A Deaf couple, unable to conceived a child of their own, were excited when a Deaf newborn was available for adoption. They rushed to the hospital to bring him home but was dismayed that their Deaf child was cochlear-implanted (CI) without their knowledge. They are planning a civil lawsuit seeking punitive damages for letting their Deaf child goes through the suffering and pain of having it removed and leaving a permanent scar, requiring further skin grafts. "We are a Deaf couple, we repainted the child's room, put in a swing set in our backyard, looking forward to raising a Deaf child in our natural environment, immersed in ASL, but the hospital tries to altered our dreams." The hospital spokesman, refused to make a comment citing patients privacy policy. However, an administrator admitted that it is "standard operating procedure" to CI every Deaf infant, which is just as common as circumcision. The news anchor, being sympathetic, "I can understand why that Deaf couple is very upset." A CODA federal judge granted temporary injunction, allowing state legislators to scheduled a hearing on the issue. A Deaf Pediatric testified that the Deaf child became disoriented at night, losing his balance, even before crawling, which is critical to learning to walk. Jury selection is now underway, Deaf lawyers are able eliminate perceived audists from the courtrooms with their set of questions. If this practice is widespread, we are investigating a possible motion to change the case to a class-action status once we have documentation to that effect. We urged our Deaf advocates to check the policies of their local hospital complex to prevent this scenario from happening again. My biggest fear is that if the Deaf themselves don't adopt these unwanted Deaf children, they'll be classified as special needs and become a ward of the state, and be 
Cochlear-Implanted (CI) which will become routine before placement in a foster family. Foster family are usually only interested in their monthly maintenance fees, pretending to love them, until their on their own once they reached legal age. No wonder statistics have shown a higher suicide rate of Deaf children raised in a foster home, being deprived of their birthright. "In order to save our Deaf culture, we must save our Deaf children," is a motto we adhered to. 
Adoption Anyone?
Revised 4/13/09
This is Smokey, stay tuned for the next episode of Deaf Anthology. Good night, Deaf America!
4 comments:
Your characterization of foster parents is horribly unfair to the vast majority of foster parents. Many not only use the entire monthly stipend to cover much-needed expenses for their foster child but ALSO spend a great deal more of their own money on the foster children for expenses not covered by the state. The stipends are not nearly as large as you seem to think. Anyone who thinks that fostering children is a way to become rich is either very poorly informed, in which case they would stop fostering as quick as they found out (within five minutes). Or else they are extremely stupid, in which case any competent social worker will screen them out.
And, yes, most social workers are far more competent than the media would have you think. Often the real problem is that their case loads are far too large because most social service agencies are desperately understaffed. They simply can't keep up. I've known social workers who work 70+ hours a week, for week after week, trying to monitor all the kids in their case load and STILL have trouble doing all they're supposed to be doing because there simply isn't enough staff to go around. The social workers who do genuinely behave in an incompetent manner, in many cases, are actually completely burned out. (Wouldn't you be, if you had worked 70+ hours a week for the past few months or years?) The proportion of social workers who never were competent or caring to start with is not actually any higher in the social work profession than it is in any other profession--meaning, yes there are some, but not as many as stereotypes would have you think.
I'm not saying that the foster care system isn't screwed up. It is. But 95% of the time, it's not the fault of the foster parents or the social workers. (The other 5%? Yes, there are always exceptions.) The real roots are elsewhere. For example, a society that puts so little value on ALL children that it doesn't really do what is needed to help prevent abuse from happening in the first place, or to monitor children who are in placement, or to train foster parents in how to cope with the challenges that foster children may bring them. (Older children can be very rewarding to foster or adopt, but do often come from abusive backgrounds, which means there is often psychological baggage that must be dealt with. Even the most wonderful, loving foster or adoptive parents don't always know the best approaches, unless they've been appropriately trained).
I do very much agree that deaf babies and children should go to Deaf, signing adoptive parents where ever feasible. (Second best would be someone like an interpreter or a hearing child of deaf parents, etc.). And I also believe that children should spend as little time in the foster care system as feasible: they should either be swiftly reunited with their biological family (in cases where safe and desirable) or else placed for adoption or other permanent arrangement (in cases where reunification is not tenable).
But it is unfair to make such sweeping generalizations about foster parents.
You VERY OBVIOUSLY have never known any real foster parents. Well, I HAVE. Including, by the way, some Deaf foster parents who had a biological child, AND an adopted child, AND a foster child (plus some other foster children in the past, before I met them). And their love and affection and caring for ALL of them WAS THE SAME, and came through very clearly in the way they spoke of ALL their children. Both the adopted child and the foster child had come from abusive families and really blossomed in their care. That just doesn't happen without genuine love and attention being invested into their upbringing. This is just ONE EXAMPLE.
There are other ways to promote the idea of adoption among Deaf parents without committing unfair attacks on the integrity of foster parents. Please consider the idea of educating yourself before you write again about foster parents.
Thank you for your time and consideration. Despite the length of this comment, I hope it has at least been helpful to your awareness and interest. Thanks for reading it.
This is outrageous. I don't know why you spend your time making up horrible things.
lol
Seriously, Gary, you need to make a BIGGER font that says that nothing you write is real and that it is all fictional.
Miss Kat's mom, Gary writes fictional stuffs. Pure fictional. That is why he has a disclaimer on his blog.
Gary, ficitonal aside, if you really knew how the foster or adoptive process works, you will know that everything has to be disclosed to the prospective foster/adoptive parents. There is no way an adoptive parent will be shocked because everything would have had to be disclosed.
I don't know much about the foster care system, but do think it is a shame for all infants to get cochlear implants. My husband and I are a hearing couple, and 9 months ago we adopted a baby boy at birth. At two weeks old we were told that he was profoundly deaf. Everyone told us he needed cochlear implants, but the insurance company required hearing aid trials. I am so glad they did. We live in a town with a large deaf community, and they have helped us start learning ASL.
Our son is not profoundly deaf anymore, because he can hear normally with his hearing aids, but he is still deaf. I now understand that the cochlear implants are not for him. He started signing at 6 months, and three months later he does about 8 signs. He even puts two signs together sometimes. It is so cute. Although he is deaf I really think the cochear implants would just take away from what my son has in life. We are learning to conform to his way of life and it is interesting.
I still hope he learns to talk well, so he can have communication with the deaf community and the hearing community. He can say "Hi" and "Ma ma", so he has a good start with the deaf and hearing. He is very loud, but we have learned to live with that as well. I think he is more intellgent than most kids his age, because he communicates so well. I may think that because he is mine though. All infants should be given a chance to grow before being forced into a surgery that is unnessary.
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