Most babies are born into the culture and community of their
families. If the family is Latino or Tatar or Han Chinese, so is the
baby. The baby learns the family’s language — “the mother tongue.”
Culture and language are passed down from parents to child. Except when the child is born deaf. Most parents simply whisper and coo to their children in their native
tongues. We had to decide — and quickly — what our daughters’ native
tongue would be. Should we try to get our daughters access to spoken
language through hearing technology, or to immerse them (and ourselves)
in American Sign Language, or to try to do both? Read this story from a mother’s perspective of raising two deaf daughters and the choices they made as parents.