asteroid B612

So today marks seven years since Sept. 11, 2001. I can always remember which year, because it was three months after we got married.

I was sitting in our New Orleans apartment with my morning coffee. My grad student hubby had gone to class and I was on his computer checking my email and waiting for a phone call to schedule a follow-up interview for my first job. (Except I probably didn't know that I was waiting for this phone call at the time.) I got an email from my former college roomie, also newlywed and at her first job. "Have you seen the news?" I thought this was sort of weird, since it was midmorning. At first I wasn't sure how to "see the news", but I figured if it was noteworthy enough for a midmorning email, it might be on TV. We barely got any channels, but there it was on the TV, the World Trade Center falling. It was scary and confusing at first. Were we at war? Would there be a draft? (Yea, I admit, I thought that right away; I was newlywed, after all.) Hubby came home from cancelled class, and we watched awhile, went over to his colleague's house with cable and watched some more. After a couple of days we stopped watching. Louisiana felt so far away from New York, like an alternate reality.

So, where were you?

Yesterday Marlowe was baptized into the family of faith. A moment of great rejoicing in our family.

Do you acknowledge that, although our children are conceived and born in sin and therefore are subject to condemnation, they are holy in Christ, and as members of his church ought to be baptized?

Do you promise to instruct your child in the principles of our holy religion as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and as summarized in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of this Church; and do you promise to pray with and for your child, to set an example of piety and godliness before him, and to endeavor by all the means of God's appointment to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

Marlowe didn't cry at all. He didn't make a peep the whole time except for a tiny coo once while I was still holding him. He did, however, poop right before we were supposed to go up, so no chance to change him. (Sorry, Mark) Ellis also did really well. He kept waving to the grandparents (my ILs go to the same church and my parents came up from Lancaster--about an hour and a half--for church and dinner. and one of my sisters and one my brothers were there, too). I was glad he was well-behaved and didn't do something crazy like try to knock the cup of water over. He seemed really interested. He signed "eat". I think he thought it was the Lord's Supper (though nothing was set out for it). Signing is fun, because we could talk to Ellis the whole time and explain as best we could what was happening.

My family stayed for lunch. And some friends joined us.

In the afternoon, we had cake and invited church friends to celebrate with us. It was warm with a coolish breeze. Perfect late summer afternoon.

* * *

From the Book of Church Order
Baptism is a sacrament ordained by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a sign and seal of the inclusion of the person who is baptized in the covenant of grace. Teaching that we and our children are conceived and born in sin, it witnesses and seals unto us the remission of sins and the bestowal of all the gifts of salvation through union with Christ. Baptism with water signifies and seals cleansing from sin by the blood and the Spirit of Christ, together with our death unto sin and our resurrection unto newness of life by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ. Since these gifts of salvation are the gracious provision of the triune God, who is pleased to claim us as his very own, we are baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And since baptized persons are called upon to assume the obligations of the covenant, baptism summons us to renounce the devil, the world and the flesh and to walk humbly with our God in devotion to his commandments.

Although our young children do not yet understand these things, they are nevertheless to be baptized. For the promise of the covenant is made to believers and to their seed, as God declared unto Abraham: "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." In the new dispensation no less than in the old, the seed of the faithful, born within the church, have, by virtue of their birth, interest in the covenant and right to the seal of it and to the outward privileges of the church. For the covenant of grace is the same in substance under both dispensations, and the grace of God for the consolation of believers is even more fully manifested in the new dispensation. Moreover, our Saviour admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom of God." So the children of the covenant are by baptism distinguished from the world and solemnly received into the visible church.

I was trying to explain this to myself earlier today, why we do what we do with respect to some of our parenting choices. I feel like this post by Sally Clarkson really nailed a lot of what I was trying to hash out in my own brain:

Not too long ago, I was meeting with a sweet mom in a coffee shop and she brought her two children along. They were sweet children, but they were all over her and ran her ragged. I was talking with my older children later about it and asked them what we did differently. It was humorous to hear how opinionated they were, but it also reminded me how intentionally we taught them to be patient and to wait their turn–because they all remembered it the same way. It is the concept that I call self-government–probably a Victorian character quality that I read about along the way and in a book about the principle approach to life.

The definition of self-government is the idea that a person learns to command himself, his impulses, his work habits, his emotions, His intellect and talents and rule over his will in a productive way. Children can begin this at a very early age, but it is also of utmost importance to adults–as one cannot be a mature believer unless one has mastered self-government and self-control and patience.

...

Sometimes when people find out that Clay and I are grace-based in our approach to parenting, people assume that that means lenient and undisciplined. However, we were very idealistic and had high expectations for our children, but we instructed them through consistent training, not primarily through force and multiple spankings but through relational discipleship based training. Our philosophy also looked at each child differently–as an individual–so that we could best figure out what appealed to and reached teh heart of each child. Introverts responded differently and behaved differently than our extroverts. Boys were differently wired than our girls. Learning issues and maturity levels greatly influenced a child’s ability to be mature. All factors which cause us to understand that we needed to appeal to each child’s heart based on knowing the heart of each child.

Yet another rare appearance by Dad!

Ever see Das Boot, or Crimson Tide? The Hunt for Red October doesn't count, because it doesn't really convey the reality of daily life on a submarine. It's excruciatingly boring, characterized by much olfactory discomfort, governed by very strict rules of economy, and only occasionally interrupted by periods of spine crushing intensity.

Which is to say that after a nice vacation from being hot under the collar about Deaf stuff I'm back in the game. Jeannette cajoled me into attending a CI parent forum at CHOP, yesterday. I thought it would be nice to show up to something with her, for once, and I'm glad I did.*

Last year's forum was dominated by the Orals, but this year's was different. There was only one or two of 'them' to three of 'us' on the panel. And I know there were some quality people in the audience besides, so that's at least a pretty good balance-- even slightly in our favor.

There was something that bothered me, though. We call ourselves bilingual/bicultural. That means that we are committed to bringing Ellis up to 'know he is deaf.' That's why ASL remains so important to us.

But I'm worried when I hear other bi/bi families say that their child is backing off of ASL now that they are implanted. And something doesn't feel right when they say things like this:

"We want to hold on to ASL because we want our child to be able to have friends that are deaf."

"We think it's important to recognize that even though our child can hear some things, she still is deaf, and there will be times when she isn't wearing the CI when we still need to communicate."

On the surface, comments like these are right on. They indicate that the family is not the sort who fears diversity. They aren't afraid of the challenge of learning a completely different way of communicating. They accept their child's deafness, and don't think of it as a problem to be fixed.

So what's wrong with this? Well, this is the way I put it to Jeannette after the forum. When a child is implanted, the parents immediately get to work teaching the child to listen and speak. It isn't a natural skill, so it has to be practiced. All the time. Parents are under enormous pressure to KEEP THAT CI ON. All the time. Parents at these forums talk about their strategies for doing this, and talk about whether or not it's 'OK' to let the kid have down time without the device. They talk about how sometimes their child chooses to sign something, even though they know how to say it. So they refuse to acknowledge the attempt at communication unless it's verbalized.

There is a tension, because on the one hand, he does need to wear it a lot to get the benefit from it, and he does need to be encouraged to use his new skill of speaking because, like any skill, it takes practice.

But on the other hand, why does he have to have it on all the time? Is it only OK to 'let' him take it off when he's exhausted after a day of listening?

There just seems to be an imbalance here. We talk about 'letting' him take it off. Why should having it on be the default, while having it off is the exception? Why are we not as creative and proactive about getting him to practice his signing as we are about getting him to speak?

Jeannette already mentioned that Ellis took off his CI for a couple of hours the other day, because he wanted to enjoy wearing his hat without worrying about the magnet. Fine. I have no problem with him taking it off for a midday break or after speech therapy. Our whole evening routine, from bath to bed (including story time) is done sans CI. Listening is hard work, and he gets tired!

I think that what bothers me is that the arguments given for keeping ASL around after implantation almost always are exlusively pragmatic. It's something families felt forced into initially, because it was the only or best option before their kid was implanted. And they continue to think that it's a good idea to 'have' sign, but when the implant comes along they fully intend to make speech the default mode. They want their child to be able to switch from the hearing world into the deaf world, not the other way around. I think that's an important difference.

So for us ASL was not only a pragmatic choice but an ethical one. We want him to be Deaf, and we want sign to be his language. We also want him to have every advantage as he navigates the majority hearing culture. And it becomes really difficult to figure out how to manage this in daily language interactions with our 2 1/2 yo. It's important to us that he continues to grow in sign, to use proper ASL grammar, and to give to it all the seriousness we would any other language. But at the same time, give him all the benefit and training to use his CI to the best of his ability.

I really have no idea what this looks like. I probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Just so many thoughts in my head at the moment.

* To his credit, hubby works 60+ hours a week. I end up doing things alone, because he's working so hard for us. Didn't want him to give you the wrong idea. ;-)