, who has worked in the deaf community as an interpreter for 20 years, said she made a conscious decision to live her life in the hearing world, in some respects as a rebellion to the frustrations she had experienced growing up.
"I have got friends who are hearing but have married deaf people, but I suppose I chose not to," she said. "I chose to move away from it." Yet Maguire acknowledges there was a sense of loss associated with that.
"I have had times where I have worked very heavily in the deaf community and then, enough! I've got to find my hearing self, so I go out and explore other things, but I never feel totally fulfilled and I come back. There have been times when I have felt that I'm actually a deaf person inside."
She said her work as an interpreter had exposed her to some very distressing situations, such as court cases involving young deaf children, but one of the hardest experiences had been accompanying her mother to a medical consultation and having to pass on the diagnosis that she had breast cancer. "It was awful. Really awful," she said.
But she said there was another, very different, side to her work that had given her renewed insight into the positive things she had drawn from her upbringing. Last week she interpreted at the opening of the Sydney Film Festival and this week will be on stage in Sydney with the Dalai Lama, transmitting his words to deaf people in the audience.
"Now in my middle age I feel as though this whole thing has been a gift and, as much as it's been a struggle, nothing comes without blood, sweat and tears," she said.