03/05/2023
If your child is deaf, you need to read Future Girl. Here's why...
My new book, Future Girl, is a coming-of-age novel set in near future Melbourne, presented as 16-year-old Piper’s stunning visual-art journal. I have woven into the story my detailed experience of Deaf culture and what it feels like to be d/Deaf.
I made Piper d/Deaf because I realised how little most hearing people know about d/Deafness. When I first tried to write about Piper’s experience, I found myself stuck, being Deaf is something I don’t think about a lot. I found I didn’t know how to articulate it. So I started jotting down my everyday experiences – the little annoyances, the benefits, confusion, the irritating things people say and do, and the complex feelings that arose when someone has tried to provide access but missed the mark.' I began to articulate aspects of Deafness I had never seen described before.
For example:
A Deaf dilemma: if you’re standing with a group of hearing people who are laughing, but you have no idea what they are laughing about, should you laugh along to be friendly (and if you do, are you somehow ‘lying’ about having understood?), or stand there with a stony face even though it could seem rude and unfriendly?
I had never realised I was making these difficult decisions on the fly, every day, without analysing how I wanted to approach them, My responses were automatic: I laughed along. But did I really want to do this? Perhaps it would be better to let people know that I felt left out.
You might wonder why d/Deafness is written with ‘d/D’ at the start. A lower case ‘d’ refers to deafness as a medical condition – the simple fact of being unable to hear fully. A capital ‘D’ refers to Deaf people who are members of the Deaf community – a cultural group, similar to ‘Italians’ and ‘Greeks’. In Future Girl, Piper starts out oral (lipreading and communicating verbally) and considers herself to be ‘deaf’. By the end of the book, she has discovered Deafness and is working out to what extent she wants to embrace Deaf culture and identity, and to what extent she wishes to retain her oral deaf upbringing.
Future Girl will inspire d/Deaf people on all parts of the spectrum from ‘deaf’ to ‘Deaf’ to make conscious choices about how they respond to life as a d/Deaf person in a hearing world. For hearing people, it raises awareness of the complex challenges d/Deaf people face in attempting to fit into a hearing world. For parents, it provides an insight into how to support their children to be their best d/Deaf selves.
'Future Girl is a must-read for Deaf people… and those who are hearing… it takes me back to my own struggle to fit in and my transformation into loving myself as I am: a signing Deaf woman with a place in both the Deaf and hearing worlds,’ says Drisana Levitzke-Gray, Young Australian of the Year 2015.
A special note to parents of d/Deaf children: It may be your goal for your child to grow up to be as normal as possible. You might not realise that this can put a huge pressure on us. While some people who are d/Deaf or have a disability do put a high value on ‘passing as normal’, many of us would rather take a different approach: that of accepting that we are different and asking for our needs to be met.
Piper’s experience of growing up oral and then discovering and choosing to embrace aspects of Deaf experience is common. She feels guilt for breaking away from what her mother believes is best for her, resulting in a complex and tumultuous relationship with her mother. Your child may eventually undertake a similar journey. I urge parents to read Future Girl in order to understand and support this journey as early as possible, sidestepping the conflict.
While Future Girl is packed with thought-provoking insights into d/Deafness, it also bursts with passion, resilience, optimism and joie-de-vivre – a fun and engaging read for ages 11 to adult.
Get your copy here: https://tinyurl.com/yd27a39k
