Non-judgmental PARENT TO PARENT support that honorS each family’s unique journey
Our names are Razi Zarchy and Leah Geer. Razi is a hearing speech-language pathologist (SLP) with over 10 years of experience in deaf education. Leah is a deaf Associate Professor of Deaf Studies at California State University, Sacramento. She has 10 years of experience teaching American Sign Language (ASL). Together, we wrote the innovative, family-centered curriculum called ASL at Home. This is our story.
I will always remember the day that I drove away from the hospital with my newborn knowing that she just failed the hearing test again and had a high likelihood of a mild to moderate loss. I looked at her, thrilled to be taking a baby home after suffering a loss two years prior. I knew that she would have to deal with this hearing loss her whole life, but I wouldn’t let it define her and I most certainly would make it her super power. That is exactly what I have tried to do every day since.
“Mommy, I can’t hear.”
No parent ever wants to hear their child cry out in distress. These are words that my mom and dad had to hear more than a few times as I grew up. The very first time, my mom says she sprung out of bed in a panic — she didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t a physician nor was she an audiologist, so she was left to wonder – Was it just a cold? Was it an ear infection? Something worse?
Most of my patients know me as Dr. C (my sign language name is Dr. with the C by the heart). I am a pediatric otolaryngologist who has been caring for children with hearing loss for the past 20 years. Often when I meet a family in my office, their first question is, “why does my child have hearing loss?” That question can easily lead to an hour-long conversation, as the assessment of the cause of hearing loss will depend on so many factors, including the type, degree, progression, and age of onset. I will try to summarize this here, and to do so, I thought it would be easier to “start from the beginning.”
This past September 30, 2020 marked a significant milestone for my family. The day marks 10 years that we became a Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) Family.
So many changes have happened in our lives over the past decade; my son is a happy, healthy, funny, and productive teenager. Our family has grown to love this journey and my husband and I have found so much joy in raising our DHH child. Professionally and Personally, this journey opened up a world of opportunities to learn more about raising a deaf child, being a part of a community, and inspiring leadership that I never knew I was capable of.
Have you ever found yourself sitting in your car, in the parking lot of your child’s school, anxiously awaiting the start of yet another IEP meeting, and trying to convince yourself that it will get easier someday? There may have been some ugly crying and some adult words thrown in here and there. That was me about 6 months ago. I was about to walk into my 8th IEP meeting in 4 months and I was DONE!
Military Families are a huge asset to our chapters. I live in California and my husband is a service member of the California National Guard and I want to share my experience as a military spouse in chapter leadership. Something about the military is we’re always on the go. Things are unpredictable and we learn to adapt and go with the flow. My husband was deployed this past May. We have three small children. They’re ages two, four, and six. All three of them were born Hard of Hearing. Having our community is vital for their success. And because of that, I am motivated to support my chapter.
I am in seventh grade. My favorite sport is basketball, I have played on a club team since third grade. I was born with hearing loss and wear a hearing aid on one side and cochlear implant on the other. I like to skateboard, snow ski, play with my puppies, go to the beach, produce YouTube videos (@ Harper G) and do wood-working.
My dad is a Colonel in the Marine Corps, so we have moved many times. My favorite place we have lived is California. My mom is a writer, author, and speaker. She was the co-author on the recent book we published, “Now Hear This: Harper Soars with her Magic Ears.”
In early February 2000, I had the opportunity to travel from North California down to Palm Springs for my grandfather’s 80th birthday party, which was a surprise. Traveling there and back was one for the books. This experience would have been just an annoying experience for a hearing person, but turned out to be extremely frustrating for me, as a Deaf Adult.
As a parent to millennial children, I have heard the term “shaming” preceded by numerous attributes: “Fat-shaming,” “body-shaming,” “parent-shaming,” and even “vacation-shaming.” Really, (fill in the blank)-shaming is a term that has come to be used whenever one person is perceived to be judging another. For example, one worker might say they are using their vacation days to go on a cruise. A co-worker might comment that they haven’t used vacation days in years (implying that taking vacations means one is a lazy worker). That co-worker might be said to be “vacation-shaming.” You get the idea.