I bet there are members of the deaf community who are not very happy with this week’s episode of House. The team is usually pretty opinionated about the patients and their families. Granted, most of the time they think the patients are idiots. However, I was amazed that everyone across the board seemed to think that the patient, a 14-year-old deaf wrestler, needed cochlear implants.
When House, at Amber’s (aka, his subconscious’s) bidding, orders Chase to insert a cochlear implant, even Wilson thought it was a caring and nice gesture, a selfless act, rather than an incredible invasion of privacy and violation of patient rights.
I grew up with a deaf great-uncle. When I was in sixth grade, I learned enough sign language to get by, though I am far from proficient. However, I have always been interested in deaf culture. I completely respect the opinion that being deaf is not a disability, and I also respect the choice not to have cochlear implants. I also love music and the sound of my children’s laughter and every other cliche that the hearing can throw at the issue.
However, I maintain that if you have never heard sounds, you are arguably not missing anything by being deaf. I was stunned that Seth’s mother decided to have the cochlear implant re-inserted after Seth ripped it out of his head. She argued that as his mother, it was her decision to make. Technically, that’s true. Technically, I could choose to have my own 15-year-old circumcised, even though he has gone his whole life without it. But at some point, don’t you have to let your children have their own bodies and make their own decisions?
At what age is it invasive to choose cochlear implants when you have gone so long without them? Seth makes a valid point: He would have to change schools and fundamentally abandon an entire culture that has sustained him his entire life. He would get to hear in the bargain, but what about what he loses as a result of that choice?
What do you think? To hear? Or not to hear?
Clacked by Jen Creer
on Apr 29, 2009 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
I told my mom about these implants before the show and she thought I was going insane. She is like “then there would be no deaf people”, and I explained everything they did in the episode.
My favorite part of the episode is the fact he was supposed to be 14. Someone on the House casting needs to be fired. The guy, not kid, looked 20ish, I thought he was wrestling in college at the beginning. They never seem to cast young teens with anyone who looks like a teen.
Not to sound crass, but deaf people impose their needs on the rest of society – I’m specifically thinking of their demands that automakers add noise to their cars if the cars are too quiet.
If it were truly live-and-let-live, then I’d say “No” to the implant on House, but when a special interest group – again, I only cite that one example – try to change society to account for their lifestyle, then I think that muddies the issue.
Holy cow! Apologies! I usually know the difference between deaf and blind. I’ll be quiet now.
Dude that one was priceless :-)
And honestly I’m all for adding sound to hybrids so I (!) who is not blind (!) hears cars coming up from behind him while walking or cycling on a street without a sidewalk.
Ontopic: depends on the child. Same as with sex and everything else you need to factor in how mature a child is. It’s all relative. Oh and it’s not my place to argue about this, I’m not deaf, I don’t have deaf relatives and everything I say is by definition imposing my opinion on others.
If someone has never had the chance to hear, they don’t know what they are missing, but they are missing. Laughter, music, many, many things.
I was standing in a hallway the other day, awaiting an elevator amidst a large bank of elevators. If I had to rely on my sight alone to know the elevator had arrived, I would have had to spin in circles constantly looking at the lights at the top of the elevators and hope for the best.
No one is saying that a deaf person cannot lead a happy, satisfying and fulfilling life without sound. However, they are missing out on some of the beauty of life that they otherwise would be able to enjoy if they could hear.
My grandmother was deaf due to a virus she caught in her 20s… she never missed a beat. I personally think it saved her sanity, seeing as my dad and uncle were only 10 months apart and my aunt, 6 years younger, well, she grew a backbone really fast!
Her complete deafness never did stop her from wearing a hearing aide until the day she died, and I think she was part psychic b/c she always knew what we were talking about and could jump in on any conversation. Oh, and she couldn’t be bothered to learn that crazy sign language stuff! ;-) She was a hoot!
I thought what House did was awful, as it wasn’t his call, but that’s what House does sometimes. As for the mother making the decision for her son… that’s tougher to say.
Implants aren’t truly “instant hearing” because the deaf person has to learn how to interpret the sounds he’s hearing. It was thrust upon him without the preparation of knowing what was coming, and it had to have been like being assaulted by sound.
Maybe in the mother’s way of thinking, he would eventually see the worth in hearing, if he gave it a chance. She had been teaching him he didn’t need it (and that’s always debatable), but perhaps she not only had second thoughts on it herself, but also had to wonder if he was making the choice based on what she’d taught him, not on what was best for him at that moment and in the future.
Parents change jobs and kids have to move to a new school all the time, so while sad, it’s normal. He wouldn’t have to completely lose the culture either. While he might not be at a deaf school, but there’s no reason why he couldn’t continue to go events to support his friends at his old school, as long as he’s still in the area.
He could also be a future volunteer or employee at an agency to help those who are hearing impaired — he could be a valuable resource for people with and without implants, and especially for helping those without get it across to their friends and family that it’s perfectly OK *not* to have one.
I’m so over House. This year has just been too painful to continue watching a superb series’ slide into whatever fiendish pit of mediocrity and trite dialog it’s burrowed its way into.
I still watch House, but I’m leaning in your direction. Personally, I enjoyed House the character better the few times he was supposedly rid of his pain. I think he’s just gotten meaner as seasons progressed and now his behavior alone makes me want to stop watching. At the very least I’d like to see his pain lessened, which might lessen the pain felt by viewers watching a character who has gone from “lovably grumpy” to “insufferable bastard”.
*POST AUTHOR*
Sadly, Morjana, I think that’s valid. But I just can’t let it go.
I didn’t see the episode but I live near Gallaudet University and I really believe that people who think of being “deaf as a culture” are sick and twisted. Parents that refuse to get implants for their children because they will no longer be part of that culture should be thrown in jail for child neglect. From what I am reading this episode was the opposite of reality where the children usually want the implants but the parents refuse.
Being a hearing person in a deaf person’s world is a great sin to many at Gallaudet, just ask Jane Fernandes.
Jane Fernandes was deaf aka hard of hearing. Because she grew up oral she never got full immersion in a normal social environment.
I MET her personally and I can tell you that she acts just like Dolores Umbridge if she signed.
I found this show pretty stupid because cochlear implants require a lot of prior testing and adjustment, and a lot of deaf people can’t use them because of auditory nerve damage. Anybody who is profoundly deaf or completely deaf as he was portrayed to be (which is very rare) likely has fried auditory nerves.
This was very badly vetted. I caught a lot of errors on the other disease symptoms as well. It was very badly written and offensive to all disabilities.
Deafness is a common experience with its own language and a way of adapting to the world. That’s _A culture_ by any definition.
I’ve never heard of parents refusing to give their deaf children cochlear implants when they ask for it, and I know far more deaf people than this so called “Lives-near-Gallaudet” does.
(Scrubs had an episode just like this and I’ve been in many conversations ala this one before)
Firstly, do not use Gally (Gallaudet) as ANY basis for criticism. They are elitist. I am HoH and my wife is deaf, she got an implant when she was younger at her own behest. When she went to Gally she was not seen as pure Deaf because she was implanted. To be pure Deaf, it seems, you must be bred from Deaf parents and/or resist all temptation hearing. It’s not the Deaf world I live in and 75% of the Deaf world lives in.
As me being a part of the hearing as well as in-step with the Deaf world I thought the mother was truly insane and not in touch with her son’s world. It’s like me telling my wife that I don’t think she’ll succeed if she can’t hear. That’s the way the mother acted and that’s how a lot of others have been acting on this post. Why can’t a deaf individual succeed in this world? Immigrants can. If you told a fresh off-the-boat Russian something in English they would not understand anything either. It’s up to that Russian person to adapt and learn the language as well as it is for a deaf person to get an implant.
As a country we are very intolerant of other cultures; that’s why there is Little Italy and Chinatown and the Bronx. The Deaf had Martha’s Vineyard and have made DC a hub, but there are still many groups like in Akron, OH, where I call home.
In summation, I am hearing; I work in the radio industry. Does that automatically disqualify me from being a part of the Deaf world? No. I go to events, belong to a Deaf bowling team and have many Deaf friends. I am sure the kid in that show had just as much interaction in his school. Deaf don’t just hang out with other Deaf people, there are also hearing people in these groups as well bringing their culture. It’s not as closed-knit, excluding Gallaudet, as people believe.